by Ryan Hendriks
21. January 2011 08:22
In the first post of this year I commented briefly on CES 2011. If you take the time to look at the CES website and look through the numbers, some of the statistics and data are staggering. 140k visitors in a couple days is awesome sure (more people go to an F1 race in 2 hours), but the figure that stood out for me was 2600+ exhibitors. That is a lot of companies and a lot of product. If I showed you 30 new tech gadgets in a day your mind would be spinning. 2600, WOW!.
At the end of CES there are awards up for grabs. The awards are spread out over many categories that include (2011 Innovation Honorees), Computer Accessories, Computer Hardware, Electronic Gaming, Online Audio/Video Content, Integrated Home Systems and Wireless Handsets. There are also the big prizes, the Best Motion Pictures (in categories) if you will - Best of CES. The winner that stands out for me, in a market segment that is growing faster than something growing really really fast, the Motorola Atrix 4G. It stood out long before it won best of show.
Here is a brief summary:
- Runs on a Nvidia dual-core Tegra 2 chip (1000Mhz a piece)
- 4-inch qHD (that's high definition) - 960x540.
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Android 2.2 (Froyo) - upgrade to 2.3 (Gingerbread) later this year.
- 16GB's onboard and 1GB RAM, microSD up to 32GB's
- 5MP camera with flash
- 720p camcorder
- HD video playback
- Wifi (AGN) - Can be used as a hotspot
So what makes the Atrix so special? Sure it's fast, but that's normal, tech gadgets get faster all the time. The Atrix has some peripherals. The peripheral that particularly stands out is a laptop. The smartphone has a laptop accessory, a little weird? This is no ordinary laptop, in fact technically its not really a laptop it is just a really big battery, a keyboard, a touchpad, a great little screen and last but not least a port to dock the phone into. Once you dock the phone into the laptop chassis the whole thing comes alive and becomes a real laptop now that you have added a CPU, RAM, Board, Storage and an OS (Android). The dock even has a USB port to add extra (normal) peripherals. The above explanation does not nearly do justice to how smooth and smart this solution actually is.
In the video you hear the term "Webtop software". I am not 100 percent sure if that is a term that will become mainstream or if it software from Motorola. It sounds and looks more like a Motorola initiative and software for this solution only. The Webtop software picks up that the phone is docked and kicks into Webtop "desktop" mode. "Full browser" hear (Firefox in the video) means we should soon get a full blown copy of Chrome (on Android not Chrome OS) and then should be able to function as per Chrome OS, just a browser everything online and a little storage (the big complaint about Chrome OS).
I think this is quite revolutionary. Although this is not the first attempt at this solution. Palm gave this solution a crack in 2006 and there have been various other "attempts" at a similar dock, but nothing quite as slick as this. Motorola are certainly building their brand for smartphones and reliable technology. Motorola was an early adopter of Microsoft Mobile Phone technology some time ago with uber cool products like the MPX200/220, they do know what they are doing. Android is definitely doing all the right things at the moment and this technology is just awesome.
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