I have made my decision

[ItsDrew]

I have made my decision about the Atrix. I was excited about the device up until they released the pricing. I have enough money to buy the phone and all the accessories out of contract, but I still agree with just about everyone in this Forum that I?m not happy with AT&T?s attempt to price gouge.
So what am I going to do? I am going to continue using my Nexus 1 on AT&T until I found out:
1) How long will it be before the Atrix will be rooted?
2) Will Cyanogen release a ROM for the Atrix?
3) If yes with Cyanogen, will it still have the dock functionality (webtop) and ability to use 3G/4G without a tethering plan?

I really can?t live without a rooted phone and the ability to jump from rom to rom with the ROM Manager.

On a side note: For those that intend on purchasing the phone on release day, please do not pre-order it. A pre-order gives the manufacturers and carriers an initial demand for the device. If nobody pre-orders, then they start scrambling and planning on how to fix it. Actually, if you can, I would even wait 4-7 days after release before you buy. Hit them with your buying power as a consumer. Unfortunately, money is the only way to ?teach them a lesson?

 

[ka3yan]

On a side note: For those that intend on purchasing the phone on release day, please do not pre-order it. A pre-order gives the manufacturers and carriers an initial demand for the device. If nobody pre-orders, then they start scrambling and planning on how to fix it. Actually, if you can, I would even wait 4-7 days after release before you buy. Hit them with your buying power as a consumer. Unfortunately, money is the only way to ?teach them a lesson?

I agree, no one else buy it (except me of course).

 

[EJL1980]

On a side note: For those that intend on purchasing the phone on release day, please do not pre-order it. A pre-order gives the manufacturers and carriers an initial demand for the device. If nobody pre-orders, then they start scrambling and planning on how to fix it. Actually, if you can, I would even wait 4-7 days after release before you buy. Hit them with your buying power as a consumer. Unfortunately, money is the only way to ?teach them a lesson?

While I understand where you are going with this, I am going to have to disagree.

1. A very large portion of the smart phoning public has no idea what androidcentral or crackberry or anything are. They will not participate in your boycott.

2. A phone is going to be a success or failure regardless of price. 4GB of tethering for $45.00 isn't horrendous. At one point I was paying $60.00 for 5GB.

3. While I was hoping the prices would be lower as the early buzz guessed, I'm not going to fault AT&T or Motorola for not selling these devices at a loss. I'm guessing the costs for that netbook dock are far higher than we think. Sony lost enormous amounts of cash to get PS3's into people's homes to push blu ray. What is Moto's incentive to take a loss on the device?

4. I'm a newbie to android, so I don't understand the other complaints about the phone quite yet.

 

[corneliusm]

Cart before the horse. If the too many people wait until the "community" hacks a device, not enough people will have the device for any real cracking effort to take place. Also, the more Atrixes in circulation, there will be more eyes looking at the device and brainstorming new ways to exploit this beast.

Keep in mind that regardless whether you feel like a geek or not, you're part of the android community. Sometimes that involves taking risk on devices that may never be cracked.

I hate to say this, but look to the iPhone community for inspiration. That is one of the most locked-down devices, yet the community is large enough that jailbreaking comes pretty quickly to them. Hell, the Verizon iPhone already has been jailbroken.

Still, they've manage to flash not just custom ROMs and kernels, but Android and other OSes onto them. That's impressive.

How many Android users have gotten other OSes onto our devices?

 

[jess.hickey]

Keep in mind that regardless whether you feel like a geek or not, you're part of the android community. Sometimes that involves taking risk on devices that may never be cracked.

I have to agree. I can almost put a date on when my early adoption started...my first color screen flip phone.

From the horrible MPx, to the reset every hour iPaq, to resets itself every hour Treo 750, (a few blackberries thrown in for good measure), to the iPhone, to the Nexus One to soon to be Atrix, I have taken many risks with picking up a phone on release day. But it is a risk I am willing to take. That is the problem with early adoption...you just never know. It isn't for everyone. The number of times I've had to jump on eBay or Craigslist to replace the P.O.S. that I bought on release day that panned out to be something I couldn't live with for two years are countless (well, maybe 4 or 5).

