Managing director of Motorola Mobility, ANZ and South Pacific, Timo Brouwer launches the Xoom in Sydney
Director of Telstra’s mobile products, Andrew Volard, said the Motorola Atrix is the first smartphone from an Australian telco to offer the power of a dual-core processor.
“Android is proving popular and we sold 300,000 Android-based handsets in the six months to December 2010,” Vollard said.
“We have listened to feedback from customers and the Telstra apps on the Atrix a not a locked-down as previous Android handsets and people can choose to run them or not.”
Telstra has exclusivity with the Atrix until the end of July. Late last year Telstra and Motorola also partnered to launch the Defy smartphone.
The Atrix has a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 4-inch qHD display, front- and rear-facing cameras and 16GB internal storage (up to 48GB with SD card).
It runs Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ and not the latest 2.3 ‘Gingerbread’, which Motorola puts down to time-to-market constraints.
'Smart' accessories
To accompany the two new devices Motorola has launched a new range of “smart” accessories to the local market.
Motorola’s webtop application runs a full Mozilla Firefox 3.6 browser and supports Flash for a standard desktop-like Web experience.
The optional Motorola HD Multimedia Dock ($129) and Lapdock ($449) allow the Atrix to be used with a larger screen, keyboard and trackpad for a “computer-like experience” with their phone.
Webtop can run Android apps in a window, browse the Web with Firefox, edit documents, send messages and make phone calls. Calls continue uninterrupted if the Atrix is removed from a dock.
The new Entertainment Centre feature can display photos, music and videos on a large screen TV.
For the Xoom there is the Standard Dock for watching videos or listening to music through external speakers while the device charges ($69), the Speaker HD Dock for sending HD content to a TV or listening to music through built-in speakers ($149); Folio on the Go ($59); the Power Pack car and AC charger ($49); colour Gel Cases ($29); and a custom keyboard with Bluetooth and special Android shortcut keys ($79) which is also compatible with the Atrix.
With webtop the Atrix also has an integrated Citrix Receiver application that provides access to virtual desktops and Windows, Web and office applications hosted on Citrix XenDesktop.
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