Motorola Atrix = Phone + PC

motorola's 'atrix' smartphone in the laptop dock smartphone, engineered with enough processing power to convert via accessory docks into its own laptop, entertainment center, or personal computer.

How does it work?

In addition to the Android OS that powers the Atrix, it has an extra little piece of software inside that Motorola calls the “Webtop” (an amalgam of Web + desktop). This is essentially a little OS that launches when the Atrix is placed on its side and docked via its USB and HDMI ports into one of its two docks — the desktop/multimedia dock or the laptop dock. It’s not a full OS with a bunch of its own apps, but primarily a Firefox Web browser and a desktop environment for your Android apps.

Because it’s small and light, it also feels surprisingly fast. No doubt, that’s due in part to the fact that it’s running a dual core NVIDIA Tegra2 CPU, but software itself feels pretty efficient and well-designed. The UI looks like a simplified combo of Mac and Windows.

The big question I had was what happens to your phone while it’s docked? Can you still answer calls? Can you access your data and apps on the phone? The way Motorola has handled this is to give the phone its own Window and a shortcut on the launch bar at the bottom of the screen. Whenever you click the phone icon the software window appears with Atrix home screen. From there, you can anything you normally do with the phone, including making calls (using the speakerphone or a Bluetooth headset). You can also open Android apps from the phone Window and click a button to send them out to the desktop environment in full screen. If the apps have a landscape mode, then this works especially well because then it truly fills the screen. The mouse actions simply take the place of touch gestures in the UI.

The two photos below provide a look at the Atrix in its two PC docking modes as well as a peek at the Webtop UI. In the second photo, notice the phone window on the left that has the Atrix home screen.

Here is the Motorola Atrix in its desktop/multimedia dock. Photo credit: Jason Hiner | TechRepublic

Here is the Motorola Atrix in its laptop dock. Photo credit: Jason Hiner | TechRepublic

The 4-inch smartphone is the first to utilize a dual-core processor, nvidia's tegra 2, on which the device runs android. 1GB of RAM supports the wifi and bluetooth ready device, which includes HDMI and USB ports. features include front and rear cameras and a biometric fingerprint reader as the power button.

The device features the high-quality QHD screen, as well as a 5-megapixel rear camera

By far the most innovative aspect of 'atrix' is its ready compatibility with a suite of accessory docks designed to let the device shift between functioning as a mobile phone and as a laptop or entertainment center. in all cases, the docks provide additional hardware, but is the 'atrix' itself that drives the computing experience.

The HD multimedia dock contains one HDMI and three USB ports, enabling the 'atrix' to be connected to a host of accessory devices.
attaching a keyboard, mouse, speakers, and monitor converts the smartphone for use as a PC, while connecting television displays and audio systems creates a home entertainment system.

Just 14mm thick, the motorola laptop dock has a battery, screen, keyboard, stereo speakers, and additional USB ports built directly into the device. like the multimedia dock, it can be connected to a larger monitor, external hard drives, or display screens to adapt its use.
a custom webtop application lets users interact with the phone from the left side of the screen, and browse in firefox, upload and download media, and use phone applications on the righthand side