Orange is ready to dock with the Motorola Atrix. The dual-core powerhouse smart phone attaches to a range of pricey docking accessory doo-dahs, and Orange is delivering a decent dock discount.
The Atrix slots into two accessories: an HD Multimedia Dock, or a Lapdock. The multimedia dock turns the phone into a mini-telly type thing, propping the phone up like an alarm clock and connecting it to your computer or TV via USB or HDMI. The lapdock is an 11-inch laptop-style screen and keyboard with a slot that holds the Atrix.
Orange is offering a free Work and Play kit, containing the multimedia dock with a mouse, keyboard and remote control, to Orange customers who upgrade to the Atrix. New customers will get the kit for £50.
Orange hasn't said how much the Atrix itself will cost, but it will be free on a two-year contract costing £35 per month. Different tariffs will bag you a discount on the lapdock, which costs a gobsmacking £300 on its own. Yes, you could buy an actual laptop for that.
The Android-powered phone adopts different software when you dock it, and offers the Firefox Web browser. Confused? Watch our hands-on video and all will become clear.
Orange's Everything Everywhere stablemate T-Mobile has also confirmed the Atrix for a June release, alongside the HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Samsung Galaxy Ace.
Orange hasn't confirmed the exact date in May the Atrix will dock, but you can sign up at the Orange website to be emailed when there's more information. Are you looking forward to the Atrix's new tricks, or is it a docking bad idea?
Update 4 May: The Atrix is available now on Orange.
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Anonymous 19 April, 2011 12:46
If they hadve made the laptop dock OS a full version of linux, they wouldve been onto a real winner. As it is, its a pointless and expensive docking option
Anonymous 27 April, 2011 16:37
If like me you're partial to unlocking handsets then look past its current limitations and imagine what the homebrew people over at XDA Developers and the likes will be able to do with this.
I'd like to think that a hacked firmware version could well include a full version of Linux, OpenSUSE please!!
The Atrix could be for mobiles what the original XBOX ended up becoming for consoles, a great hardware platform for messing around on, just look at XBMC on the old XBOX.