Can the Atrix 4G Really Become Your Next PC? 297
GMGruman writes "The Motorola Atrix 4G got a lot of attention at CES because of its ability to dock to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and run the full desktop Firefox browser in addition to its Android apps. Now that it is shipping, I took the Atrix 4G and its Multimedia Dock and related peripherals out this week for a test-drive to see if delivers on this 'post-PC' promise. The verdict: It's a good first half-step toward mobile devices being your primary computer. The end of the Windows hegemony is in sight."
Can it run my Steam games? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then no, it won't replace my PC.
It doesn't run on the phone? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I was reading the article and thinking "$400 for the laptop module? $200 + peripherals for the dock? Those are the equivalent of a cheap laptop/PC" Then I got to this tidbit:
What? Why the heck am I buying this thing? All you're selling is an ultra-underpowered, crippled Linux computer that only works when a weird phone is plugged in for no particular reason. Syncing open tabs in FireFox is nice, but that's not enough. A simple app could do that. At home, I can keep a computer no problem. On the go, I still have to keep your laptop dock thing, so no space savings there.
Then there are other downsides. I'm guessing it drains the battery faster to use the laptop dock thing. The pictures of the laptop dock make it look really easy to snap the phone off the back accidentally and break the phone/dock. It's nice to know the reviewer doesn't think the thing feels secure in the dock.
This seems to be where computers will go for most people, but this first implementation clearly sounds more like a beta product than a first generation.
No.. but (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it can't. But it can replace your netbook or maybe a low powered notebook.
That's a good thing.
But the smartphone market will give a good kick in the arse to intel/AMD to start releasing much better hardware, for less money, to keep the desktop well ahead of the smartphone game. A brand new 900 dollar phone (600 + dock) is roughly on par with a 700 dollar laptop. That's pretty appealing. Desktops, well, I just priced out a bunch of desktops in the 1600-2000 dollar range, which are easily 10x more powerful, so if you have any use for the power, no, the phone won't do it.
10 years ago we passed the point of the hardware making much difference to a word processor. And we aren't quite at the point where the average desktop user can just dictate to their computer (though we're close, I managed a several setups like that for students with disabilities), and pretty much anything can web browse. Until software that people would use everyday catches up to hardware there's probably a market for a phone that replaces a desktop, and then we'll go back to a desktops. It's hurt intel and AMD I think that while transistor density may still be doubling every 18 ish months performance isn't. Core 2 -> i7->sandy bridge is like 20% performace gains clock for clock, at each step, and the clocks aren't much faster, and there aren't even more cores (because nothing uses 6 cores well yet, let alone 8, 12 or 16). HTML 5, and google's native code over the web etc. *might* change things a bit, giving people instant access to stuff. But all the great technologies we're touting, colour e-book readers, mp3 players, phones that can run programs aren't exactly great performance wise. I could read PDF's just as well 15 years ago as I can today, play music maybe 12 years ago as well as I can today, and any computer can run programs. The phone guys have done a good job using the web to make software accessible, but if the desktop guys could pull of the same there'd be demand there (and as someone else pointed out, my Steam games collection isnt' about to run on a phone).
Landline + dumbphone + home Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
The Atrix -- which costs $199 with a two-year contract from AT&T Wireless in the United States -- ...
Anonymous Coward wrote:
Shove it!
Quoted for truth. Adding a monthly cell phone plan can be expensive for people who are currently happy with the combination of a bare-bones land line, a dumbphone with $5/mo service for those few calls that can't wait (such as arranging a ride home), a PDA or netbook that gets Wi-Fi, and home Internet access allowing more than single-digit GB/mo.
Re:Not as long as it's done in a crippled way. (Score:4, Insightful)
I weep for the 1% market. We never get what we want (at a price we can afford). Only the cool kids decide what crap becomes cheap.
Re:Moto's crippled bootloader (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to download the kernel, driver, and Android sources directly from Motorola, the maker of my Droid phone, is so prohibitive.
Good luck getting your recompiled kernel+driver+Android sources past the well-locked-down bootloader on any Motorola Android device newer than the original Droid.
Fair enough. However, this is not Android's (the OS) fault - the bootloader locking mechanism is hardware based, so only Motorola's to blame here. As always in these cases, all you can do is vote with your wallet: get a HTC or some other brand that doesn't lock you out of your property.
Re:Not as long as it's done in a crippled way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah. I forgot that 'Openness' is what makes or breaks products in the marketplace.
Let's see, open vs. closed:
Internet vs. AOL
CD vs. minidisc
Linux vs. UNIX
gzip/lzma/bzip2 vs. bzip
OpenSSH vs. SSH
OpenSSL vs. anything closed
AES vs. anything closed
Apache vs. IIS
Yup, that sounds about right.
