AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega and Motorola CEO Dr Sanjay Jha kicked off the 2011 AT&T Dev Summit by announcing the carrier’s first 4G smartphone, the NVIDIA-powered Atrix 4G. Don’t call it a smartphone, at least not around here – NVIDIA is talking about the new wave of superphones powered by Tegra 2, and rightly so. Packing a dual-core 1GHz processor and a full gigabyte of RAM, Atrix is part phone, part laptop, part home entertainment hub. Or at least it looked that way onstage …
The phone itself is an Android powered device capable of video capture and playback, with a big multitouch display and a 1,930 mAh battery powering the system. But there’s more in the way of two “accessories” that really should be called peripherals. First is the HD dock, an HDMI-based system for getting all of that hi-def content off of your Atrix 4G and onto your living room flat panel display. Cool stuff.
Next is the big play: The laptop dock. Atrix 4G will come with an app called “Webtop” and be compatible with a laptop-form factor device that’s basically a 13.1″ display and full-sized keyboard in a super thin, lightweight magnesium shell body. The laptop dock has a port for the phone itself, which powers the whole thing and provides processing power and network connectivity. Verrrry interesting … Dr. Jha had the machine onstage during the keynote just now, and I’m hoping to get some up-close time with as much as of the setup as possible later in the day.
Now wait, what’s this? AT&T’s talking about a Tegra 2 powered, Android Honeycomb tablet coming in Q2 of this year? Hmm … when’s that Motorola press conference start … later this afternoon? I’ll be there!
And oh, the catering at the AT&T Developers Summit is awesome so far. I’m not trying to be cute, either – after my first night in Vegas, getting up early and making it to a keynote was made so much easier by the awesome donut holes and Egg McMuffin-style sandwiches here at the Palms. Thanks, food sponsors!
Tagged: android, arm, atrix, att, CES 2011, honeycomb, super phone, superphone