I personally feel that this is a risk worth taking (but I felt the same about the MPx, iPaq, etc). As best I can figure, even if the rooting doesn't work out I will still have a top of the line Android phone that will suffice until I get bored with it. I read on here somewhere last week that the average "life expectancy" of todays newest/greatest/hottest phone is 3-4 months before a newer/greater/hotter phone comes out. It was also said that the Atrix will have a much longer "life expectancy".

Just my two cents.

Oh and by the way...for anyone on AT&T if you have an individual plan $39.99+ or a family plan $69.99+ and unlimited text you can now add Unlimited Mobile to ANY Mobile for free. I signed this morning and couldn't find any strings.

 

[EJL1980]

Oh and by the way...for anyone on AT&T if you have an individual plan $39.99+ or a family plan $69.99+ and unlimited text you can now add Unlimited Mobile to ANY Mobile for free. I signed this morning and couldn't find any strings.

Wow, right you are!

 

[jess.hickey]

Wow, right you are!

But only about that part? How about the rest of my post?

 

[EJL1980]

But only about that part? How about the rest of my post?

I agreed with all of it. Sorry

 

[textiaac]

Unfortunately, money is the only way to ?teach them a lesson?

I agree with everything said accept the "teach a lesson part" and the post (bellow) is is the reason why. BTY I am getting it on launch date, sans laptop.

I agree, no one else buy it (except me of course).

 

[E_man]

Cart before the horse. If the too many people wait until the "community" hacks a device, not enough people will have the device for any real cracking effort to take place. Also, the more Atrixes in circulation, there will be more eyes looking at the device and brainstorming new ways to exploit this beast.

Keep in mind that regardless whether you feel like a geek or not, you're part of the android community. Sometimes that involves taking risk on devices that may never be cracked.

While I don't disagree with the community sentiment, I do disagree with the responsibility you seem to have placed on the user here. If a user feels that flashing and cracking are more important than other parts of the phone, and the risk of not being able to do it as much on the atrix is too great, there is no reason not to go with the Infuse or Inspire.

I hate to say this, but look to the iPhone community for inspiration. That is one of the most locked-down devices, yet the community is large enough that jailbreaking comes pretty quickly to them. Hell, the Verizon iPhone already has been jailbroken.

Again, not sure I agree. They are only now releasing a jailbreak to the OS (4.2) that has been out for almost 3 months. The Verizon iPhone runs this version, so it's no surprise it's jailbroken. However, Apple is about to release 4.3, and so it begins anew. Not saying that those devs are bad, but it's just not as fast as you make it out to be.

Then you have the fact that the iPhone dwarfs any single Android device in sheer amount of users. That's what happens when you have a single device. The Atrix won't get near that support, no matter how many people buy the Atrix over other devices for the hope of better support.

Besides, Apple devs aren't necessarily where I want people deving for my phone to look. Of the past two releases, one dev ditched the community and released a buggy jailbreak just so he could be first and force the other devs to wait. Another Dev found a jailbreak but decided not to release it for quite some time because he felt people weren't respecting him (not sure if the dev or community is at fault on this one, but bad news either way), that's just not behavior I want to see in the android scene.

How many Android users have gotten other OSes onto our devices?

Let's see, how many run Ubuntu? Meego? Really, not an insignificant amount. The problem is, there is no way to put iOS or WP7 on these due to the nature of a near complete and total lack of source code.

Think about it. The iPhone devs are porting a FOSS OS onto thier device. There's not many of those, android is the main one people want, so little work is put into others. That's also why Ubuntu and to a lesser extent Meego are the OS's that are ported, they are FOSS as well. Most people don't want them though. Meego's not even done yet.

*Note: Despite how this post may sound, I don't hate the atrix, I plan on buying one. I don't hate the breakers and rooters of any platform. In fact, they are one thing that makes these devices fun.

 

[textiaac]

The problem is, there is no way to put iOS or WP7 on these due to the nature of a near complete and total lack of source code.

Isn't the reason windows phone seven doesn't work on an android is because wp7 is not arm based?

 

[Generic_User_2]

its not arm-based???? what the hell are you talking about? they all use the snapdragon SOC.

