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Rumor: Sprint’s Motorola Phone to be Called the Motorola Photon 4G, Early Details Inside

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We’ve long heard Sprint would be getting an Atrix-like device of their own from Motorola. We had no idea when they’d introduce it and what it’d look like. Today, we have more details. The device is said to be closer to the Motorola DROID X and X2 as far as size goes, meaning we can probably expect to see a device that’s 4.3 inches in size. We can also expect it to have a qHD display and a Tegra 2 processor inside, at the least. And those lovely 4G radios, of course.

The preliminary hardware specs were obvious, but we didn’t have anything as far as a name goes. We’ve received word that the device will indeed be called the Motorola Photon 4G. Doing a bit more digging, it appears the Photon received WiFi certification back in April. Its model number will be MB855 on Sprint.

We’re hearing a release could be sometime within the next month or two with an announcement coming shortly, but nothing is yet final. We haven’t been able to uncover FCC documents, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t ready to go on sale here in the United States. OEMs often ask for confidentiality up to a certain amount of days.

So what say you, folks? Will you fall in line for what is essentially Sprint’s version of the Motorola DROID X2? Let’s hope we find out more details in the weeks to come.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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55 Comments

  1. First

    1. Also, someone fucked with phandroid. the formatting is all messed up and glitchy.

    2. First ****head

  2. That’s it, I can’t stand the phandroid ads anymore. I use noscript addon on my PC, and 10-20 nonPhandroid sites are blocked each time I come here. It really is ridiculous, and reminds me of the old Geocities pages by 12 year olds who loved to have as much javascript crap and animated GIF’s thrown in your face as possible. Can anyone direct me to a different android news site? Preferrably one that has more news than scripts.

    1. Use Chrome, Adblock, and Flashblock, and forget about it. You’ll never see an ad again. 

      1. Some android programs block themselves if an adblock is in use. If I have to choose between certain android apps or Phandroid… I’d rather get my news elsewhere. Why do we even need scripts loaded from several outside sources? This is malware in my opinion.

        1. Are you paying them to write the news you read?  They have to make money somehow and lets face it ads are a lot better than us having to pay to read the Android news.

          1. They can be a lot less intrusive with their advertisements; They can use a little restraint. Instead, half the bandwidth I use to browse this site is sucked up by products I don’t want.

        2. Try android central. i like that website

    2. Geocities LMAOOOO. good times….

    3. i like android central just as much if not more than phandroid

  3. If the bootloader is encrypted its a no go for me.  It most likely will be coming from Moto.

    1. As an EVO owner I prefer HTC but between Evo 3D and ths, I’ll get whichever is rooted.  Sounds like 3D might be out.

    2. Moto already stated that they’re unlocking the Bootloaders on all future Android phones… supposedly including this one.

  4. Another reason iPhone sucks. It’s ruining Verizon. Verizon is slacking in phones, the ones they are releasing may have 4G, but the specs are shit compared to others like the Atrix and Evo3D. If Verizon doesn’t start choosing quality over quantity, im going to the only real carrier left, Sprint. Unless of course, the ATT Tmo merger fails.

    1. blame the carrier, not the phone

      1. Im blaming Verizon, mostly, but also the iPhone. Not blaming any Android phones. It seems they have shifted ALL their attention to the iPhone.

        1. really shifted all attention? the last time i have seen an ad for the verizon iphone on tv has been in a long while, they advertise the thunderbolt and other droids more, i see outside my local verizon store a poster for the Thunderbolt and for 4G not iphone

          1. What happened to the Droid Bionic?

  5. YARELL, WHERE YOU AT!?!!

    1. c’mon man- dont wake the troll

    2. +1

      lol

    3. And to think I used to like you, Chris. Callin the troll?

      Just kidding. I still like you. Kind of.

    4. Chris he got his Evo 3D you won’t see him come out of hiding for a while!

      1. *gasp* How’d he get the E3D before his prediction that it would be out on June 4th?! I call shenanigans! Especially considering Sprint hasn’t even set a release date, and its a week and a few days shy of June 4th!  /sarcasm  (by the way, he’s flip-flopped the days he thinks it will be released among the various forums, ranging from on the 4th, to the 3rd, anywhere between the 3rd and 6th, then back to the 3rd. He can’t even stick to one date…) 
        Maybe he’s finally “seen the light” about how stupid his comments are. He hasn’t posted anything anywhere in over a full day. Quite unusual…

    5. Hey Chris. I’ll tell you EXACTLY where that idiot is. He hangs out at goodandevo.net and androidandme.com, especially the former site.

