Motorola told to ditch Atrix ads after complaints to Advertising Standards Authority

Motorola has been told to stop running adverts for its Atrix handset that describe it as "the world's most powerful smartphone", after a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The watchdog investigated after receiving two complaints from members of the public who pointed out that the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 has a more powerful processor.

Motorola told the ASA that the claim was based on the device being slotted into the Lapdock, which is powered by two 1GHz processors and allows the Atrix to run several applications as well as being used as a smartphone.

Motorola conceded that the Samsung handset has a faster processor, but insisted that the Atrix is the most powerful in terms of the capabilities of its processor when used with the laptop dock.

The ASA accepted Motorola's argument, but ruled that the way the information was presented made the adverts misleading for the average consumer.

"We considered that viewers would understand the claim 'the world's most powerful smartphone', along with a close-up of the phone, to mean that the phone, in isolation, was the most powerful smartphone," the regulator said.

"Because the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 had a faster processor than the Atrix, we considered that the claim 'the world's most powerful smartphone' had not been substantiated by comparative evidence, and concluded that it was misleading."

In a statement Motorola said it had never set out to mislead customers and that its advertising has been misunderstood.

"Motorola Atrix was announced in January and at that time we considered its combination of outstanding features to make it the world's most powerful smartphone and our intention was never for consumers to imply fastest," it said.

Motorola's Mobility division is to be bought by Google for $12.5bn in a move that could cause huge upheaval in the smartphone industry by undermining Google's relationship with Android manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung.

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