{"id":14028,"date":"2012-11-13T10:18:10","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T16:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=14028"},"modified":"2013-02-07T14:19:53","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T20:19:53","slug":"review-motorola-photon-q-brings-the-qwerty-love-to-sprint-lte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/column\/review-column\/review-motorola-photon-q-brings-the-qwerty-love-to-sprint-lte\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Motorola Brings QWERTY Expertise To Sprint With Photon Q"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Motorola has long been one of the strongest Android phone makers. While Samsung may get higher numbers and HTC a bit more of the mind share, Motorola’s original Droid for Verizon is arguably the phone that made Android take off as more than just “not iPhone.” The line is so successful that many users dub all Android phones Droids, a la Band-Aid or Kleenex, and Verizon has embraced that by calling almost all of its Android phones just that, as Verizon has the license from LucaAarts, not Motorola. Now a division of Google, Motorola may not have had a Nexus phone or the ability to put straight Android on without modifications<\/a>, but the company is absolutely a force to be reckoned with. On Verizon.<\/p>\n

Off of Verizon, it feels like there’s a distinct lack of choice. For example, if you want a 4G LTE phone from Android, your choices are exactly one device. The Motorola Photon Q<\/a> is a kind-of-sort-of update to the Motorola Photon, the previous only 4G Motorola phone on Sprint. The Photon Q keeps the angles of the original Photon, but throws in a full QWERTY slider similar to the Droid 4 from Verizon. At first, the Photon Q was in fact the only phone on Sprint’s LTE network with a physical keyboard, but \u00a0LG’s\u00a0Mach<\/a>\u00a0came out on November 11 to keep it company. With a $199 price tag compared to the Mach’s $99, and with Motorola’s proven Android track record, isn’t the Photon Q the obvious choice? Let’s find out.<\/p>\n

First Impressions<\/h3>\n

I never got a chance to really mess with the previous Photon, but I was impressed by the little I saw and the users I know who did get to use the phone love it. The Photon Q’s name instantly makes me think of that user satisfaction, as well as that of another phone that users were less satisfied with, the Motorola Q. For the unfamiliar, the Q was a portrait QWERTY Windows Phone device, aimed at the Blackberry set. It annoyingly lacked of a touchscreen just as touch was going big and was stuck with an already-dying OS. What it did have going for it was that it was fairly stylish for the era.<\/p>\n

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Times were darker back then, and keys shaped funny.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Photon Q is absolutely a philosophical descendant of the original Q; serious thought was clearly put into the styling of the device. The front face has no buttons, a camera, and a speaker grill that artfully hides an alert light. Sliding the screen up reveals the QWERTY and as an added bonus, turns the phone on. There’s a detailed review of the keyboard below, but it clearly shows that Motorola has been making keyboard slider Android devices for some time; this is not a version 1.0 device.<\/p>\n

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This is not the Droid 4 you were looking for.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Motorola placed the power button on the center-top of the device instead of center-right as most handset makers seem to do. This took me barely any time to adjust to, as opposed to Samsung’s placement on the Galaxy S III. In fact, with the angled edges of the Photon Q, it actually felt kind of natural.<\/p>\n

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Motorola brings you a new way to play “find the button.”<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The right side is blessed with the volume buttons and a dedicated camera button, a feature I always appreciate. Shifting the rubberized door reveals a slot for MicroSD, perfect for supplementing the rather meager 8 GB internal storage, with only 4.6 GB actually available to the end user. Really, Motorola? Did we step through a temporal anomaly and end up in 2007?<\/p>\n

As for the left, there you’ll find a mini HDMI port and a MicroUSB port for charging. Overall, the body feels nice and solid, with an almost-ruggedized feel. The Motorola Photon Q is in fact waterproof. Forgive me for not testing that particular feature out on this loaner phone. However, I do want to note that the memory door feels very flimsy, as if it’s something that will break off after a few months if you swap cards frequently. This is a problem that may feel familiar to original Palm Pre users.<\/p>\n

Another problem brought on by the ruggedness of the Photon Q is that Motorola has decided to go the Apple route and give users a non-removable battery. While the 1785 mAh battery under there should last you some time, it’s a vexing move. Plus, it adds to another issue; like many current CDMA phones, there’s a SIM slot included for international travel. However, it’s not accessible. Instead, there is a Sprint SIM soldered into place underneath that sexy backside.<\/p>\n

