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Review: The dual-core Motorola Photon 4G

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Motorola Photon 4G

Motorola Photon 4G is one of the flagship Android phones coming from the American manufacturer. Released in July, last summer, Motorola Photon 4G is Sprint’s flagship superphone as well, and with a large qHD screen, dual core processor and WiMax technology, it does not disappoint. Instead of going for a gimmicky 3D technology like some of its Korean and Taiwanese competitors, Motorola has prepared a super usable and stable piece of technology that gets the basics right and performs impressively on top of that.

What is it?

As the name suggest, Photon 4G is smartphone based on latest 4G technologies and supports HSDPA and WiMax technologies. What makes it truly global is the inclusion of CDMA/EV-DO along with GSM/HSPA technologies that aim to support all kinds of available technologies all over the world. Motorola is also aggressively advertising the WebTop functionality that was first introduced with Motorola Atrix 4G and supported on Photon 4G. So the obvious question arises here, how does it fair in comparison with the latest and greatest from other manufacturers like HTC, LG and Samsung? Let’s take a closer look.

Key features

1. Operating system

Photon 4G runs Android Gingerbread version 2.3.4 on it and dons a different skin rather than Motorola’s annoying Blur. Motorola seemed to have grasped the public outrage against Blur and slowly phasing it out in favour of the lightweight skin they used in their Droid line. The Droid UI is much better in terms of performance and usability and does away with the negative aspects of MotoBlur. Motorola allows users to customize the homescreen with different dock icons just like Samsung TouchWiz. Nothing surprisingly new is present here, everything just works pretty fine.

2. Display

Motorola used a standard LCD TFT screen of 4.3 inches on Photon. The display has a resolution of qHD of 960 x 540 and a PPI of 256 which is pretty impressive. The screen looks vivid and crisp and thanks to the huge PPI, the text and everything else looks pretty clear.

3. Camera

Photon has an 8 MP primary camera with dual LED flash. The camera looks fairly similar to the one Motorola used on their Droid X2. Thankfully, Motorola added a dedicated camera button to the phone, makes it a lot easier to snap photos. The sensor used on Photon is quite competent and takes vibrant photos in the daylight. Unfortunately, there is no night mode available on the phone and low light performance is quite average with noticeable noise. The camera also offers automatic face detection, geo-tagging and image stabilization. On the video side of things, Photon only captures 720p videos at 30 fps without supporting full HD 1080p videos. The front facing camera is only VGA.

4. Connectivity

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Motorola really focused on the connectivity part of the phone and the result is pretty awesome. Photon supports HSDPA and HSUPA based 3G connections on the other hand also supports EVDO Rev. A on CDMA networks which makes it a perfect candidate for being a world phone. But that is not the end of it. Being a 4G phone, Photon also supports WiMax technology for blazing fast download and upload speeds.

5. Battery life

Photon uses a 1700 mAh, Li-ion battery to charge up the hardware. According to Motorola, the standard standby time is up to 288h on 2G and 312h on 3G. On real world tests, coupled with benchmarking, almost half an hour session of 3D gaming, regular calls and web surfing, the phone managed to last a whole day on battery without a hitch. This is pretty impressive, considering the amount of features and connectivity options it offers.

6. Performance

When put under popular Android benchmarking software, Photon does considerably better than any other Motorola phones. It scores over 2400 on Quadrant which is well over the scores of phones like Droid X or LG G2x. Using a relatively new benchmarking software called Vellamo which benchmarks rendering, JavaScript, canvas, HTML5, image scrolling capabilities along with network performance and user experience, Photon managed to score 750 which is impressive.

What’s innovative?

Motorola has gone in lengths to ensure the quality of their flagship Photon 4G. The usage of a right mix of plethora of connectivity options makes it a perfect candidate for being a world phone. Motorola’s decision for not adding MotoBlur to Photon also fits in as the end user experiences is more likable on Photon. The WebTop connectivity is quite fantastic and increases the scope of your phone dramatically by transforming it into a desktop PC.

Price and availability

The phone is available on Sprint’s network on a 2 years contract for $200. It has been actually released on August and widely available now.

Accessories

The most celebrated and well known accessory for the Motorola Photon 4G is the HD Dock which transforms the phone into a media hub. Available for $129, the dock allows the phone to be plugged in and comes with an infrared remote control for media controls. The dock offers a HDMI cable output for HDTV or Computer monitors and three USB 2.0 ports for connecting USB based devices such as keyboard etc.

Other interesting accessories include portable Bluetooth based speakers from Motorola and Bluetooth based watch, also from Motorola.

The up side

Plethora of connectivity options, a gorgeous screen, sturdy build and WebTop connectivity makes Photon 4G a fantastic choice for Android lovers. The phone does not disappoint with performance and manages to belong in the list of top performing superphones.

The down side

  • Motorola used standard LCD TFT which is an old technology.
  • No 1080p video recording.
  • Average quality of camera.

The bottomline

If one is looking for an Android device that performs well and can give competition to most of the superphones out there, Motorola Photon 4G is a definitely phone to check out. The sturdy build, vivid display and huge connectivity options make the phone a winner.

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