Motorola Photon 4G thread

farookh

farookh

Disciple
Dont really know if there are ne other users using this phone.

But just to continue from my other thread

http://www.techenclave.com/show-off/nvidia-1ghz-dual-core-4-3-a-197021.html

More Info on phone here

Android Smartphone - Buy Your PHOTON 4G Superphone Today - Tech Specs - Motorola Mobility, Inc. USA

i think this is a great phone to buy, since its avail on ebay.com for around 300-400$, bad esn should be even cheaper.

GSM voice and data is unlocked for use in INDIA.

Real Fast and stable latest 2.3.4 rom. Root & unlocked bootloaders are avail at xda.

20110814001152.jpg


Another nice feature is the webtop. lets you use the phone as a comp on your tv.

With the Webtop over hdmi hack you dont even need to buy the dock just a 5$ micro hdmi cable.

Check it out on my 46" lcd

webtopn.jpg


webtop2.jpg


webtop3.jpg


webtop5.jpg
 
Once again congratulations and also thank you "farookh" for giving us information on Photon 4G. It will definitely get popular with the option of unlocked GSM.

Review from various sites:

Motorola Photon 4G review -- Engadget

Motorola Photon 4G Phone Review | PCWorld

Motorola Photon 4G Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

Motorola PHOTON 4G Review

Seems like the phone is pretty much welcomed across with open arms :) Engadget is saying "it is close to dethroning the mighty Galaxy S2" and that is impressive in my books. Also the best motorola phone yet. So good for Motorola.

I have some questions I would like to ask you regarding Photon 4g:

1) How is the sound quality?

2) How is the camera performance? Since some reviewers were having some problems with it

3) How is the screen? According to PC World, it seems to have blue coloring to it.

Also another great news is that Photon 4G is on sale for $99 with a 2 year contract with Sprint

Motorola Photon 4G Gets Big Price Cut to $99 at 'The Shack' | PCWorld

If this doesn't attract customers I honestly do not know what will. But only problem is GSM is unlocked only for outside use and cannot be used in US with ATT or T-Mobile unless unlocked by Sprint, which might be a hassle.
 
hey farookh are you also bugged with the damn CDMA network scan thing on each reboot?

I am using this for a week and every time I restart it for any reason, on fresh reboot, it forgets all previous network settings and starts to connect to CDMA network or goes back to searching CDMA network for couple of minutes.

Bloody annoying. The only thing it remembers from Network settings is APN and Manually selected network but that is selected only after this 2-3 minute initial scan is over.
 
What are the problems you are facing while using a CDMA phone from US in India. I know this phone has a sim card slot but as the phone is designed for CDMA does it have any registered problems in GSM.
 
Nah, It works fine with GSM / HSDPA (3G).

The problem is when the phone boots (be it first time, or anytime after you switch it off for some reason ), it starts the network search again even if previously you have manually disabled wimax/4G in settings. It keeps ignoring all the band selection settings you have done before in settings or by going into advanced settings (*#4636#*), and keeps searching for the Sprint network, then it will show a roaming international in signal bar at top after couple of minutes and then will prompt you if you want to enable global mode. Even if you check the box do not ask me again, it keeps doing that on next reboot. After this drama is done, it will catch the GSM/UMTS/HSDPA signal of inserted Indian GSM sim card.

So basically every time you reboot the phone, you loose 5-7 minutes. There is no way to cancel this stuff. You cant even go to home screen before this is done.
 
Atrix had a similar issue where the network settings just wouldnt stick. I believe there was a fix for that but need to check on xda.
 
aradhakr84 said:
Once again congratulations and also thank you "farookh" for giving us information on Photon 4G. It will definitely get popular with the option of unlocked GSM.

Review from various sites:

Motorola Photon 4G review -- Engadget

Motorola Photon 4G Phone Review | PCWorld

Motorola Photon 4G Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

Motorola PHOTON 4G Review

Seems like the phone is pretty much welcomed across with open arms :) Engadget is saying "it is close to dethroning the mighty Galaxy S2" and that is impressive in my books. Also the best motorola phone yet. So good for Motorola.

I have some questions I would like to ask you regarding Photon 4g:

1) How is the sound quality?

2) How is the camera performance? Since some reviewers were having some problems with it

3) How is the screen? According to PC World, it seems to have blue coloring to it.

Also another great news is that Photon 4G is on sale for $99 with a 2 year contract with Sprint

Motorola Photon 4G Gets Big Price Cut to $99 at 'The Shack' | PCWorld

If this doesn't attract customers I honestly do not know what will. But only problem is GSM is unlocked only for outside use and cannot be used in US with ATT or T-Mobile unless unlocked by Sprint, which might be a hassle.
Click to expand...

I havent listent to my usual music collection yet.

To be honest, I expected Photon to sound just like Atrix as core hardware is same. But it sounds very very different. Motorola has certainly done something to this phone which they did not on Atrix.

I will make up my mind about music completely later but here are my initial impressions.

1. Treble is slightly excessive. This is without any equaliser. With manual Equaliser you can correct it if you dont like it.

2. Its very loud. Compared to Atrix which even at max volume wont blow off your eardrums, this will.

3. Bass is precise, punchy and not muddling.

4. No significant distortion even at high volumes.

Overall looks like Motorola tried hard to make this more fun to listen to. Kinda like iPod. Loud, little excessive treble by default.

