Motorola PHOTON 4G

Motorola have had a good run with Android, and now they have come out with the Motorola PHOTON 4G. It’s a smartphone packed with a dual core processor and it also comes with a whole lot of cool specs that might catch the attention of many. So let’s find out if this phone has all the specs working in sync and turn out to be a masterpiece.

Design
The Motorola RAZR V9m might have had a lot of influence on the Motorola PHOTON 4G’s design, but given the fact that the Motorola RAZR V9m is one of the most well designed flip phones, so it’s isn’t such a bad idea. This phone comes with a 4.3 inch qHD display which is pretty impressive. Although the phone is rather large, it does have a back that is rounded making it easy to be held in the hand. On the right side of the phone you find a dedicated camera button and also a volume rocker. However, they are very close to each other and that is a bit annoying. On the top you find the standard audio jack as well as the power button. While on the left are the micro USB port and the HDMI-Out port. The Motorola PHOTON 4G’s design highlight must be the kickstand. It’s built in an extremely solid way and that helps the phone to be turned around the other way. There’s also a sensor included on the phone to launch the Widget Clock app. Flip the phone around and you will find the 8MP camera with dual flash LED that is also capable of taking 720p videos. Looking at the phone from a design standpoint, it has been built extremely well and it feels solid in the hand. Besides, it’s also not that heavy and it’s actually lighter when compared to the HTC EVO 3D.

Features
These days smartphones are competing in many ways including processing speed and the Motorola PHOTON 4G doesn’t disappoint in this department. It comes packed with a powerful dual core 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU. The 1GB RAM that comes with the phone is also a welcome delight. Adding on to that, the 16GB internal storage also adds to our joy.

It was great news to us that the Motorola PHOTON 4G runs on the Android v2.3.4 Gingerbread keeping it in trend in terms of software. The UI that comes with the phone is supposed to be considered as enhancements and no longer to be called Moto Blur.  Thanks to the power packed dual core processor, everything felt like a really smooth and fast ride. However, there are not that many changes that have been done to the software. The app drawer is one of the 4 icons that are found in the dock. In the drawer, apps can be grouped together in customized groups. As always, we have the customary seven home screens and they can all be viewed together by double tapping home. With this phone, Motorola has added some of their own apps for instance the task manager, task pad and their Social Networking app. The 2GB space available to store apps is like a gift for users from Motorola. To test how the phone fares in comparison to others on the same playing field, Quadrant tests were done. This phone did impress as it scored 2500 which is higher than the LG G2x or the Droid X that are both also powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU.

So the Motorola PHOTON 4G comes with a 4.3 inch qHD display. Maybe a few months ago, a 4.3 inch screen would have made the whole town talk about the phone, but nowadays, high end smartphones are expected to come with them. The screen produces really vivid colors as well as producing crisp images. Viewing angle was pretty good and there were only minor issues when the screen was used under direct light.

The 8MP camera on the Motorola PHOTON 4G did a really good job in our tests. It especially impressed under strong light conditions as the shots were detailed and the color produced was brilliant. The macro shots taken on this phone are also worth a mention as they did pretty well too. The dual LED flash wasn’t the best we have seen, but it was able to light up subjects at an average distance from the phone. However, subjects that were close were sometimes washed out no thanks to the flash. Although you don’t get to play around so much with the camera’s settings and modes, the camera perhaps will do fine without those tweaks. As for video recording, it was a downer as we could only record at a resolution of 720p instead of the preferable 1080p.

With a 4G phone, importance has to be given as to how it performs in terms of connectivity to the World Wide Web. The Motorola PHOTON 4G has the support for Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR and also GPS. It also comes with a super quick web browser, and the 4G internet speeds that it’s able to provide makes it fun to be on the internet with this phone. The double tap to zoom function does a great job while pinching is also very smooth. Running on Android means Flash content loads just as well as anything else.

A beast like this needs a battery that’s able to provide it with the juice it needs all day long, hence the 1640mAh battery. The battery on the Motorola PHOTON 4G is one of the more powerful batteries we have see losing out to just the HTC EVO 3D. With average use like talking with your friends, browsing the web now and then and taking some photos, the battery lasts a whole day without needing a recharge.

Pros and Cons
The qHD display was an eye catcher as it provided great images with rich and vivid colors. The 16GB internal memory means there’s nothing more you can ask for from the Motorola PHOTON 4G. It’s also got a solid camera.

The Motorola UI could use some work plus the placement of the microUSB port is also rather awkward.

Conclusion
The Motorola PHOTON 4G is simply a great phone powered by the right mix of processor, memory and battery life. If you are looking for the best smartphone, there is none we can pick out immediately, but Motorola PHOTON 4G will definitely be in the running.