The Motorola Atrix 4G was one of the most exciting products I saw at CES in January. That’s not just because it was one of the first dual core phones with an NVIDIA Tegra processor, but also because of the optional docking station that lets you use the Android smartphone like a laptop computer, complete with a full desktop version of the Firefox web browser. And then Motorola and AT&T announced the pricing… and suddenly I lost interest.
When the Atrix 4G launched in February you could pick up the phone for $200 with a 2-year contract. But if you wanted the laptop dock you’d have to spend $500. And if you didn’t want to sign that two year contract, the laptop dock alone would set you back $500.
Flash forward a few months and the laptop dock is now selling for $400… which is still way too much money for a keyboard and display which doesn’t have its own processor, storage, or operating system. But Android Central is reporting that another price cut is set to take effect this weekend.
Starting May 1st, you may be able to pick up the laptop dock for $300, or purchase the phone and dock for $400 after rebate with a 2-year contract.
The combo price isn’t all that bad, but $300 still seems like too much money to ask for a peripheral. On the other hand, if you think of the laptop dock as something that lets you replace a netbook with your smartphone, I suppose it’s finally entering netbook price territory.
If someone made a screen-included dock like this for, say, any smartphone with HDMI out (using bluetooth for peripheral connection), I could see it — especially if that was also (“simply” — I know it’s not simple) a mode offered by an Android tablet akin to the Asus Transformer.
(That is, it would be great to be able to use a full-fledged tablet as a larger-screen interface for a phone; what sucks is being limited to one company or –as now — one *model* of phone, and having 90 percent of a laptop computer that’s only usable with the phone docked inside it.)
timothy
should it be priced under $200 and be compatible with their other future smart phones offerings, this lap/dock will definately drive their phone sales xooming way, way forward.
The market will drop this price to $149 of which will try and compete with the ASUS Transformer. Motorola is an idiot for pricing this at $300.