Discussion on:

Breakthrough device of CES 2011: Motorola Atrix = Phone PC

Original post:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=7275

Apple or MS makes it and then the fan boys will make a hue and cry that it is the greatest and best looking and most user friendly (last 2 points not for MS) product ever developed. Till then Motorola will have a small adapters for a device which might be superior to the devices that the big names will develop, when a lot of people will adapt it (not the motorola, the one developed by MS or Apple).

because now I can stand right next to you and steal you whole computer without you even knowing it.

I guess I'm confused. I've got my own bias here and I think Jason does too. Bias might be a harsh word. Paradigm might be a little easier to swallow, but the results are the same; our outlooks are skewed due to our situation and experiences.

Jason appears to see work and life as the same thing. He probably works as much at home and on the road as he does in the office. Naturally, a portable device would be a godsend to someone like him. Rather than deal with 3 or more computing devices, he could have it all in one highly portable device. It's hard to imagine anything that could make his life easier.

However for folks like me this is a non-event, even a distraction from what I need. My job is one thing and my life is something else. So too are my computers. The two rarely cross paths, so any attempt to merge the two is actually detrimental to me. Besides, my personal computer is far more powerful than what I'm typing on right now and odds are anything portable would be too. The biggest move I've made toward portable was the purchase of a netbook back when the trend was new. It works well for work, but on a personal level, it is basically just a web browser.

So why am I confused? Well, I'm not sure if I'm in the majority or Jason or if there is an even split. Should I be paying attention to this and be ready for how it could be forced on me or just write it off as something of interest to "those people"?

Although my geeky side loves this stuff from a toy perspective, I honestly don't see this impacting either my work or personal life in the foreseeable future. Am I missing something?

It's most likely valuable to those who have a business need to be on the road all the time, or those that don't need the high end, full featured computing device to accomplish their goal. PCs will not be replaced by these devices because you can't pack the full power of a 3 foot tower into a 4" device. From what I've seen, the video processors aren't getting any smaller, and the dual core high performance architectures are not getting any smaller either.

You need a device for motel hopping on the road, or a device without all the features of a home computing device? This is the optimal solution. Otherwise, I think it would be overzealous to assume that this would saturate the PC market (much like it was overzealous to assume that tablets would replace the household PC).

Looks good except I'm still frustrated by the lack of any sensible word processing or spread sheet apps with Android.
Makes this look next to useless?

What else - given that it's running in a web browser, probably the Google office apps.

I *can* see this being useful for traveling professionals and such. I see it as useless for me, of course, but I use my system differently.

What needs to happen, though, IMHO is that the smartphone (and tablet) manufacturers have to set up a standard for the docks and what goes over them, how they transfer to the screen, deal with a network, etc. Then let the hotels set up universal docks, let the businesses set them up in offices, and let the users just sit down, plug in and take care of things.

The online Google word processor isn't half bad and should run in an Android browser and be compatible with most document types. It's not the ideal solution, but for on-the-go, it's better than using your phone? I suppose if you are specifically interested in journalism, it may not be the best choice. A laptop that costs roughly the same would seem like the most sane choice in that scenario.

I can see great appeal for a device like this for both home and business.

Another commenter has already made the business case.

On the home side there may well be more appeal. I know loads of people that do nothing other than consume content. They check their FaceBook account every four and a half minutes. They watch music videos on YouTube. They read web sites. A device like this would be great for them. I can think of people that could throw away their laptop in favour of a device like this, and not lose any functionality.

I don't think this is a device for "those people" or even so geeks (although I'm very impressed by the concept and could think of many advantages a device like this would have for me). Geeks tend to create, and want control and speed. They want Photoshop and Visual Studio and their shell.

If you're looking for a market, you can start by looking at pretty much everyone that owns an iPhone or an iPad.

