[Atrix 4G General] blognc:
I tried the Atrix and HTC Inspire in-store, and while I absolutely want an upgrade, I'm not convinced either is good enough, and am looking beyond to the next wave of Android phones on AT&T, unless nothing better is coming anytime soon.

I am subject to an odd process where I put in for an upgrade now and will get approval in four months, at which point I get to choose a new phone, which means I merely need to know that a phone I want will be available four months from now. If a good phone is coming in 5 or 6 months, it makes sense to wait, otherwise, I can put in now and see, four months from now, if the Atrix's bootloader has been smashed to hell and good custom ROMs are available, and if not, get an Inspire.

So, what good-looking Android phone are here or on the way. Here's what I've been able to determine, with pros and cons:

Motorola Atrix

Available Now

Pros:

Dual core 1 GHz Tegra 2

1 GB RAM

Fingerprint scanner

Front-facing camera

"4"G

HDMI out

Giant battery - 1930 mAh

16 GB internal memory

Highest resolution screen - 540 x 960

Gorilla Glass

Cons:

Past experience with AT&T says that custom ROMs will be few and far between

Froyo (and lack of ROMs means we can't fix this ourselves)

Slow webtop experience (we can't, yet, fix ourselves)

Internet speeds were terrible in store

4-inch screen (not necessarily a bad thing, but a point to consider)

HTC Inspire

Available Now

Pros:

4.3-inch screen (bigger than the Atrix)

HTC (ROMs galore!)

8 Megapixel camera (Atrix has 5)

Cons:

No front camera

Much smaller battery - 1230 mAh

4 GB internal memory

1 GHz Snapdragon single core processor

768 MB RAM

Lower screen resolution than the Atrix - 480 x 800

Lousy speakerphone

No HDMI

Samsung Infuse

Available Mid-2011

Pros:

1.2 GHz Hummingbird (single core, but faster)

8 Megapixel camera with 1080p video

Front facing camera - 1.3 Megapixels (four times the Atrix)

Super AMOLED Plus screen

Decent battery (1750 mAH)

As flashable as any Samsung (much better than Motorola)

16 GB internal memory

Cons:

4.5 inch screen (tablet territory, some may love it)

Lower screen resolution than the Atrix - 480 x 800

Only one core

RAM unknown

LG Optimus 2X

Availability: Who knows?

Pros:

Tegra 2, like the Atrix

Decent 1500 mAH battery

HDMI out

Gyroscope

Cons:

No carriers announced

8 GB internal memory

Samsung Galaxy S2

Availability: Q2

Pros:

Ships with Gingerbread

Exynos 1 GHz dual core processor

4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with Gorilla Glass

16 GB internal memory, 32 GB on some models

8 Megapixel camera with 1080p video and image stabilization

Front facing camera - 2 megapixels, almost 7X the Atrix

Gyroscope

Excellent 1630 mAH battery (no Atrix, but pretty good)

Quad core GPU

NFC (some versions)

HDMI out

Bluetooth 3.0

Cons:

Lower resolution than the Atrix - 480x800

Not yet announced for AT&T (but probably coming)

Looking at all that, I'm thinking that the best bet is that the only true Atrix competitor is the S2, and assume that it will come out mide July, like the Captivate. I can put in for an upgrade in late March, which should give the S2 enough time to come to market and be reviewed, plus the Atrix to hopefully get some ROMs, and make the call.

Are there any other phones worth looking forward to? Is there any other reason to choose the Inspire or Infuse, or to not put my chips on the Atrix or Infuse?