Motorola Atrix hands on Australian first impressions

I have just received a Motorola Atrix 4G and my initial thoughts on this powerhouse of a Android phone that won 10 awards at CES 2011 are mixed. On the one hand this is the most powerful Android phone around today and sadly on the other it is let down by its the packaging housing this power.

Motorla Atrix

The phone comes with a standard HDMI cable to hook it up to a TV and play the media on the phone on your big screen. There is also a USB cable and wall charger. The odd thing is there are no headphones which tend to be an obligatory addition to most smart phones today especially for handsfree use.

Atrix MicroUSB & HDMI sockets

First impressions are that the screen, which is made of Corning Gorilla Glass, is quite brilliant and the best I have seen on an Android phone. The 4 inch screen's resolution is qHD (quarter High Definition) 960 x 540 and is crisper than my HTC Desire AMOLED screen.

Motorola Atrix Home Screen

The phone itself weighs in 2 grams less than the iPhone 4 at 135 grams but unlike its biggest competitor it doesn't have the styling or the finesse of the Apple product. In fact it doesn't seem to have the build quality of the HTC Desire or the solid and stylish HTC Mozart. Unfortunately the phone has a plasticky feel to it, especially the back. The back comes across as one of those cheap fake carbon fibre bonnets seen on cheap, wannabe "Fast and Furious" hoon cars that splutter around the suburbs of major Australian cities.

Plastic Back of Motorola Atrixwith combined finger print reader & power button (top)

The phone features a 5MP camera with flash as well as a front facing camera for video calls. The camera can record 720p footage and apparently will be able to record 1080p with a future upgrade.

Before using the phone a Motoblur account needs to be set-up. Once done this enables the ability to locate your phone if you have lost it or remotely wipe its data if it has been stolen.

One unique addition to the phone is the finger print reading device on the back which is actually the power button. It can be setup as a way of unlocking the phone with a PIN as a backup. To be honest its a bit too small and works on limited occasions so I can't recommend it.

Where the phone stands out is its sheer speed. The dual core processor makes Froyo seems like its on steroids. The DLNA software allows you to stream media to the phone or indeed from the phone and the power of the Atrix really shows here.

DLNA software

The 1930mAh battery seems to do a good job at keeping all this power running, but you can actually feel the heat of it through the plastic back cover when using the phone over prolonged periods of time.

Atrix Battery and card slots

The Motorola Widgets can be resized on the homescreen with ease and the social networking app pulls together all your Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin status updates and contacts. All I need now is the HD dock and the laptop dock to put the webtop software through its paces and full potential.

Would I recommend it? The answer is yes purely for the potential this phone has to change personal and working mobility. However I wish Motorola had given the Atrix a better casing as it feels like a wolf in cheap fake wool clothing which really is the only let down. Does it beat the iPhone 4? The answer is, in all areas except design, that is an overwhleming yes.

The best portable media player you've never heard of!

When it comes to portable media players today there are many types that must be considered. Your smartphone, Apple’s array of iPod’s, iPhones and now iPad, Archos devices, netbooks and laptops to name a few. All are portable, all play media in their various forms and with their various capabilities. But have you considered adding a portable hard drive to that mix?

Welcome to the Astone AP-200.

Yes, the first thing you will note is that it is missing a screen so it can’t be compared to those previously mentioned and hook this up to your PC using the included USB cable and you can use it just like a normal portable hard drive. Nothing new here right? Correct. But add this little gem to your 1080p HD TV using HDMI and you are in for some HD movie sessions courtesy of yourself.

So if you are lucky enough to have a vacation home or you want to watch a movie in bed on your bedroom TV you have no need to buy another media player. If you are a traveller there is no need for anymore dodgy hotel movies that cost more than a cinema ticket plug this into the hotel room TV and as long as you can get to the AV setting you have your very own media centre whilst also storing your important documents on the same hard drive for when you are working.

First opinions:

The media player is no bigger than a portable hard drive today except for the slightly raised fan housing and the buttons for navigation if you don’t have the remote control and it weighs just slightly more than the 2.5 SATA drive that it houses. It is very portable and once you get used to the OS pretty simple to use.

What’s included:

Astone with Remote

The case can be bought on its own but this one came with a WD500GB Scorpio Blue 2.5 Hard drive. Also included is a little stand for placing the drive vertically when in use (although is works just as well lying horizontally).

There is a remote control, a 3.5mm to AV cable, a USB cable and an AC adaptor for use when playing video to TV. Strangely the HDMI cable isn’t included so this needs to be included in a purchase budget.

