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Hands-On: Motorola Photon 4G and Triumph

The Triumph is a surprisingly capable Android handset for Sprint's Virgin pre-paid brand. It clearly is the best phone available from Virgin's meager selection of handsets.

Unlike the Photon 4G's smooth plastics, the Triumph has a rubbery, soft-touch coating that makes it stick in your hand. It is thin, light, though the styling is a bit blocky and simplistic.

Triumph

It has microSD and microHDMI ports tucked into the bottom edge, with the power/lock key on the upper left edge, and the volume toggle on the upper right edge. These buttons worked well, though I wish they were reversed.

The 4.1-inch display is not nearly as awesome as the Photon 4G's in terms of quality, but it still has plenty of real estate to interact with apps and widgets.

The Triumph runs Android 2.2 and has a single-core 1GHz processor. The units on hand were very sluggish. I noticed a lot of problems transitioning between screens and applications. The main menu, in particular, was very slow.

These quibbles aside, the Triumph is a triumphant victory for Virgin, which can now lay claim to a solid smartphone.

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Motorola Photon 4G / Electrify

4.3" display 540 x 960 pixels
dual-core Nvidia Tegra2 processor
1,700 mAh battery
Memory Card Slot, Headphone Jack (3.5mm)

Motorola Triumph

4.1" display 480 x 800 pixels
Snapdragon S2 MSM8655 processor
1,400 mAh battery
Memory Card Slot, Headphone Jack (3.5mm)

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