[Atrix 4G General] Divinedark:
Good morning all,

I created this thread in the Inspire forums and thought I'd bring it over here too. It's just my experiences as a daily carrier of both of these devices. It's aimed at people torn between the two handsets, and also to help me ultimately choose which I prefer to keep. Only one will survive. ;)

I've included my running updates in the OP.

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Hello all!

I've had the daunting task to pick between these two phones for the last couple days. I went into the store to actually get the devices in my hand and fully expected to walk out with the Atrix. I've always had a soft spot for HTC, ever since their WoMo phones. I saw the Inspire and was super impressed at how solid the phone felt in my hand. The phone felt very responsive, and I already knew the XDA Inspire team was cranking out some awesome stuff.

I then grabbed the Atrix and was not nearly as wow'd as I had expected to be. I've been following the phone since it's announcement, and pretty much had made up my mind on the spot to pick it up. After spending a half hour goofing around with both phones, I decided the Inspire really won my heart.

Then it happened... The cold sweats... The tossing and turning in bed at night. Images of the Atrix's Tegra 2 laying waste to the earth and doing vile things to my Inspire. My horrid indecision had struck. I decided that I had obviously made the wrong choice, so the next morning I headed off to the store and bought an Atrix without returning my perfectly set up Inspire. I wanted to play with them both side by side and just return whichever one didn't make me happy.

That was a bit over 24 hours ago. After spending the last day with both of the handsets, I am closer to a decision, but it's damn tough. My overall thoughts and struggles follow:

Motorola Atrix:

-Pros:

- Bright, higher resolution screen

- Dual Core processor (even though I thought the experience was pretty weak)

- Battery (theoretical, as I haven't had it long enough to fully experience)

- This goes to the hardware again, but this phone is quite a bit more future proof.

- The handset is light enough to not remind you it's in your pocket at every step.

- GPS (This is the most rock solid phone GPS I've ever used)

- Incredibly loud speaker

- Tons of ram

- HDMI out

-Cons:

- Cheaper build quality (I feel like I need to qualify this. The phone feels solid, but the battery door is, for lack of a better word, brittle)

- Very poor color representation on the otherwise beautiful screen.

- MotoBlur - This is just a very inelegant, unrefined overlay...

- Strange compatibility issues with certain apps

- multiple force closes

- Weak social media integration

- Odd bouts of lag when least expected

- Locked Bootloader (most don't care about this, but it matters when you have a primary developer that has a history of slow patches, feature adds, and os releases.

- Chicklet keyboard is a touch small for me and requires some focus to not miss type.

**FOLLOW-UP**

- I've removed the call quality knock from the Atrix device. It turns out it was entirely my own fault, and while some people, including Motorola, are reporting issues with sound quality on some devices, mine isn't one of them.

HTC Inspire:

-Pros:

- Excellent build quality (the aluminum uni-body is a joy to hold, and has the extra added benefit of being able to be used to fend off an attacker)

- Beautiful 4.3" screen (Yes, it is big, but I'm a fan)

- Sense (I'm not a fan of these proprietary UI's, but Sense shows that HTC can offer up an experience that is easy to like, and provide an attractive interface for a phone OS that is sometimes described as clinical looking)

- The brilliant development community (currently running CoreDroid /drool)

- Very snappy performance from the second gen Snapdragon CPU

- Tons of ram (Not as much as the Atrix, but enough to be a "ton" in my eyes)

- Lovely camera (I used to not care, but I have a new son, so suddenly a camera climbed up the ladder of important features)

- Fantastic out of the box social media integration

- Has that "Just works like it should" feel to it.

- Very clear call quality

- Second best phone gps I've used

-Cons:

- The screen washes out to a grey slab in direct sunlight

- Stock battery life is horrid

- "Electric Razor" ear screen can have some jagged edges and chafe your ear

- Battery door was a ridiculous design decision

- Very current gen hardware (doesn't mean a whole lot if you're not going to be riding this phone for the next two years, but a new day has dawned and it's name is "Multi-core")

- Stock external speaker/notification volume super weak

- odd placement of the number button on the keyboard (thanks iPhone for etching that into my brain)

- recessed power and volume buttons can be a bit tough to find.