How does it work:

Connection to a TV is done through either HDMI (required for HD playback), Component using a 3.5mm to component cable or the standard 3.5mm to AV cables. There is also an S/PDIF optical out option for hooking up to a surround sound amp.

The other end of the device has the IR sensor, a mini USB for file transfers and a full USB for plugging in other USB devices like a thumb drive, off which you can play a file directly.

I won’t go into the full details of how it works as it is fairly self-explanatory but the built in OS allows navigation to the folders on the hard drive fairly easily using your TV screen.
Navigation can be done using the controls on the unit or the remote control. There are buttons for Movies, Music and photos on the remote allowing you to only highlight those files if you save everything under one folder.

The AV output option

Once you find the movie file it starts to play in the window next to the file name which is useful when you have similarly named files, this also serves as insurance that the file actually works in the format you have chosen to use for the media file.

This shouldn’t be a problem as it seems this will play any file you can throw at it from MKV, AVI through to WMV not once has it said unsupported file type there is a list of supported file formats at the end of this article.

What else can it do:

If you have a wireless USB dongle you can plug it in the front USB port and it can play files using UPNP so you can stream media from another computer or home server.

It can play music through your television speakers or home theatre system or it can be used as a 21st century slide projector and show your photos on your great aunt’s TV.

The downsides:

As you can see it isn’t going to break any one’s hearts in the looks departments but then it doesn’t aim to be pretty, it aims to be everything you need for media.
After prolonged use the fan can get quite loud but not deafening so that you can’t hear the TV it is just noticeable if you listen for it.

The OS isn’t the easiest to use for non-tech savvy people but it is very easy once you are shown how. HDD is the source for the inbuilt hard drive and USB for any external USB device you plug in and then it is a case of locating the folder where the files are and that is up to your file management.

Specs:

List of supported file formats:

• MOVIE Video: MPEG-1 (DAT / MPG / MPEG); MPEG-2 (MPG / MPEG / VOB / ISO / IFO / TS / TP) MPEG-4 (MP4 / AVI / MOV); DivX 3/4/5/6, Xvid (AVI / MKV) H.264 AVC (TS / AVI / MKV / MOV) VC-1 (TS / AVI / MKV / WMV); WMV 9 (WMV); Real Video HD 8/9/10 (RM / RMVB); FLV (FLV)
• MOVIE Audio: Dolby Digital AC3, DTS, MPEG-I Layer 1/2/3, MPEG-II Layer 1/2 multichannel, Real Audio, MPEG-4 HE AACv2, LPCM; Support 7.1 audio channels
• MOVIE Subtitle: srt, sub, smi, *idx+sub, ssa, DVD subtitle, DivX subtitle
• MUSIC: MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, iTune, M4A(AAC), M3U(Playlist)
• PHOTO: JPG(40-mega pixel without limitation of resolution, Baseline), BMP, PNG, GIF, TIF, TIFF

In conclusion:

The Astone AP200D has travelled with me everywhere around the world, no more foreign language TV for me. It resides in my work bag so I can take documents home if need be, it comes with me on weekends away so I can watch movies or TV shows at friends’ houses or in hotels and when I am home I use it on my second TV for watching films when someone else is watching the TV in the living room. It isn’t the greatest gadget of all time but you will have a hard time finding something that can do what it does for the budget and the portability.

HTC Mozart WP7 - More impressions

So 2 days of WP7 and what are my further impressions?

Well, whilst the interface is slick looks good, there is still the element of Windows issues in the OS.

Firstly it has crashed 9 times since being used. 4 times it has rebooted itself after the screen seized up for more than a few seconds. And ata least 5 times I was forced to turn it off because icons failed to open: For example even the settings icon just wobbled and then didn't open. I am presuming it is a memory usage issue and there doesn't seem to be a way to kill apps once opened.

The handset itself is identical to the HTC Desire to handle except I would go as far to say the Desire is more secure due the rubber feel backing.

I am still trying to work out the use of the HTC hub app which although looks fantastic but compared to the Desire version it seems very limited in actual use.

It's still early days with this phone and I realise at this stage that even though this is Windows Phone 7 it really is version 1.0 and is a good 1 if not 2 generations behind iOS & Android.

HTC Mozart - First Impressions

Windows Phone 7 - HTC Mozart vs Android's HTC Desire

First Impressions:

Windows Phone 7 was launched worldwide today with New Zealand having the first sales and then it was Australia's turn. Today I got my hands on a Windows Phone 7 powered HTC Mozart exclusive to the Telstra network.

