Motorola Atrix 4G & Droid Bionic Overheating / Power Management Issues Spotted Before Launch?

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It’s always annoying to hear there’s something wrong with a hot new device, but should we really care when we hear about such problems before the device gets released? Today we’re told that two flagship Motorola Android super smartphones have certain overheating issues, but considering they haven’t even been launched yet, is that a real problem? Won’t the manufacturer address the issues before they get turned into a PR post-launch disaster?

A short while ago people said that the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will have a crappy battery life and the company quickly intervened to correct those allegations. We expect Motorola to do the same thing when it comes to the Atrix 4G and the Droid Bionic, as these are the handsets we’re talking about today as they are said to suffer from certain power management issues.

On the other hand, considering we’re looking at dual-core smartphones, among the first of this kind of devices, we can’t say we’re really surprised to hear they might overheat, or not hold a proper battery charge.

But, and you’ll need lots and lots of grain of salt to go with the following clipped forum dialogue (as extracted by Droid Life from Howard Forums) this power management issues have been confirmed and could be fixed in the near future. Here are some text clippings in chronological order:

The first post by xbernaut that started this whole debacle…

If your really posting from a bionic I feel so sorry for you.that POS is so far from usable in any way shape or form.I bet that if it even makes it to shelves it will be through a bribe.the Etna and its twin for att both have a major unfixable flaw that will plaque it forever.too bad as I like it’s concept.its basically a ggalaxyS with motos XOOMs guts.almost exact!.I been using them as door stops since they are far from ready to be used daily.too bad I couldn’t hand them out as hockey pucks.

If it was given the proper dev time then I would feel differently.but knowing it’ll be rushed makes it a pass and wait for the droid X refresh or the Droid3.good luck with that sig of yours.

After pages worth of worried posts, we get another post, this time from CellZealot whom you may know from the various DROID and DROID X software leaks that we’ve all enjoyed…

The problem has to do with the PMU and causes a variety of issues including severe overheating even while at idle, power fluctuations affecting RF performance and cold boot issues.

These things were told to me by someone who is testing the devices. I have no hands on experience myself.

If you want to believe me that’s fine…if not…that’s fine too.

I have no intention of disclosing or discussing anything about my sources.

Satisfying people’s curiosity on internet forums is utterly worthless compared to their trust and my continued ability to have access to them.

If the reasons why aren’t plainly obvious to you then I needn’t bother explaining…sorry.

Seven hours later, CellZealot returns to clarify…

I asked if the PMU was a discreet component on the board like with the original Droid(actually a dual PMIC solution) which controls both the AP(Applications Processor) and BP(Baseband Processor), he said “Yes both”.

I responded that that was bad because it meant that this could be laid directly at the feet of Moto because they selected that component as opposed to it having been an integrated chipset problem.

He said “Yup!”.

And finally, a response to CellZealot from Winston25 who is apparently deep inside Motorola…

I expect that PMU issue will be solved, shortly. This week. Maybe even today. (and don’t ask me to say more)

kbman (CellZealot), I don’t know who your source is but I am impressed. That is some very deep level information.

Yes, it sounds like a soap opera, and no, we won’t stop hoping the Atrix 4G and the Droid Bionic, the Olympus and Etna flagship phones we were waiting for, we’ll turn out to be awful flops. Now, Motorola, remember, denial is just a river in Egypt is not going to really help you that much in case you won’t be able to fix this overheating issues before you launch the phones. And speaking of launch dates the Atrix 4G seems to be the closest to launch, isn’t it?