Motorola phones get docking station
Motorola earlier this year introduced the Atrix, an Android phone that will be available from AT&T. The Atrix can be connected to a docking station that looks like a laptop but has no CPU, providing users with the screen and keyboard.
Atrix will be only the first Motorola phone to use a laptop-style docking station, it says.
Cnet says the handset isn't just a fairly impressive smartphone; it also has the capability to combine “Voltron comic series style” with a type of dock that turns it into a laptop replacement.
Motorola is calling the gadget a 'Webtop' computer. It's not meant to be a user's main computing device - it uses the handset as a 'primary brain', so it is underpowered when compared with even a Netbook - but it's an interesting competitor to other not-as-laptop portables, like tablets.
Despite having its own tablet on the market, the Xoom, Motorola said it's bringing the Webtop experience to more of its handsets this year.
According to InforWorld, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha says from the second half of the year on, those high-end phones will have Motorola's Webtop application that lets the phones pair with the docking station.
"What we're trying to do is recognise that the smartphone really works extremely well for 80% of the time but sometimes you need a bigger display and a larger keyboard”. The memory and processing speeds available with today's phones make it possible to run applications on the larger form factor of the docking station, he adds.
Motorola will not be the first to pair a phone with a stripped-down laptop. Palm once announced a similar concept, called the Folio, but scuttled it before the release, the publication says.
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