Motorola Atrix Lapdock
It's a... phone-book?
Accessory of the Week If you had thought that Motorola’s Android offerings might have ended up as the also-rans in the mêlée of Googlephone handsets, then recent events in the mobile marketplace would suggest it could well be the standard bearer. The Chocolate Factory’s bid for Motorola’s Mobility division – the handset and tablet line – certainly seems to suggest that buying into Motorola kit might not be a bad idea. It's not like there haven't been a few temptations either.
Motorola's Atrix Lapdock: handset not included
The Motorola Atrix Android handset has a suite of accessories that go beyond the typical docking options to transform it from a dual core Android smartphone into an multimedia hub or even a netbook. With the latter, the Atrix slots into the back of a very slimline looking notebook and phone's CPU runs the show.
Called the Lapdock, it has a 11.5in screen with a 1366 x 768 resolution. Round the back, besides the swivelling dock for the phone, you also get two USB ports and speakers on each corner.
There’s a PSU input too, which not only charges the docked phone but the internal battery within the Lapdock which extends the working life of this combo. When unplugged from the mains, the Lapdock battery still charges the phone when docked, so even if big picture battery dies, you can still resort to the small screen as the handset should still be topped up.
Docking the phone and opening the lid fired everything up, which takes around 20 seconds for the handover if you’ve not had the two running together in a while. At other times it was alive and kicking less than ten seconds.
Mobile View address book alongside the Webtop Firefox browser
When docked, the Atrix display is blanked out and you're greeted by the phone's homescreen in the corner and a bunch of icons in a dock that's all very Mac OS X stylee – even the mouse pointer is black. The dock or App Tray is split in two with shortcuts to phone functions on the left and the full-screen ‘Webtop’ apps on the right. You can initiate and receive calls too, with the internal speakers making for a perfectly usable handsfree experience.
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COMMENTS
Bad design
Stupid.
The phone should "dock" at the "touch pad" location and then be a touch pad / programmable keys
It looks good, and in some ways I want one.
However, surely it's cheaper and not much harder to use your phone as a wireless hotspot and take a netbook along with you?
So, what you're saying is this......
... spend £300 on a screen and keyboard, with a slow processor, which is in the 'phone you buy separately, no memory, because this is also in the 'phone, no fixed LAN connection, because you are supposed to use 3g or wi-fi, sluggish performance [I put "ok" into the sluggish category] and not much else.
Forgive me for being thick, but why not just a proper computer for £300 and got more for your money ? Netbooks now are under £200. Some can even be found for £150.
Just not sure what the point of this actually is.....
£300 !!!
Remember seeing the first items about the Atrix and it looked a powerful phone and the idea you could convert it into a sort of laptop via a docking station seemed interesting ... but I assumed that the idea was that you'd be getting netbook-like performance at a bargain price since you'd already paid for all the processing power etc in the phone .... so add-on of £50-£75 was what I was expecting for this. But £300 ... just go and get a proper netbook!
£300 quid buys
A half decent laptop, that doesn't require a phone to work.
Whats the point in this then?
