Motorola Atrix HD review - The Verge

If you found Verizon's Droid RAZR too angular, then AT&T's take on it with the Atrix HD could soothe your aesthetic sensibilities. It essentially looks like a slightly rounded version of the same — right on down to the Kevlar back, large battery hump at the top, and slightly over-sized bezel around the screen.

To get down to details, it's a simple slab of a phone with power and volume buttons on the right; Micro USB, Micro HDMI, and headphone up top; a door on the lower-left for Micro SIM and microSD cards; and no physical or capacitive buttons at all on the front. The back consists of a large swath of dark, patterned Kevlar curving up to the 8-megapixel camera, flash, and loudspeaker. Internally, there's 1GB of RAM and only 8GB of storage, but you can expand via the microSD card slot if you need to. No NFC here, unfortunately, but that's not entirely surprising for a $99.99 device.

The bezel around the 4.5-inch screen is large by today's standards and overall the phone feels quite substantial in the hand. It's set behind Gorilla Glass, which alongside the Kevlar makes the phone sturdy and flex-free. At 8.4mm, Atrix HD is very thin over most of the phone, but the large hump at the top takes away from that. It also is quite boxy when compared to other phones, which doesn't really help. I actually wouldn't have complained if Motorola and AT&T had gone the RAZR MAXX route and made it a little thicker, especially since the 1,780mAh battery behind the Kevlar is non-removable.

There's really no getting around saying that the Atrix HD isn't a very pretty phone. That's not to say I find it ugly per se, but I don't really find it to be especially interesting. The Atrix HD also comes with white plastic (with black Kevlar), which I'm told looks worse than the black version I reviewed. Still, there are a few positive notes to the design. I do like the feel of the back, the buttons are sturdy, and the power button in particular has a nice ridged feel. Similarly, the plastic ring around the edge of the phone is slightly textured for easier grip. Where the Atrix 2 had a businesslike charm, the Atrix HD essentially takes the distinctive RAZR and runs it through a blandification machine.

Compare the Atrix HD to the Galaxy S III and One X

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