The Motorola Atrix 4G and the Laptop Dock: At These Prices, Who’s Buying?

The Motorola Atrix 4G is the first, and only (for now) smartphone that can connect to an interesting laptop dock that’ll allow users to browse the full web like on a regular laptop.

But this all comes at a cost; the dock alone either costs $300 on contract after a $100 mail-in rebate, or $500 off contract. Then, in order to use to laptop dock to access the web, customers have no choice but to get the $45/month DataPro package with tethering. That’ll come at a cost of $1080 over 2 years. This is compared to the 200 MB DataPro package which costs $360 over 2 years or the 2 GB DataPro package which will cost $600 over 2 years which are required for the use of the phone alone.

Bottom Line: Atrix 4G + Laptop Dock + Phone Plan + Data Plan + Tethering

So, in total, if you were to buy the laptop dock at the same time as the phone and get the on-contract price, you would be paying about $1580 over the course of the contract ($200 for the phone, $300 for the laptop, $1080 for the data) and this isn’t even considering the price of the voice plan (which will add at least another $960). You’ll also be liable for any applicable taxes and any accessories you decide to get with the phone.

Are You Willing to Pay This Much for an Atrix 4G’s Cool Add-On?

This is definitely way more expensive than simply buying the phone with the 2 GB DataPro plan and wirelessly tethering your phone to a full-fledged laptop. And considering the only thing the laptop dock can do is browse the internet via Firefox, compared to a laptop or netbook that can do that, plus utilize Microsoft Office applications, play games, and many other things, in reality, it doesn’t really seem worth it.

Are you guys content with paying these prices for an accessory that can only browse the web and charge the phone?  Is the Atrix 4G worth all this?