I remember being amazed by pod computer concepts at least a decade ago. At the time it was a hard drive sized brick; basically a PDA with hard drive. You docked it at home, you docked it at work and inbetween it functioned in PDA mode. home and work could both have task specific docking stations and the phone may even differentiate between home and work (for those who keep them very seporate). Given tech at the time, the idea was that your docking stations would have a big processor and additional hardware while your brick had a humble processing power. Fast forward and "PDA" has become "mobile device" but the concept is the same.

Geeks may not be interested in Motorola's implementation if they ship it defective like the logic bombed Android phones. I don't see the need to lock the device down beyond owner's control as a requirement of the concept though. If this did take off, someone would ship a more open device (ie. Nexus vs Droid).

> If this did take off, someone would ship a more open device (ie. Nexus vs Droid).

I've been consistently disappointed by the performance of such efforts so far. Part of the problem, of course, is the FCC essentially making it illegal for anyone but a major corporation to manufacture mobile connectivity devices, and service carriers making something with only a toy-level of computing power cost as much as a brand new high-end laptop if its software doesn't come wrapped in chains.

Motorola has started trying to sell me the next major device release bearing the same name as the smartphone I carry around in my pocket. I'm disappointed enough in the restrictions on the current device, wasting its potential, that I have to give a bitter laugh to the idea of wanting to buy more of the same.

. . . and now, the only corporation that had the guts to say "no" to software lockdown (Nokia), has given up on its open platform entirely in favor of WP7 -- the same garbage as everyone else, in many ways no different from Android and iOS.

I'm feeling grumpy about the state of the pocket-sized computer today.

I've talked to a lot of my co-workers and although everyone thinks it is cool from a concept and tech perspective, no one would buy one, even the road warriors. The big flaw is the lack of productivity in what I'll call the mobile mode. In a nutshell, once the device is un-docked it basically becomes a reader. Content creation would be difficult to near impossible. (The same problem many see with the iPad.) So the road warriors still need a notebook or at least a netbook to accomplish their mobile tasks. Some folks are saying this might be ahead of its time, but I'm wondering if there will ever be a time. Unless they can come up with some way to make people productive, and I mean really productive, this setup will be a dead end. I suspect this device will be pretty much limited to the gadget/toy freaks.

It can't be that big of a flaw if it's the same on the iPad has - the iPad seems to be selling plenty of units. And not just to gadget/toy freaks.

I like the device and will probably buy something similar in the future as a laptop and phone replacement/upgrade combo. This type of device will probably gain traction with the right features and price point. It would be fit certain corporate users (in the form of a Blackberry or iPhone offering). My wish list for this device as others point out are:
1) Different mobile provider and wi-fi mode where I can use this for voice calls (at home or on the go)
2) Maybe bluetooth if wi-fi is not possible to interact with legacy devices like printers or certain phone systems that enable handset redirection.
3) Agree that ChromeOS/Web browser should be an option. There are different preferences and Motorola should consider this - another device offering?
These devices are likely to be the future, and I hope Motorola or other manufacturers get it right. Consumers need the easy to use and versatile forms for both computing and communications.

... but as a number of my predecessors in this thread have already commented, it may be 'just slightly ahead of its time' as Panasonic once put it. I think it's a great concept, but the power of the phone and the OS itself is a bit too weak for true productivity. Yes, I know the same is said about the iPhone and iPad, but the OS there has proven its abilities as a productivity tool where Android still has some issues. I think Android 3.0 is going to come closer to what this concept needs.

Seriously? You expect people to use a supposedly full-fledged PC that has Android and smartphone-level processing power to replace their current Desktop/Laptop? Not gonna happen for most people. Most users are used to Mac or Windows for their operating environment, and the power that a full-size PC offers is far superior to even a dual-core mobile chip. I don't see this catching on..

... but it does indicate the start.

Whats really required to make it work is a properly scalable OS that can do phone to tablet to desktop to server to cloud OS...

The only real candidate at the moment , and I think it also has a long way to go, is actually Linux. Thinking strategic alliances between computer and phone manufacturers over next few years...

