We were expecting something dual core-ish from Motorola at CES after the leaks of the Olympus, and boy, did we get something to get excited about.

Motorola has thrown away the form book with the new Atrix, with a range of stunning specs to appease even the most hardcore user.

We're talking a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor with two 1GHz chips running in tandem to offer a judder-free existence and lower battery consumption, as well as 1GB of RAM to keep slowdown to a minimum.

The screen is very much next generation as well, with its qHD pixel count stuffed into a 4-inch display nabbing the title of the world's highest-res screen from the iPhone 4.

And even though the dual core processor is supposed to help with the battery life, there's still an industry-leading 1980mAh battery squashed in the back as well, with 16GB of storage ably backed up by a microSD for up to 32GB of extra space.

Hands on: Motorola Atrix review: Design

So with all that in mind, it's actually very surprising to find that the Motorola Atrix doesn't look like the ugliest phone in the world - it's no great shakes in the style stakes, but it's averagely attractive and won't be the most horrendous fashion statement.

The overall design is very square and black - the front is dominated by the display, with the four front touch-sensitive buttons the only difference in furniture, as well as the VGA front-facing camera for video calling.

The back is reminiscent of mottled carbon fibre, with an attractive sheen and a decent grip level - nothing spectacular, but acceptable.

Given the large screen size, it's good to note that the phone sits well in the hand, and the screen is mostly all in reach of a finger or thumb - some jiggling will be needed to pull down the top notification bar, but overall it's not too bad and will suit most pockets and bags.

The thickness of 10.9mm is a massive surprise when you think about the innards - that battery pack puts the likes of the HTC Desire to shame, and will hopefully become the norm in more devices as we get used to ever-more power-hungry phones in the future.

The other elements on the phone are pretty standard: the volume rocker is easy to hit and works well enough when taking a call or listening to music, and the power/lock button is well positioned on the back of the phone near the top.

What is cool here is the button also doubles as a slick fingerprint reader, which is a very secure and cool way to unlock your new Android phone - in our tests it worked very well and responsively, so it seems more functional than a gimmick.

There's an HDMI-out slot next to the microUSB opening on the side of the phone - but that's just the start of the multi-media output for the Motorola Atrix as you'll see later.

One thing is for sure – it's lightning fast and the display is stunning in terms of colour and resolution. However, we're not amazingly convinced by Moto's claim that the display is "easier to read indoors and outdoors" – it still had major problems with glare from nearby lights.

While the screen's brightness might annoy some people, they won't be able to find a problem with the touch operation. The screen responded fantastically well, with no slowdown even when running multiple applications and widgets simultaneously - doubly impressive when you consider we were looking at a non-final product.