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Review: Motorola Photon 4G

Form Basics Extras Wrap-Up Comments 47

After spending more than four days with the Photon 4G, I am confident in recommending it as Sprint's top smartphone. It hits a home run in almost every department. The hardware is excellent, the wireless performance top-notch, the voice quality fantastic, and even the battery life is good.

If those basics aren't enough to convince you, the messaging options are nearly unlimited, the media playback tools are outstanding, and the system performance is raging fast. The evolution of Motorola's Blur user interface is now complete. It went from an annoying performance-killer on early devices to a tasteful and helpful addition to the stock Android operating system.

The only weakness that I can complain about is the so-so quality of the still images I captured.

If you like kick-butt smartphones, the Photon 4G is one of the butt-kickingest there is. It is easily the best handset available from Sprint, if not some of Sprint's competitors, too. I'd recommend it to any Sprint customer looking for a killer upgrade.

Our Ratings

Overall

Reception

Battery Life

Hardware Usability

Hardware Quality

Display

Interface Speed

Audio Volume

Camera

Phone Scoop spent some time with Motorola's two new Android handsets for the Sprint network. Here are our first impressions of these two beauts!

Sprint Reveals Motorola Photon 4G

Jun 9, 2011
At an event in NYC today, Sprint and Motorola announced the Photon 4G. Much like the Atrix, the Photon supports a laptop dock or HD multimedia dock - and Webtop app - that lets it run a Firefox browser like a desktop PC.

Motorola Talks Jelly Bean Updates for Its U.S. Devices

Oct 20, 2012
Motorola has updated the list of devices that will receive updated versions of Android and is revealing for the first time those slated to get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The Droid RAZR M, RAZR HD, and MAXX HD are all schedule to receive the Jelly Bean update before the end of the year.

Motorola Promises to Update Droid Bionic to Android 4.0

Sep 23, 2012
Motorola has indicated that the Android 4.0 update for the Droid Bionic that was scheduled to occur in during the third quarter of this year has been delayed until the fourth quarter. No details were provided as to why, but Motorola VP of product Punit Soni promised that the update will be delivered before the end of the year.

Sprint Pushing Maintenance Update to Moto Photon

Jul 11, 2012
Sprint today detailed changes headed to the Motorola Photon 4G by way of a maintenance update for its system software. The update makes it easier to import contacts from an SD card, improves music playback via streaming music services, boosts the performance of the mobile hotspot feature, and makes it easier to create and accept calendar meeting requests on the phone.

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)

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