 

[corneliusm]

its not arm-based???? what the hell are you talking about? they all use the snapdragon SOC.

Careful there, while correcting textiaac rudely, you made an equally incorrect assertion.

What does Snapdragon have to do with anything anyway? Not all Android and WP7 phones use it. It's a Qualcomm SoC that uses an ARM core that's similar (but not an exact implementation) to the CortexA8 architecture. Competitors include the TI OMAP chips found in the (Moto DROID and iPhone 3GS), Nvidia Tegra2 (found in the Notion Ink Adam, LG Optimus 2X, Bionic, and Atrix, of course), Samsung Hummingbird (Galaxy S and Nexus S), and even Apple A4 (found in iPad and iPhone4). Needless to say, not all, nor even a majority of ARM implementations are found in Snapdragons.

Btw, Windows Phone 7 runs on ARM chips. I think Microsoft snubbed the x86, which is why intel has been looking at Android and Meego (oops, well not anymore) for its x86-mobile platform.

 

[blopez24]

Can't we all just get along?

 

[btgrave]

Can't we all just get along?

hahaha seriously.

And to the original poster, if you think $199 for a new phone on a 2 year contract is gouging, don't even wanna know what you refer to the $249 price of the Thunderbolt.

and just for fun...$499 off contract sure is a hell of a lot cheaper than $749 off contract. ouch!

 

[eallan]

Careful there, while correcting textiaac rudely, you made an equally incorrect assertion.

What does Snapdragon have to do with anything anyway? Not all Android and WP7 phones use it. It's a Qualcomm SoC that uses an ARM core that's similar (but not an exact implementation) to the CortexA8 architecture. Competitors include the TI OMAP chips found in the (Moto DROID and iPhone 3GS), Nvidia Tegra2 (found in the Notion Ink Adam, LG Optimus 2X, Bionic, and Atrix, of course), Samsung Hummingbird (Galaxy S and Nexus S), and even Apple A4 (found in iPad and iPhone4). Needless to say, not all, nor even a majority of ARM implementations are found in Snapdragons.

Btw, Windows Phone 7 runs on ARM chips. I think Microsoft snubbed the x86, which is why intel has been looking at Android and Meego (oops, well not anymore) for its x86-mobile platform.

Except what he said was right. WP7 only runs on the Snapdragon chipset as of now, which as you said is an ARM chip. So he was correct (and rude.)

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

So what am I going to do? I am going to continue using my Nexus 1 on AT&T until I found out:
1) How long will it be before the Atrix will be rooted?
2) Will Cyanogen release a ROM for the Atrix?
3) If yes with Cyanogen, will it still have the dock functionality (webtop) and ability to use 3G/4G without a tethering plan?

1. Not too long. Good chance the rage exploit will work out of the box.
2. Probably not. Motorola locks and encrypts their device bootloaders, and CM needs some specific instructions passed in the boot image, and a custom kernel. Moto would have to provide an unencrypted bootloader, or the encryption would need to be broken. Nobody knows for sure that the bootloader is locked, but it most likely will be.
3. Again, probably not. Those will not be open source, so they won't be included in any open source ROM even if the bootloader issues were worked out. Other ROM developers probably will provide the functionality though.

 

[E_man]

Isn't the reason windows phone seven doesn't work on an android is because wp7 is not arm based?

It's arm based. However, the only Android devices that even have a shot at it being ported are things like the N1/Desire/Dinc/Evo

 

[textiaac]

Btw, Windows Phone 7 runs on ARM chips. I think Microsoft snubbed the x86, which is why intel has been looking at Android and Meego (oops, well not anymore) for its x86-mobile platform.

I remember hearing of a architecture difference between the wp7 and android phones, i assumed it was x86 not a arm variation, good to know. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[corneliusm]

Except what he said was right. WP7 only runs on the Snapdragon chipset as of now, which as you said is an ARM chip. So he was correct (and rude.)

You're right. I had originally assumed the Samsung Omnia 7 had a Hummingbird CPU. Odd that Samsung chose to go with a Snapdragon. Guess WP7 does require a Snapdragon (the only SoC with WP7 drivers?). Guess WP7 is worse than I thought...