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No rear access.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

That leads to the most important caveat. If you travel internationally and want a phone that you can just swap any SIM into, this is absolutely not the device for you. This impacts a small subset of buyers, but if you are part of that subset, you can just stop reading this now.<\/p>\n

The Software<\/h3>\n

The Photon Q is running Android 4.04 a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich. We’ve been told to expect an update to Jelly Bean (4.1 or 4.2 ), but as Motorola has since backed off of that particular promise for the original Photon, you may want to take that with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

Compared to Samsung and HTC, Motorola’s Android skin is barely there. This is a welcome change from the company’s original skin, MotoBLUR, which frankly jammed the phones. The skin is so light that I had to stop and remember this is an Android feature or a skin feature. One thing that reminds you of that fact is when you try to swipe to the left from your home screen; Motorola seems to only have right swipes. Swipe far enough to the left and you’re prompted to add a page. A bit annoying for those who go heavy on the home screens, but as I generally stick to two, I’m okay with this.<\/p>\n

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The little clock flips from analog-stye to digital when you tap it. Minutes of fun.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m particularly fond of the four-way unlock screen. Hold the key and you’ll see a ring. Up takes you to the phone, down to texting, left to the camera and right to unlock. This is similar to HTC Sense, but the ring metaphor just worked better. Sliding the keyboard to unlock seems to always take you Home.<\/p>\n

I’ve fallen in love with one particular tweak. See how some of the apps in the previous screenshot (browser, text, phone, email, and people) have little up and down arrows? That means those apps can be swiped on as well as tapped. That will open a small, widget-like view. This is really handy for if you want to call a favorite; you simply swipe up, and there’s the name. No\u00a0 need to re-enter the phone app or leave a widget open all the time. This fits in well with the “less home screens” design element.<\/p>\n

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No, I am not showing you who my Favorites are.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Motorola also adds SmartActions<\/a>, a way to pre-program behaviors for set times and places. For example, you can tell your phone to go on airplane mode every night at 10 PM and come back online at 10 AM. That’s only one example of what you can tweak. This ability to tweak the phone reminds me a little of writing Macros and of several hacks I used to put on my WindowsMobile and Android phones. The average consumer may ignore this feature, but this is a nice feature for a power user.<\/p>\n

Sprint is one of the few providers backing off pre-loading a ton of apps. I see SprintID and Sprint Zone, and that’s it. There are a few more preloaded apps, like QuickOffice, but it’s far less invasive. Motorola and Google expect you to use Google’s services, to the extent that Sprint hasn’t even loaded the Sprint Navigation GPS software on here. Google Navigation is your free option.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Navigation, Motorola has thrown in Vehicle Mode, a slimmed down display for using your phone as an in-car GPS. I was under the impression that Android already has a car mode, so I’m a bit confused by this, even if it’s a clever idea.
\n<\/p>\n

Performance<\/h3>\n

The Photon Q sports a powerful 1.5 GHz, dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. Screen transitions are smooth and apps launch evenly. The screen is a\u00a0540 x 960 pixel, 4.3″ display featuring decent colors and good resolution. It’s not as sharp as the screens on the HTC One series or a Retina display, but it’s absolutely usable for the everyday.<\/p>\n

The Photon Q averaged 4 MBps down\/3MBps up on Sprint’s Houston-area LTE network. Not bad, but not awesome when compared to speeds that\u00a0Verizon\u00a0and AT&T get in the area. On the plus side, I received better 4G reception overall with the Photon Q than I did with the Samsung Galaxy S III. Calls seemed clearer.\u00a0Audio is good, with a loud speaker phone. The combination of fast chip, good audio, and decent 4G speeds make this a great phone for my cloud-based music services even though Sprint’s phones normally work better on WiFi thanks to its slower network.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, I made it through most days without plugging the Motorola Photon Q in. I suspect this has less to do with the\u00a01785 mAh battery that Motorola stuck in here than it does with Sprint’s software constantly re-enabling my\u00a0WiFi\u00a0even after I turn it off. While this is meant to spare Sprint’s network more than my battery, it actually was quite helpful. While I don’t have wireless internet access for most of the day, I’m used to phones dying overnight if I forget to plug them in thanks to all the stuff I have pushed to them. Because the Photon Q keeps connecting to my router, it uses less power. For those who find this solution annoying, it can be disabled and you can\u00a0exercise\u00a0a tad more control with the\u00a0aforementioned\u00a0SmartActions.<\/p>\n