The US carrier lockdowns do slow down the whole market development to some extent.

the love of "power" for most people. How many people just use their quad-core, 4-6-8 Gb RAM systems to... read email? Talk to the kids/grandkids/family? Play solitaire or other, light (if not just browser-based) games?

No, this won't replace the Excel mavin's system, the engineer's setup, places where security is more important (I can't imagine locking these down,) the gamer, the photoshop wiz's PCs. But mom-and-pop and light use? Sure.

most people have wayyy too much processing power, my old netbook has about the same power as a 8-10 year old server had. 90% of businees users were quite happy with 1 processor @ 1GHz and most couldn't tell if they had more. What is needed is leaner software not reliant on continual upgraded hardware to function properly.
Add a good nearfield gigabit network connection and it would probably work well, contacts are so prone to problems.

... just wish it wasn't Android. Android can't scale to a tablet, let alone a full PC. It has awful UI. iOS has proven it can scale up. WP7 has the best development story. Android is really the odd man out, with nothing going for it in this race, other than its current momentum.

J.Ja

> WP7 has the best development story. Android is really the odd man out, with nothing going for it in this race, other than its current momentum.

A rooted Android device has more going for it than either of the other two, as far as I can tell. The problem is that a non-jailbroken Android device is kind of gimpy -- and I don't currently have so much need of desktop power in my pocket that I'm willing to void my warranties.

I suspect that, in the long run, the real value of Android will be that it spurs further interest in open source OS development and commercial use of such software on mobile platforms. We just need the hype around the Android platform itself to give way to such development; at that point, we'll get more power and flexibility than all four of the current primary mobile software platforms combined (Apple iOS, Google Android, Microsoft WP7, and RIM Blackberry). At least, I hope so. If that doesn't happen that way, I guess we'll just have to wait a decade for such an endeavor to bear fruit under some other circumstances, and in the meantime we can all be pathetic with our gimpy pocket OSes.

Ive been watching some of the videos of the Atrix at
www.motorola-atrix.net

The webtop application and a smartphone powered PC is definitely going to be a game changer,

I wonder if we will see smartphone powered media pc's that dock directly to tv's, like a lot of small stereo/alarm clocks have ipod docks currently

A powerful tablet that I could use as a phone via bluetooth? Hell yes.

Give me a full Java VM that runs under Android and I'd be even happier. Even if I had to connect to an external drive at home to do development.

I for one would love to be able to move to one device for phone, computing and multimedia.

To me, it's the most obvious "Next Step". This time next year, all of the smart phone companies will have something similar or close to it.

Motorola made the list of greenest electronics by Greenpeace: http://www.energyinyourlife.com/article.php?t=100000184

I too wrote about this on my blog... YEARS ago... Check it out.

http://j7is.me/9uMUMw

I wrote that in October of '05... It's amazing how true this stuff is becoming!

They should have further refined their concept before bringing it to market.

Everybody is an iPad wannabee!

But I thought you said yesterday that the HTC Thunderbolt was probably the best smartphone for 2011?

The laptop dock should have placed the phone where the trackpad is so that the phone touchscreen could have been used as a trackpad when docked and users could see when calls, etc come in...instead of docking it behind the laptop screen.......Motorola I hope you are you listening?......Quick, I need to patent the design/idea

I guess it's a mobile solution for non-programming, non-gaming, and non-graphics oriented individuals. I could see my parents doing something like this if they could bring silverlight and flash to the device.

On an off note, Jason, I love reading your articles, but proofread this one pronto! There are many missed words.

This is not a new thing. OQO produced a palm-sized PC that was very similar in concept and execution. Instead of shrinking the PC, now it's beefing up the phone.

Either way, the end result will be a highly portable device with docking capabilities that can handle most communication and computing needs.

As soon as Apple is able to add a lightweight version of OSX to the iPhone that makes it a regular iPhone when it's undocked and a Mac when you dock it, people will proclaim it as the best idea ever that only Apple could pull off. Till this day I still don't know why the Mac Book and the iPad are seperate product lines. Other than computing power which will probably be a moot point in a few years, I don't see why an iPad can't just be an undocked Mac Book Air.

