Motorola Atrix 4G pricing and availability revealed, and it’s expensive

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Smartphones, Handhelds

The Atrix 4G, which was launched at CES, will be priced at $199.99 for AT&T customers who sign a new two-year agreement. The Atrix 4G is expected to ship on March 6, the company said, while pre-orders begin on February 13th.

AT&T also said that it would offer a $499 bundle for both the Atrix tablet and the associated laptop dock, which will require the user to sign up for a two-year service contract, a Data Pro smartphone data plan, and and the tethering add-on fee, but receive a $100 rebate on top of that. That works out to a total of $45 per month for 4 GBs of data, according a company spokeswoman; customers would pay $25 for the Data Pro smartphone plan and $20 for the tethering add-on.

Otherwise, the user will have to pay $499 for the laptop dock himself.

AT&T is also offering an "entertainment access kit" for Atrix customers which includes the Motorola HD Multimedia Dock, a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a remote control for $189.99.

AT&T is also tying the Atrix to its AT&T service, bundling a $9.99 U-verse app that will allow access to U-verse content, including live TV content. The app will also include a list of "video options". A separate free app will allow U-verse customers to download and watch existing shows.

Other bonuses include a free hotspot capability built into the tablet.

Inside the Atrix is a Nvidia Tegra, HSPA+ cell phone, which runs two operating systems at once: Google's Android 2.2 and a customized Motorola version of Linux which helps the Atrix turn into a desktop or laptop PC.

It's one of the first dual-core Cortex-A9, NVIDIA Tegra 2 smartphones available in the US, and it has a super-high-res 960-by-540 screen. Other specs are also impressive: 802.11n networking on both 2.4 and 5 GHz, HSPA+ 4G of some variety or other, a gigabyte of RAM, 16 GB of storage plus a MicroSD slot, even a fingerprint reader.

When docked, the Atrix only supports three apps: Firefox 3.6.13, a file manager, and Android-in-a-window. There's a shortcuts bar along the bottom, but they're all shortcuts either to the Web or to Android apps that then launch in Android-in-a-window.

The problem? When docked, apps ran jerkily. We'll have to see if Motorola is able to straighten this out by the time the Atrix launches.

This article, written by Mark Hachman, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc..