Arriving in January of 2011, the Motorola Atrix 4G debuted as a mobile handset that could do several things at once. With the ability to act as an entry-level netbook, as a multimedia dock and as a hands-free turn by turn GPS mounted to your car’s dashboard or windshield, Motorola explained that this is was the wave of the future for mobile handsets. It has been nearly 9 months since the versatile Motorola Atrix 4G arrived, and not too many other handsets have attempted to do all that the Motorola Atrix 4G promises. The Motorola Atrix 4G recently got a software upgrade, so let’s take an in-depth look at how it affects the performance of the Atrix 4G.
The Atrix 4G received a firmware update in March to address some minor bugs, but until this recent Gingerbread update, the handset’s software has remained unchanged. The upgrade from Android’s 2.2 Froyo to 2.3 Gingerbread operating system makes some rather big changes. One is a cross-OS capability that is pretty important. You now have the ability to sideload apps from sources like Amazon or some other app marketplace, which in the past was considered an “unknown source” and was blocked.
Motorola has also upgraded the photo gallery to handle comments from Facebook and Picasa on those social networking photos, to aggregate your photos, and your friends photos from both sites as well. And an important change to the music player now gives the Atrix 4G owners the ability of music discovery. What this basically allows you is the ability to get song recommendations personalized to your library and tastes, as well as videos, news and updates customized to your settings as well.
Firefox 4.0 has been supported with this new update, which means faster web browsing, and a 50% improvement up to 1080p HD video playback, as well as Bridge access, one touch conference call capability are delivered. There are also some location-based recommendations through Facebook and Yelp which are now available. The Gingerbread software update takes place over the air and requires no action by the Motorola Atrix 4G owner.