Microsoft on the other hand is too myopic to think of something like Windows Phone 7 that turns into a Windows 7 PC when you dock it.

The only suggestion I would make for these things to be better is for the dock to include some type of mass storage device or the ability to accept a USB 3.0 hard drive because that's the only really big advantage (other than high-end gaming) that a stand-alone PC has.

And talk about a missing opportunity for Google. Wouldn't this be a REALLY, REALLY great place to introduce Chrome OS? Why in the world doesn't this phone turn into a PC running ChromeOS when it's docked? Why the f*** are we letting hardware manufacturers make their own OS?

Redfly did a similar things years ago:

http://www.celiocorp.com/

I've got one for my aged HP iPAQ which works reasonably well given the constraints of Windows Mobile 6...

(Sorry, should have been a reply to the original post!)

_

I think it is an exciting possibility, but Ihate that is is limited to ATT. I am sure we will see more for other providers.

Jason, my memory isn't doing so well, but didn't Handspring do this a few years ago? Of course, it was terribly underpowered, and no web access, well, that worked well.
Looks great, though.

AT&T's network problems were/are near-legendary with just the iPhone. Since then, the Windows Phone 7 and this device have both come out tied to this same weak-kneed network.

Clearly, the manufacturers don't copy from each other, because they're sure not learning anything!

While the machine is docked, it has a full sized monitor, keyboard, etc., but when it's "loose", all you've got is one tiny little lump, with a tiny screen (comparatively) and a tiny keyboard. At some point, the device simply becomes too small to useful or even usable (read the screen, type any faster than hunt-and-peck).

I have a Droid 2, and it's very close that point for me. For short bits, it's tolerable, but to read or type a lot, its form factor simply not adequate. The screen is too small to read from more than 12" from my glasses (yes, my prescription is current and corrects to 20/20) and the keyboard is too small to avoid hitting the wrong key frequently, let alone approach the speed I have on a standard keyboard where I can use all 10 fingers.

In short, regardless of the power that can be packed into a device, the human/machine interface has to be designed and sized for humans to use and we're not getting smaller fingers or better eyesight.

x

Add a 1Gbit nearfield conection and it could be really handy

Great!
Until your phone rings, and you lose your spreadsheet and the call by confusing the toy's Droid and MSoft OSes. And who wants to find the Blue Screen appearing as they try to reach 911???

While this may not be the 'greatest thing' this year, I could easily see myself getting something like this in a couple of years. Beyond that, I agree with Jason that by 2015, many more people will be wanting something like this. The younger generations are used to these smaller screens and touch interfaces, for them this is a natural. All the things they are used to, with the benefit of being able to use the device for more expanded options quickly and easily. The Atrix may not be something many here would buy, but it will be something our kids will jump on. That may be something everyone needs to keep in mind.

If the implementation was using Windows instead of the environement by losers for losers and was only implementing a web browser, then it would be impressive. The web broswer was not designed to host "applications" as we would need real client applications that are hosted on the device itself.

This is so amazing,
It seems like there is about to be a tech diversification like we've never seen. I see massive pros and cons to computing this way, but it's exciting.

Currently installing an OS of your choice on a handset is both risky (turn your phone into a brick) and difficult. While installing the OS of your choice on a regular computer is easy and risk free.

I saw this dock your phone and turn it into a computer coming 1000 miles away. The next 10 years should be interesting.

Following the SNES example of expandable hardware, when unplugged, it is a phone running a phone OS. It has basic file storage, etc. But plug it into the base and it boots up a proper OS, and can take hardware extensions such as more memory, processing power, video power and can run as a full computer. The basic user would not require all those extensions, they would be totally optional. For the basic user the phone simply increases its power draw, clocks itself up, and runs a proper desktop OS, outputs to a monitor and enables mouse and keyboard input, but accesses the same file system storage.