      You guys are right about him being a troll. You can’t argue with him. He repeats the same sh!t over and over, saying that the EVO3D will be better than the Galaxy S2 when all specs point otherwise.  Arrrgghhhh!

      Anyway – Looking forward to seeing this guy get his comeuppance. I really like my EVO4G, but “meh” with EVO3D. Waiting to hear more on the Motorola Photon 4G and especially Galaxy S2 especially.

      I loved coming to goodandevo.net, but that guy makes it unbearable.

  6. Didn’t AndroidAndMe break this news yesterday? How’s this an exclusive?

    1. Nobody had a name for the device. Until now. 

      1. So the exclusive is that you guys found the name of the device that AndroidAndMe originally reported on?

        1. /ownd

          1. I wouldn’t say owned. I’d say he’s right… but we learned and published that first, so, not really owned in any way.

      2. pretty sure this is the sunfire, the photon is a different device

  7. Sprint keep motoring along with there device what a beautiful thing to sit back and see what they are doing and the relationships being formed with an eye on the future. Google, Htc, now motorola the future is always going to be bright for the NOW NETWORK because they plan ahead and never rest on THERE LAURELS…. LIKE ALL THOSE OTHER USELESS. CARRIERS… IE.. VERIZON AND AT&T…. SPRINT IS SHITTING ALL OVER VERIZON AND THERE OUTDATED CRAPPY ASS PHONES.

    1. Who woke the troll?

        1. That’s not Yarell. It’s an imposter. 

          1. It is yarell’s assistant. His title is Assistant B–ch.

    2. Sorry, the network makes the carrier. In that regard, Sprint fails.

      1. If you’re in the northern-middle part of the US, sure. Everywhere else is pretty well covered.

        WiMax is also pretty quick in most areas and still unlimited.

        1. Umm, no it isnt. I am an hour outside of NYC, and Sprint isnt even close to being here. And, Wimax isnt available in “most” areas. Not even “most” areas where Sprint actually gets coverage.

          1. Coverage map is fairly good in New York except for the Tupper Lake area.

            WiMax is pretty quick in most areas = The speeds are pretty good in
            most areas where WiMax is available.

          2. Umm, no. Its not. Looking at THEIR map, most of their “coverage” is roaming. As in, there is more gray then green(nationally no less). And, like I said, I live in New york. 1 hour drive from NYC, and Sprint DOES NOT have service.

          3. Most areas based on population, not geography.

        2. Right? It’s complete crap in Minnesota. 

  8. Sprint is on a roll right now.  Awesome to see this!

  9. Good for sprint. Now if they only had a network to run it on. They need to keep expanding their wimax so that more than a handful of people actually get it.

  10. Sprint loves beast sized phones. I’d like to see them have more phones that are a lil diff. I actually liked the Kyocera Echo a lot. 

    1. That makes 1 person.

      Have you SEEN the sales figures for the Original Evo? About every other smartphone I see from a Sprint user is an Evo. I personally have an Epic, because I like the KB, but My mom, Brother in law, and about 8 people at my job all have Evos. That size is VERY popular. Oh, and despite my talking up how great the Evo Shift is, nobody I know has one. (I do have about 5 friends who have Epics, though….)

  11. its the bionic!

  12. so, sprint is getting a 4G Droid X2 style phone but verizon makes their droid x2 3g only… y couldn’t vzw just request the dx2 to be lte?

  13. If sprint releases another 4.3″ device…non HTC… i just might. Especially if it finds its way out in June. Since the GS2 is having trouble with the courts.

  14. Sprint coverage in NYC stinks. I’m down here near 1 Broadway, by a window on the 20th floor, a few blocks from Wall St and Ground Zero, with my Epic (I’m not going to call it the Epic 4G, since I can’t maintain a 4G signal):
    Try 1: Ping: 655ms Download: 86kbps Upload: Network Communications Issues — Try Again
    Try 2: Ping: 612ms Download: -0kbps Upload: 124kbps
    Try 3: Ping: 801ms Download: 134kbps Upload: 149kbps
    Try 4: Ping: 793ms Download: 133kbps Upload: 97kbps
    Try 5: Ping: 786ms Download: 133kbps Upload: 64kbps

    That’s “coverage”? What a joke. Before they put out a 3D phone, they should have a real 3G network!

  15. lol

  16. The thing I liked the most about the Atrix was that it wasn’t so big (about 4.6″).  Looks like they are going to muck that up by making another tablet-sized phone like everyone is doing.  I just hope that Levis, Dockers, etc. start making their pockets larger or else we’re all going to have to start wearing fanny packs just to carry our damn phones around!  It’s getting ridiculous.

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