Almost everything you use won because it's open, you just don't notice it anymore because it won so long ago that it just seems like part of the scenery now. DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, C++, Kerberos, LDAP, 802.3, 802.11, USB, the BSD sockets API, etc. etc. All things equal, customers prefer open to closed. Which means that closed is a state that can only exist prior to an open competitor reaching compatibility and substantial feature parity with the leading closed alternative, at which point customers choose the open alternative.
The only way closed is a long-term condition is when it is propped up by a monopoly, a cartel or a government.
Wow, this reviewer is REALLY trying to like it (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is stretching and distorting the truth to make the review positive.
An example, he only mentions the SUBSIDIZED cost of the phone but uses this price further on to compare it to a netbook BUT does NOT then use a subsidized netbook which do exist. This is like comparing two cars and taking the lease cost of one as being different from the purchase cost of the other. Well duh.
He then claims that 400 dollars for the dock is cheaper then a netbook... except a netbook is both complete and not just a dock and 400 dollars is also the mid range price for a netbook. Was he looking at Vaoi's perhaps? I can find 200-300 dollar netbooks with ease and totally "free" ones if I buy them with a phone subscription.
He then goes on about Firefox Linux not being able to run Java. Is that so? Gosh, what am I running then? What he really means to say is that this dock can't run java apparently for some reason. Firefox and Linux can't this hardware he is trying to like can't.
Really, the most standard, cheapest netbook can do what this thing does and WAY more. Even the multimedia dock is expensive. I still have all the cost and hassle of carrying a netbook besides my phone but without any of the advantages. Like oh say multiple video outs because on the move I can't always dictate what inputs are available for a screen.
And this thing as far as I read the review can't even do video. What a LOT of people seem to want netbooks to do is output video, considering the demand for 720p capability which the first netbooks lacked. What is this multimedia dock going to do for me on the move?
We have heard the "PC is dying" speech before and so far, it hasn't happened. That is because the PC, netbooks and laptops are very very good at serving the edge cases, all those uses to which we put our hardware that some exec at MS/HP/Apple or whatever didn't dream off. Just compare Android's gmail app with regular gmail AND especially a tricked out desktop with gmail tied in. It is clear gmail the app is the light edition. Sometimes that is handy but only if the ease of mobile access makes up for the restrictions.
But if I need a bag to carry a dock or whatever around, why not just carry a cheapo netbook and be done with it.
To me, a phone as a PC will only become intresting if I can skip the dock and hookup the phone directly. THEN I can use it as a tiny laptop.
The end of the Wintel domination? Not yet in sight. With efforts like this, I doubt it ever will. Come on, would it have been that hard to implement some more basic Linux apps?
Re:Not as long as it's done in a crippled way. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is considerably more than one exception - MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Windows, OS X... On and on.
Sure, there are exceptions, but are they really exceptions or did open just not win yet?
There was a time when AOL was the most popular ISP. There was a time when the main alternative to proprietary UNIX for a server OS was Novell Netware.
And certain markets take longer. Software which is very specialized in particular, so Photoshop, AutoCAD, etc. But it's only because the open alternative correspondingly attracts fewer developers and therefore takes longer to reach feature parity. Right now GIMP isn't on par with Photoshop. But it's not like Photoshop from 2011 is light years ahead of Photoshop from 2006. Can you say GIMP won't have substantially caught up in five years? In ten years? And can you imagine anyone paying four figures for Photoshop once it has?
Likewise, it's no surprise that more than half the software titles people are quoting at me are from Microsoft. Yes, Exchange, Office, Windows, these are still very popular. But it's not especially because they're great stuff that everybody loves, is it? It's because Microsoft has a dominant market position and long history of playing dirty. You can read the last line in my post above -- monopolies can keep things closed. Although even there, Microsoft is in a bit of a precarious position, because they don't have an external monopoly propping them up from the outside, they only have two internal ones that buttress each other. Which puts them in a bit of a spot if one or the other is ever dethroned -- you don't need Windows in order to run Office if you don't need Office, and conversely if Windows starts to decline then allowing Office to run on the new dominant platform will hasten Windows' demise, but refusing to will sink Office along with it.
Which pretty much leaves OS X...which I'm not sure makes a very good counterexample. It only has 10% market share in a market dominated by Microsoft, and Microsoft is uncharacteristically friendly to it (e.g. Office runs on it), so it seems to be in a fairly unrepresentative class. It'll be interesting to see what happens to it if Microsoft is ultimately dethroned, actually.