CES 2011 – Motorola's Atrix 4G, Cliq2 and Droid 'Bionic'
Moto not only unveiled its Xoom tablet today. It also showcased a trio of new handsets. The one that’s most interesting from a UK perspective is the Atrix 4G which will launch on Orange later this spring. It is unique for a smartphone in that it can double as a mini laptop when it is teamed up with its base. The base enables it to deliver an apparently full weblike experience and even means that its browser (Firefox) enables the user to have multiple tabs open just like they do on a PC.
The base, which accompanies the phone looks like a proper laptop (the phone docks behind the screen) has a 10inch screen and uses a special “Webtop” app to provide a full screen, keyboard, speakers, and 2 USB ports.
Like many of the highest profile handsets at the show, the Atrix will run on a 4G LTE network – in this instance AT&T (which is due to go live later in 2011). It does however happily work on 3G networks.
It also runs using the dual-core “Tegra 2″ chip from Nvidia, which means it can zip between applications very quickly.
Other specs include Android 2.2 OS, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a “qHD” display, a fingerprint recognizer and a large 1930 mAh battery, all in a 10.9mm-thick case.
Remember the Cliq (known as the Dext in the UK) and its innovative pop out keyboard. Well version 2 was unveiled today. It has a 3.7-inch FWVGA (854×480) display, five mega pixel camera, Wi-Fi calling, mobile hot spot facilities and 1GHz processor. No news yet on a UK launch, but it debuts stateside in two weeks.
Finally Moto paraded the Droid ‘Bionic’ a 4G LTE smartphone coming to Verizon Wireless later this year. It has NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 Dual-Core chipset, featuring two 1GHz CPUs, a 4.3inch screen, eight mega pixel camera, High Def video recoding and – a first for a mobile – on board HDMI for showing that footage on HD TVs.
