AT&T openly defends $500 Motorola Atrix notebook dock

Many consumers are understandably upset about the outrageous $500 Atrix laptop dock to be released next month. This is especially true after rumors of a $50 to $60 dock began circulating weeks prior to the official price announcement from AT&T. Now, Mobile Products vice president Mike Woodward is openly defending the price, stating that the dock really is “not that expensive “ and that the dual nature of the Atrix smartphone will allow you to “do more on an Atrix than you can on a netbook.” Bold words indeed, but somewhat true considering that the Atrix will be a much more all-in-one device compared to its immediate competition and can potentially replace the user’s need for a separate tablet, phone, and netbook. Furthermore, if facing up against the recently announced $800 Motorola Xoom, the $500 Atrix dock may not be that bad of a deal.

Unfortunately, there are still many convincing arguments against the steep price. For example, Electronista mentions that users must be in a 2-year contract for the Atrix smartphone whereas netbooks and most tablets do not have such requirements. Additionally, netbooks can be found at much cheaper prices these days with ample processing power and hard drive space for a full-fledged Windows or other OS.

So far, the high price of entry for the full Atrix experience is still rather off-putting. The high-end smartphone will be powered by a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor with 1GB of RAM and has a U.S. release date of March 6^th. With only a few weeks left, AT&T may need to try a little harder in convincing customers who are on the fence about the steep investment.

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