Having used all sorts of Smartphones in the past from the WinMo powered Compaq/ HP Ipaq through to the O2 Atom, HTC touch, iPhone 3G and recently the fantastic HTC Desire, it was time to try out a Windows Phone 7 (WP7) handset to see if it really is a game changer.

With minimal choice out at the moment I received the HTC Mozart (Telstra's flagship WP7 at launch).

Boasting almost identical specs to the HTC Desire, save for no MicroSD card option, but an 8MP camera and for some reason they put the microUSB socket on the side (no docks for this phone), it has a lot going for it from the outset. But does WP7?

It is a very easy phone to set up and the user is prompted along the way to get the phone running. However to set-up email accounts etc you have to go into the settings to do that.

At first site the UI looks very bold and colourful and even better once you have set items such as contacts up and the people icon starts to flash images of your friends from any contact image you have associated with them.

The big home page icons are easy to press no matter whether you have match stick fingers or pork banger fingers. A swipe to the left brings up the apps page where all the standard apps are listed in alphabetical order and it is here you find the settings button.

It must be noted that the WP7 button requirement on hardware is 3: Back, Windows (home) and search button as opposed to Android which adds the additional Menu button.



The HTC hub button opens a very pretty animation of the current weather in your area and featured apps. However it seems that it is a little wasted on WP7 as it almost bloats the system for nothing more than a very pretty weather / clock.

The Marketplace icon takes you to Windows marketplace (their app store). You can buy either through the downloadable Zune software or through the phone itself. However there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of worthwhile apps out for the Australian market anyway. For example Twitter clients, there are 2 or three (but no tweetdeck, mahtweets etc.), there are very limited games even in the much heralded Xbox Live. However Flight Control does make an appearance for $4 although you can try before you buy.

It comes with Mobile Office 2010 which apparently works seamlessly with Office 2010. Android has Documents to go (an additional purchase cost) but does similar things.

There are a number of HTC apps that once downloaded wouldn't install due to "error with the licence", however all other apps I tried installed no problem. (Was HTC ready for this launch?). The other thing that has happend twice is it has actually rebooted itself... One minute clicking on an icon, the next black screen and then the HTC boot logo.. Is there an element of Windows Vista in WP7?

It's too early for battery testing, use, and a thorough test drive, but the phone itself is a good size and anyone using the HTC Desire would be very happy with this phone. The only thing is would they be happy having moved from Android? That is where we will start the next blog from.....

Mumford & Sons, Enmore Theatre, Sydney 3 August

Triple J's Top 100 Number 1 Mumford & Sons returned to Sydney last night for the end of their Australian tour which included Adelaide, Melbourne and Splendour in the Grass. The band who's debut album was released in Oct 2009 have gone on to a meteoric rise through the charts of Europe and Australasia.

Having played the Oxford Art Factory earlier in the year a bigger venue was required for this up and coming Folk band from London, England. The Enmore was a perfect fit but having seen the $60 tickets go for 5 times that on Ebay they probably could have played bigger venues in Sydney like the Hordern Pavilion.

Thankfully they didn't and the Enmore proved yet again that it is a perfectly intimate venue for the band to get personal with the crowd. It also allowed for the crowd to feel like an extension of the band, especially during their bigger hits.

Marcus Mumford dressed in his uniform of waistcoat over white shirt proved to not only be a stellar folk guitarist but also a talented drummer. On a couple of songs he did a Phil Collins and took himself off to the drum-kit at the back of the stage and in typical folk rock fashion drummed at a fast pace as well as singing with his distinctive vocals.

With the Triple J Top 100 song "Little Lion Man" coming in the middle of the set it was clear to see the crowd were there for the hits. But each song in turn got a great reception. They even trialled a couple of new songs (one allegedly written in Melbourne only a matter of days ago). All were well received and it was hard to stop the feet tapping and head nodding as they powered through their set.

It seemed ironic that dotted around the crowd in large numbers, were a great deal of Irish accents. It could therefore be said that the group from London are a powerhouse when it comes to mainstream Irish Folk rock. But whatever their roots or wherever their home base is Marcus, Winston, Ben & Ted tore the roof off the Enmore in the hour and a half set covering the album and a couple of new ones.

In the end it seemed everyone was very satisfied by the bands performance, and their was an overwhelming feeling that the new album can't come too soon.

Their tagline for this tour is "Gentlemen on Tour" and the night proved they were.

Setlist: (I think)

Sigh No More
Awake My Soul
Winter Winds
Roll Away Your Stone
Nothing Is Written
I Gave You All
Little Lion Man
Lover of the Light
Thistle & Weeds
Unknown
White Blank Page
Dust Bowl Dance

After the Storm
The Cave

4 ningos out of 5