Definitely not a lemon. I am very intrigued by what is actually inside, what they did with the headphone output circuitry, but no details available.

Didnt test camera yet.

Screen is something of a masterpiece. One of the best LCD screens I have seen on a phone. I dont know if its Pentile display for sure or not, but it does not matter in real world. To naked eye, this is better than any other LCD unit I have seen on any other phone. The actual LCD is very close to digitizer/front glass. Very visible in direct sunlight, very precise. Slightly warmer tone. Not at all bluish. Its opposite. It has warmer tone compared to AMOLED units and even Atrix's LCD. The bluish screen is probably false impression created by the different colour material used by Motorola on bazel under the glass and the coating on screen (feels like anti fingerprint coating that we have seen on Nexus S). This does not cause any colour shifts.

NO backlight bleeding at all. This LCD looks better than Sensation LCD in person. Blacks are deep black as well which is rare on LCDs.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

Here is the pic of the phone I took today.

See that screen appear bluish only around the bazel part. Actual LCD looks black. The illusion of blue glass is mostly due to the colour of the bazel material which is dark teal or navy blue.

p1030199pm.jpg
 
^^ Thank you, Shripad. Also congratulations on purchasing Photon 4G.

I was thinking the same thing about the LCD screen looking absolutely stunning. Because when I saw the picture farookh posted in his show off thread, the screen was absolutely stunning. I was wondering if it even was an LCD screen. So it makes sense. Good to know. Thank you for explaining.
 
sam88 said:
Motorola Photon looks good on all fronts but it does not have Gorilla Glass so its prone to scratches.
Click to expand...

Gorilla screen on any phone that has fingerprint resistant coating is useless. I made this point a while back when I had nexus S. That has gorilla glass + the fingerprint resistant coating. And it started getting scratched when people assume the all mighty gorilla glass wont scratch with keys and other stuff like that.

THe glass does not scratch easily, but the coating develops scratches.

This phone also has that coating. So having gorilla glass would have made no difference. Use it carefully or have scratch guard on it. If you drop the phone from particular angle, even gorilla glass shatters.
 
i think this is a great phone to buy, since its avail on ebay.com for around 300-400$, bad esn should be even cheaper.
Click to expand...

Bad ESN should be cheaper? Can you use a phone with Bad ESN on Indian CDMA networks?
 
Shripad

Freeze SprintOmaDm in titanium backup and you wont have handfree activation on every boot.

and all your settings will stick.

Also nearly done activating the phone on reliance lets see how it goes.

Regards

Farookh
 
OK someone PMed with the Pentile display. I told him, I will post here itself so its available for all those who want to know about it.

Yes, in theory and also in practice, the pentile display should be inferior to pure RGB LCD display.

But in reality, the display quality does not depend only on pixel arrangement.

The built quality plays an important role in how display is perceived. How deep does the actual LCD unit sits behind the glass, how much is the bleed (all LCDs have some amount of bleed, good ones have very minimal to non existant bleed. Bad ones are really bad), what brightness settings you are using etc. Your display might be top notch IPS, but it can be spoiled by the backlight bleed like many G2x / Optimus 2X owners have found out.

This phone has pentile display. But its good LCD display. The bleed is impossible to notice by naked eye. The unit which I have has great blacks. You can checkout the following image which is in very low light, ISO 1600, 1/4shutter pic. ITs little shaky as its taken with hand and not with tripod, but its enough to give you an idea. Display is ON displaying completely black background.

p1030205wk.jpg


Pentile displays always photograph badly. Its down to pixel arrangement. The camera picture makes it look much worse than what it looks like in reality. This is the fact on which the display manufacturers and companies which make the phones bank on in reality. The display is technically inferior, but to naked eye, it looks good because it covers other basics. It sits very close to the glass, it had uniform backlight, almost non existent bleed and hence it leaves impressive initial impression while keeping costs down. This is why Motorola is using this display on this phone. Its not meant to be a $600 phone. In real life, its great to use.

In technical tests, it will fare poorly.

Hopefully this answers your queries about the display. :)
 
Shripad said:
This phone also has that coating. So having gorilla glass would have made no difference.
Click to expand...

It definitely does make a difference coz gorilla glass is not just a gimmick but it actually protects the phone, so its kinda necessary feature in high-end phones!!!

I just cant believe y moto left it on photon while its there on atrix!!!
 
sam88 said:
It definitely does make a difference coz gorilla glass is not just a gimmick but it actually protects the phone, so its kinda necessary feature in high-end phones!!!

I just cant believe y moto left it on photon while its there on atrix!!!
Click to expand...
Gorilla glass does make a difference. But its main advantage is negated when you have coating on the surface of the glass like this phone does.

Gorilla glass is not something magical that will protect your phones from drop damages our impact damages. Otherwise we would not have those lovely smashed iPhone 4 pictures on the internet. Its mainly there for scratch resistant nature of the glass which its negated here.

And as pointed out, it does have gorilla glass display. Its kind of a given fact these days on high end phones and many times not heavily advertised as it was in 2010. But even then our makes little to no difference in this case.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
 
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