It’s pretty obvious that I’m an Apple guy. My iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and iMac all make that pretty apparent. I’ve also been told that I dress like the Mac guy from the commercials — not done on purpose of course. To sum it up, I live and breathe Apple.

So when I was asked by the features editors to review the Motorola ATRIX 2, I took this as an opportunity to see if I could live outside of the Apple product ecosystem.

From Thursday to Sunday, a period of four days, I would completely stop using my iPhone and use the ATRIX 2 as my only phone. Making the switch was by no means a life altering situation. I was still using a smartphone — one that is very similar, sometimes better than my iPhone 4S in hardware specification. Both feature an 8 megapixel camera with flash. Both have dual-core processors. The real big switch here was me dumping Apple’s iOS for Google’s Android operating system — I know, this sounds like such a #firstworldproblem.

On the first day of using the ATRIX 2, I thought I could make the switch to Android. Motorola made a solid phone with this device. The phone, which was introduced back in February, is by no means Moto’s newest offering, but for a device with 9 month old hardware, it still performs really well.

The device itself looks just like any other touch screen smartphone out there. A smooth glass face, four touch-sensitive buttons running along the bottom of that screen, a rubber-textured back, and it’s all black. It’s a pretty thin smartphone, measuring in at 10.4 mm, slightly thicker than the iPhone 4S’ 9.3 mm. The ATRIX 2 features 4G data, something that I wasn’t able to try out because the C-U area doesn’t have it yet, but I’m sure it’s much faster than the iPhone’s 3G data speeds.

While both the iPhone and ATRIX 2 have the same megapixel camera, the optics of their lenses really separate the two phones. The 4S has some of the best pictures on any phone out there and that’s because of the lens Apple used. Photo nerds will agree with me in that it’s not a matter of megapixels that determines a good photo — it’s the lens.

The really wowing feature of the ATRIX 2 is it’s screen, which is 4.3 inches. Coming from the iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen, this was a huge change and one of the features I really wish Apple could’ve built into the 4S. Motorola was able to integrate the larger screen into a device that was not much bigger than the iPhone.

While the ATRIX 2 was a beauty to hold in your hand, actually interacting with it was a different story.

Powering the phone is Google’s Android operating system. Don’t get me wrong, while I prefer using Apple’s iOS system, Android is the next best thing or equal to Apple’s mobile operating system. Any Android powered device is a solid choice when compared to Blackberrys or Windows phones. Just like iOS, Android has a solid app market that allows it’s user to add additional functionality to their phones. I found switching to Android pretty seamless — most of the apps that I frequently use had an Android equivalent, and because I synched the phone up with my multiple Gmail accounts, I quickly had access to my email and contacts.

The Android experience, when thought of conceptually, is identical to the iPhone experience. So much so that when Google announced the Android operating system, Steve Jobs lamented that it was a direct copy of iOS. Jobs felt that it was a backstabbing move since he had mentored the two founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

But while they may be identical, it’s the details that really separate Android from iOS. Thumbing through apps isn’t as smooth as it should be, scrolling down web pages is a little clunky, and animations just aren’t all that smooth. Web browsing wasn’t that robust and using the email on the phone was just not as intuitive. You can tell that Apple took great care to think of the end user experience when designing the iPhone. Anyone can pick up an iPhone and immediately know how to use it. While my roommate will complain that there are so many apps out there that will allow you to customize your Android experience, I just want the best user experience from a phone straight out of the box.

That’s where Android has the iPhone beat, though. Customization. Android phones are the ultimate nerd toy. You can hack it, root it, whatever, to get the experience just to your liking. While there are people out there who jailbreak their iPhones to get additional functionality out of it, Android almost encourages it.

The bottom line: The ATRIX 2 is a solid phone that runs a solid piece of software. But it’s the details that separate this phone from the iPhone — a polished user interface. So Motorola can have their phone back. I’ll gladly go back to my iPhone.

_Charlie is a senior in Media. _