- No internal storage (this is just ridiculous)

- Relatively weak GPU

There you have it. That's what I've come up with so far. At the moment, I'm leaning toward the Inspire, as so many of those issues can be (and have been) corrected through roms. In the end, I just don't really get the warm fuzzies from the Atrix. I feel like it's a brilliant set of components tied together with a really sorry software suite, and a manufacturer that doesn't really understand the strengths of their chosen platform, or the customers that choose it.

I will continue carrying both of the devices for the next couple days, but at the moment, the winner is most definitely the Inspire in my eyes. It just feels like it's been polished to a wonderful android flavored candy shine, and with the community behind it, there's really nothing I feel the device won't be able to handle for quite some time.

**Update 1**

The inspire's build quality is top notch. The screen is perfectly alligned and allows no notable give for me. There is also no more light bleed than you expect from an lcd panel, and none to the touch. The battery cover is a pain. Its actually so well fitted that you have to break it in over multiple removals in order to confidently take it off without breaking it. The sim cover fits nicely, and doesn't pose the same pain that the battery cover does. There is a slight raised edge in the center of the sim cover that takes it just out of flush. Its nigh unnoticable. Viewing angles on the inspire's slcd are fantastic. I can see it clearly in a near complete 180 degree angle, with little to no noticable color bleed. It obviously dims as you move from dead center.

The atrix is in the same boat with build quality for the most part. The phone has a good weight, metal rails down the side, well alligned screen, and mostly tight fitting components. I do have some issues here, though. Mainly with the back cover. As noted in my initial post, its very brittle, thin plastic. If you think I broke a sweat taking the inspires battery cover off, you should have seen me trying to get the battery on the atrix. I pulled the top clip free, and almost bent the cover in half fighting the mid phone clips. Also, the back cover on my atrix doesn't line up flush on one side. The last couple issues are the "creakynesss" of the handset. When I grip the phone tightly I can feel the plastic components giving, and settling into place. Not terribly bad, but noticable. The last issue is the fingerprint scanner. It's been pointed out in some reviews, but the scanner is off center on some devices and just looks shoddily thrown together and misalligned.

The atrix beautiful qHD screen also washes out and tints yellow when viewed at extreme angles.

**Update 2**

I've been using the Atrix today as my primary carry handset, and I must say PROPS to Motorola on this battery... I've been beating on it for all I can muster and with almost two full hours of HSPA+ web surfing, Angry Birds while waiting for my food, poking around in the marketplace, and trying out apps, the phone has dropped 25% of the battery in 7 hours of heavy use. I'm pretty damn impressed with that. My focus would be on the charger right now. I'll be going through the exact same process on the Inspire tomorrow to see how everything shakes out.

**Update 3**

I've been carrying my Atrix for the last two days, and I have to admit... It's amazing... I don't mean to sound disappointed, quite the contrary, but I was coming closer to making my decision, and now I'm struggling again.

New Revelations/Findings:

- The little hitches you sometimes see in games like Angry Birds, when scrolling and pinch zooming are all gone... Like, completely gone. That goes for every game/app i've played that is relatively intensive with animation or processing. The Inspire is definitely no slouch, but the performance edge is fully in the Atrix's court.

- The external speaker of the Atrix is LEGEND-(Wait for it)-DARY! I hopped on a conference call last night and it was right on the edge of being as good as the dedicated conference speakers at my office. Really outstanding.

- The screen is also really pretty. I, once again, had to run from hospital to hospital yesterday and while outside was able to see every color, icon, and word on my screen. It made me secure in the fact that no matter where I took the device, i would be able to rely on it 100%, and it would perform as well as I could ever ask for.

I've been using the anti-glare/anti-fingerprint Case-Mate screen protectors on both of the devices since i've purchased them, and these things just destroy the fidelity of the screen. I will be getting my Realook protectors tomorrow, and will get to experience a bit more vibrance from both screens.

I'm still fairly disappointed with the color reproduction of the qHD screen. It's really in your face when you have the two devices sitting side by side. The SLCD screen of the Inspire is much more natural looking.

MotoBlur is still a disappointment, but after setting up LauncherPro Plus and getting Beautiful Widgets, and exploring LauncherPro's new facebook widget (think FriendStream). It's become nearly a non-issue. I've been using ADW as well, and it's great, but the Atrix seems to love LauncherPro, and I love LauncherPro... Guess that's a match made in Android heaven.