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In case you’ve forgotten, Sprint was scheduled to launch the Motorola Photon 4G on July 31st. It’s August 1st now, so that can only mean that you’re allowed to walk into your local Sprint store get your hands on one. It’s Sprint’s first high-end device by Motorola and their first with an NVIDIA dual-core Tegra 2 processor.
What you’re getting is a 4.3 inch qHD beast. Alongside from sheer processing power, you’ll be happy to find 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, HDMI-out, WebTop functionality, 4G and a whole lot more. Android 2.3 Gingerbread with the latest version of BLUR is awaiting you on the software side.
All of this comes to those willing to sign a new two-year agreement for $199.99 at Sprint. It’s not Sprint’s first dual-core phone, but we feel it may be able to hold its own up against the HTC EVO 3D. Take a good hard look at the device and pick one up if it woos you. And if you need more convincing, look no further than the blossoming Photon 4G community at AndroidForums.com. Any of you picking this one up?
Guess I’ll get this or the SGS2 when I skip to sprint.
once someone hammers out a AOSP based rom for it to get rid of the blur it will look more enticing (again for when i jump ship to sprint LOL. stuck at Tmo with the Vibrant)
Have you seen the newest build for Blur?
yup. people slag it off and most of the time theyve not tried it or even seen it. the newest version is pretty awesome. superfast, looks great and got some very nice features. i really like the 3d effect as you scroll between the screens. theyve take onboard a lot of the criticsms and feedback. one of the best custom UIs around now. people still think its the blur of old from 2 or 3 years ago.
Same with TouchWiz 4.0 on the Galaxy S II. Its is really fast as its the only launcher with hardware acceleration enabled.
But like you said there are always people who slag blur and touchwiz off. Mosy of them are Sense users
While I know nothing about the new blur, I do know that most people agree that Touchwiz 4 actually adds to the user experience (like sense does) rather than reduce it.
A key difference though is that nearly all Motorola Droids have locked boot loaders so what you have is what you get. Not so with Samsung and most HTC Android phones.
Going from a Vibrant to the Photon wouldn’t really be much of an upgrade.
Root your Vibrant and put MIUI on it. You’ll love it so much you won’t want to upgrade.
If your wanting to move to Sprint because of the network or to distance yourself from AT&T, I would suggest either the Nexus S or the Evo 3D because they have custom roms. The Photon may or may not get custom roms.
Also just put a launcher like ADW on it and call it a day. You don’t need root for that and it adds any number of themes you would like.
If I jump ship from Verizon it would most likely be to Sprint…that said, I’m glad to see they have another nice handset added to their already impressive lineup.
nice review of the device here. plenty of benchmarks and screenshots.
http://androidcommunity.com/motorola-photon-4g-review-20110729/
Really? Benchmarks? Lol.
~3000 quadrant with qHD, pretty impressive.
I just ordered mine this morning. I’m glad I waited and skipped over the EVO 3D, since I really don’t care for the whole 3D thing.
As “gimmicky” as people say the 3D portion of the E3D is, it’s still a great phone without the feature. I see it as an added bonus. You aren’t forced to use it. I guarantee if you did get the phone, you would use it though.
That could very well be. I abstained from upgrading since last October until there was a phone that I knew I would be satisfied with.
I still have the old HTC Hero, which is really dying in terms of battery life and memory usage. The biggest drawback to the Hero lately for me has been the camera, which has a good 3 second lag from when I hit the button to when it actually takes a photo.
And video has been a terrible thing, with the audio never syncing correctly or completely cutting out when uploading to YouTube.
I’m looking forward to decent video and photo capabilities, so I can be sure that the memories I’m catching of my family will be usable in the future.
Well, I can personally tell you that the E3D takes stunning photos. Either way, I would rather have the Sprint GS2 variant (Within) over the Photon.
I evaluated both before opting for the Photon this weekend. The reason I didn’t go with the S2 is simple, issues with Samsungs upgrades in the past, the fact that you don’t know when the phone is coming, the qHD screen is higher resolution than the SAMOLED, and the Sprint version may have a variant in the processor. The Photon is speedy, has no lag in loading settings, apps, messages, phone calls, and is all-around a great offering. I don’t blame you for waiting on the S2 as it does look like a great phone. I chose not to wait.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not waiting on anything. I already own the EVO 3D. I’ve had it since day 1. While the GS2 resolution might be slightly worse than the Photon (qHD screens in general), the overall clarity and images are way more crisp and satisfying.
I went into Sprint the other day to check this out to get an idea of what the bionic would be like and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Screen was as bad if not worse than the X2 and it still lags while running Blur. It was surprisingly light though, lighter than my Inc 2. I hope the Bionic is taking longer because Moto is fixing these issues. Probably not though
I do not think you tested this phone at all. There is no lag, there is no slow-down. This thing zips and is better on 4G than the EVO 4G (not the new one, I haven’t tested that much). This is an incredible phone and the Blur is almost unrecognizable, much closer to stock than any Moto I’ve seen. This is a great phone.
Sounds like a liar.
This is, obviously, my opinion of the phone after playing with it for 10 minutes.Why someone would lie about that is beyond me – I love all things tech. I found my Inc 2 to have a better screen and snappier UI performance.The Photon was also choppy while rendering and browsing pages on the internet. Maybe it’s just because I’m used to the fluidity of my phone or because of the particular unit they had out. And keep in mind I only had 10 minutes with the thing, a first impression if you will. Whatever though – I’m glad there are people out there who love it. To each his own
I would say test another phone, or possibly if you know someone who has one. I would describe all of your issues as being ones I have not encountered having the phone for a day. Also, there are some issues with data on some of the phones (solution is to go to settings, mobile networks and switch from any CDMA to automatic) then you will see the thing speeding around webpages and the like. I would say that the INC 2 is fast, but I would say they are comparable when doing all tasks.
Eagerly waiting for the GS2, but I’d like to actually examine and evaluate all three at a Sprint store so when I make comments later I’ll actually be speaking from some experience with them.