Motorola Atrix Lapdock

From android motorola lovers forum, What drove a perspective change was finding the Atrix lapdock for $65 and reading good feedback.

How to get it to work:

1. Pop the plastic cover to the dock section. I gently pried with a small flat screwdriver, but probably other options.

2. Unscrew the two screws on the little metal bracket.

3. Un-wedge the little rubber spacer that is between the two connectors.

4. Gently un-lodge the connectors (not much slack in the cable, so a little tight).

5. Since the connectors orientations are flipped on the Atrix dock, you need to carve the openings on the plastic cover so they fit, flipped. The plastic is easy to carve, so I used the screw driver to carve the tiny space needed.

6. After putting back together the cables and reattaching the plastic cover, attach the Razr to the dock (Razr will be standing upside down. This seems a tad precarious, but does work (I would NOT move the dock around like this).

7. The other option is to leave the cables hanging from the bottom, but the cable on mine does not seem as long as the examples at the Photon and Razr XDA forums. Another issue is the cables are obviously not designed for this, so probably too delicate to be moved much. Alternative would be to find an extension cable combo to use, rather than the small cables, or leave standing up.

Review:

Build: Better and slimmer than the 100, but I have not messed with the 500 to compare it.

Display: Very good and to my surprise, VERY sharp. The 100 seemed a tad blurry, in spite of a 1.9” smaller display. I would expect the 10” display to be sharper, but the 11.9” is sharper. Brightness & color is good. The one negative is the display can’t be pushed back as far as some may want.

Keyboard: Better than the 100 and IMO, a lot better than the Transformer KB.

Touchpad: No multitouch, but works okay and does serve its purpose. Not great though, by any stretch. Functional is a fair description.

Performance: The full Firefox works okay and plug-ins I tried worked. Not zippy as a laptop or desktop, but works better than expected. Phone apps perform fine. Videos look very good.

USB: Mice work fine and thumbrives up to 64gb worked. Not tried a USB hard drive yet.

Summary: IMO, this device is worth up to $150. Very nice to use the connectivity of the phone beyond the phones size and connectivity constraints (without tethering)! I could see me paying a little more if had a full sd slot too.


Added: This puppy has also changed my mind about moving from the Razr. Nice combination .

This function to me (if remains tether free) is a killer "app" and can see me sticking with Moto devices if they stay firm with the concept.

Added: This size seems perfect for me, so would have been nice if VZW had this SAME dock, but fitting the Razr and other devices. The 100 did not impress me. The Atrix does.