CES 2011 Wrap Up: Many Surprises, and One Huge Dissapointment

Practically every notable Android phone maker released a new device this week at CES 2011, and boy did they have a different turnout than I thought. To start, Motorola released a bevy of devices yesterday, most notably their new "Superphone", the Atrix 4G. This boy packs a Dual-Core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, runs Android 2.2, has a 5MP shooter with 720p capable video recording capabilities, a 960 by 540 resolution 4 inch display (called qHD) and 1GB of RAM to top it of. The most-hyped about feature of this device is the fact that it comes with a dead netbook that you dock the Atrix to, and suddenly your phone is your computer. Wow. There are 2 downsides of this behemoth phone: 1. The shooter is only 5MP and 2. It is on AT&T. Quite a Motofail in my opinion. Verizon has stuck with Motorola for 2 years releasing all of their flagship devices with them, and then Motorola just stabs them in the back. Verizon will have to deal with the Droid Bionic, which sports similar though not as impressing specs: a dual-core OMAP or NVIDIA Tegra 2 (getting different answers from every source, and Motorola doesn't have the full spec sheet on their website) processor, Android 2.2, has an 8MP shooter (win) that shoots 720p, a 4.3 inch qHD display, and a hugely dissapointing 512 MB (what went wrong I don't know) of RAM. This must surely be Verizon's flagship device for the next few months, as none of these devices are expected to come in January. Keep in mind, Froyo doesn't fully support both cores, and Gingerbread does, so get ready for a major speed boost come update time. Also, both devices feature 1930 Mah battery, so battery life shouldn't be an issue. I really don't know why they didn't give the Atrix an 8MP shooter, it really would have killed the spec sheet. Last from Moto is the Xoom, that runs Android 3.0. The OS wasn't finished yet so we couldn't actually explore it, but from the videos it looks jaw-dropping. The Tablet has similar specs to the Atrix, but the cameras are a little bit more low-res. LG shot out an Android device featuring a dual-core processor, called the Optimus 2X. This phone just rocks. It has the Atrix specs, but with a smaller battery and an 8MP camera. Now the best goodie is that this Records 1080p. On a phone. 1080p on a phone. Just WOW. Now to the one HUGE dissapointment. This comes from HTC. The Thunderbolt. The specs seem pretty good: 4G LTE, 8MP camera, Android 2.2 with the wonderful new Sense.......and a 1GHZ Snapdragon processor, no dual core. Why? It is single core! No speed, just the average. I was really waiting for HTC to wow me, and they failed, miserably. HTC announced a bunch of other devices on other carriers too, no dual core awesomeness. One thing to note, the Verizon IPhone was not announced at Verizon's keynote today. Is it ever coming? I don't know. Please be sure to share this article!