Less impressive is the camera. Despite an 8 MP rear camera, I found it almost worthless for stills. \u00a0Colors were off, especially blues and reds, and many photos are washed out. Basic auto-correcting \u00a0on my desktop fixed the color balance, but that’s not really excusable.<\/p>\n

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My son’s bed is not, in fact, pink.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Slightly fixed via desktop software, but still much “warmer” than reality<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Shadows don’t show up, making this frosting look like plastic.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the other hand, the 1080p HD recording function of the camera is a solid feature. My younger brother is something of a camera nut, and while he’s sticking to his SLR for photos, he’s been taking more and more quick videos with the Photon Q. Having seen them, I’m impressed. Much nicer than videos taken with say, an iPhone 4S.\u00a0It’s vexing to have such\u00a0different\u00a0experiences between stills and video though, and it’s important that you prioritize.<\/p>\n

The Photon Q is supposed to have NFC, but I’m not finding any way to activate it or use it. This may be on me and having an NFC isn’t going to be the reason why anyone buys this phone.<\/p>\n

What will be the reason will most likely be the keyboard. Almost identical to the keyboard on the Droid 4, the Photon Q’s keyboard has great feedback, good travel for a mobile keyboard, and a good layout. If I’ve any quibble, it’s that the @ is a shifted character, not a dedicated key a la Blackberry and other keyboards. I haven’t used the keyboard on the LG Mach, but the Photon Q is absolutely superior to other QWERTY Sprint phones like the Samsung Epic, HTC Shift, and Kyocera Rise. Add in a pretty good predictive typing\u00a0algorithm\u00a0and you have a real winner.<\/p>\n

Hackability<\/h3>\n

The Photon Q doesn’t seem to have any custom ROMs available, but I’m seeing activity on bringing both CM9 and CM10 to the phone. Honestly, I don’t know how much you even need it on this phone. The skin is light enough to not get in the way, and the rest of the phone works fine. That said, wait a bit and you should find a good hack.<\/p>\n

The Strengths<\/h3>\n

The Photon Q is a barely-skinned, non-bloatware infested, Android goodness for your Sprint account. Photon Q’s keyboard is good enough for the power user, and the rest of the features suit the average user fine. The phone has absolutely the best landscape keyboard that I’ve used on Sprint. It’s not just the keyboard that sells this though as I found myself using the virtual keyboard\u00a0often\u00a0enough. Simply put, it’s a powerful and well-built phone.<\/p>\n

The Weaknesses<\/h3>\n

I’m surprised\u00a0at how little storage the Photon Q sports. Although, in the era of the cloud, maybe that’s not as much of a deal breaker as it used to be. What may be a\u00a0deal breaker\u00a0is the camera. I can’t get over how bad my photos were. I’m not the world’s greatest shutterbug, but I’m better than this. The amazing HD video recording partially saves this, but it’s an annoying drawback.<\/p>\n

Wrap Up
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Even with the camera annoyance, this is an amazing phone. In fact, my biggest hope is that this phone grows Morotola’s presence on Sprint. It would be awesome to see the same almost-pure Android experience on a RAZR type device on a network other than Verizon.<\/p>\n

If you’re more concerned about right now than about what comes down the line, this is an excellent choice for a Sprint phone. I suggest waiting until Cyber Monday and snagging this on the almost certain sales to get the best bang for your buck. If you can’t wait, I give the rare nod to pay full price for a phone because the Photon Q<\/a> is worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Motorola has long been one of the strongest Android phone makers. While Samsung may get higher numbers and HTC a bit more of the mind share, Motorola’s original Droid for Verizon is arguably the phone that made Android take off as more than just “not iPhone.” The line is so successful that many users dub […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1085,1917],"tags":[34,242,3570,74,1175,2951,132,3554,439,3421,3571,3422,3569,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14028"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16392,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14028\/revisions\/16392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}