Motorola Photon

Motorola Photon 4G

The Motorola Photon 4G at rest
Manufacturer	Motorola
Carriers	Sprint Nextel
Compatible networks	WiMAX 2.5 GHz, CDMA 800/1900 MHz (EV-DO Rev. A), GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS/WCDMA 850/1900/2100 MHz (HSPA+ at 14.4 Mbit/s)
First released	US: July 31, 2011
Introductory price	$199.99 US 2 year contract $549.99 with no contract
Availability by country	US: Q3-2011
Related	Motorola Atrix 4G
Form factor	Touchscreen smartphone
Dimensions	126.9 mm (5.00 in) H 66.9 mm (2.63 in) W 12.2 mm (0.48 in) D
Weight	158 grams (5.6 oz)
Operating system	Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread
CPU	NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1 GHz (Cortex-A9 dual-core)
GPU	GeForce ULP
Memory	1 GB LP DDR2 RAM
Storage	16 GB on board, supports up to 32 GB microSDHC, total 48 GB
Battery	1650 mAh Talk time WCDMA = 9.1 hrs GSM = 10.4 hrs Standby time WCDMA = 13.1 days GSM = 12.2 days[1]
Data inputs	Multi-touch capacitive touchscreen display, accelerometer, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, fingerprint reader
Display	4.3-inch 960×540 px qHD TFT LCD at 275 ppi, 16 M colors, Gorilla Glass
Connectivity	audio jack 3.5 mm, Micro USB 2.0 HS, corporate sync, BOTA, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, Micro-HDMI
Other	Android WebKit with Adobe Flash Player, Mozilla Firefox 4.0.1 in Motorola Webtop mode, eCompass, aGPS with Google Maps, Google Street View, Google Latitude, Android Market

The Motorola Photon 4G^[2] is a high end Android-based mobile smartphone that is distributed exclusively by Sprint Nextel. A very similar model based on the same hardware is available as the Motorola Electrify from U.S. Cellular. ^[3]

User Interface

The Photon runs a customized interface similar to the standard Android interface (different from Motoblur) with several additions. Motorola provides custom widgets to toggle settings for airplane mode, bluetooth, wireless 4G access (WiMAX 2.5 GHz), and WiFi access as well as resizable widgets for functions such as the calendar, social networking, a world clock and more. The Photon's customized interface has seven home screens and four main onscreen buttons at the bottom of the screen. Of the bottom buttons the left three buttons may be customized to run a program of the user's choosing, while the right-most button opens the app drawer.

Capacitive touch buttons at the bottom of the screen are Menu, Home, Back and Search. Pressing and holding on the Home button brings up a "Recent Apps" view, while double tapping the Home button will either show a thumbnailed view of all seven home screens (default) or, at the user's preference, quick launch a specific function.

Connectivity

The Photon is an international capable phone ("world phone"), meaning that besides using Sprint's CDMA/EV-DO network and other CDMA networks accessible internationally and through domestic roaming, it accepts a GSM SIM card with quadband GSM and triband UMTS/WCDMA/HSPA+ capabilties. The phone also, like most Android phones, features WiFi access, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, and a micro-USB port for charging and data sync with a PC. An HDMI port allows for access to HDMI-mirroring and separate functions.

Business and Enterprise Features

The Photon supports several important business features. It supports access to Microsoft Exchange Server mail servers, including the support of several Exchange ActiveSync profiles. Second, full encryption of the internal and external storage is supported. This last feature requires the creation of a password that is required when booting the phone.

Motorola provides several additional software packages for PCs and Mac, such as Motorola Media Link (to manage photos, music and video) and the Motorola Phone Portal (manage phone and contents from a web browser over a network link).

Webtop

Similarly to the Motorola Atrix 4G, it has the integrated Ubuntu-based 'Webtop' application from Motorola. The Webtop application is launched when the phone is connnected to the external display through Laptop dock or HD multimedia dock. In Webtop mode, offering similar user interface of typical Ubuntu desktop, the phone can run several applications on external display such as Firefox web browser, SNS clients and 'mobile view' application enabling total access of Atrix and its screen. In September 2009, Motorola released the source code of Webtop application at SourceForge.^[4]

Detailed Specifications

• Also known as Motorola MB855
• NVIDIA Tegra 2 (dual-core 1 GHz Cortex A9 + GeForce ULP)
• Android 2.3 "Gingerbread"
• 1 GB LP DDR2 RAM
• 16 GB Internal memory, expandable by microSD 32 GB, total of 48 GB
• 4.3-inch PenTile qHD display (540×960) with Gorilla Glass^[5]
• 8.0 MP with dual LED flash, 4x digital zoom and autofocus, 720p video capture at 30 frame/s
• VGA front-facing camera for video calls
• TriColor LED notification light
• 1650 mAh user-changeable battery
• Built-in kickstand
• Motorola Webtop interface
• HDMI mirroring
• 126.9 × 66.9 × 12.2 millimetres (5.00 × 2.63 × 0.48 in)
• 158 grams (5.6 oz)

See also

• Motorola Atrix 4G
• Motorola Xoom
• Motorola Droid Bionic
• Motorola Cliq 2
• List of Android devices
• Comparison of smartphones
• Comparison of Android devices

References

1. ^ http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/ci.MOTOROLA-PHOTON-4G-US-EN.alt
2. ^ Motorola [1] Retrieved August 6, 2011.
3. ^ http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/13/motorola-electrify-coming-to-us-cellular-this-month-as-a-rebrand/
4. ^ "Announcing the new Motorola Webtop source project". http://sourceforge.net/motorola/motorola-webtop/news/2011/09/announcing-the-new-motorola-webtop-source-project/. 
5. ^ Gizmodo.com Gorilla Glass Hands On: Unbreakable Retrieved 17 Jan 2011

External links

• Sprint.com
• MotoDev site
• Review of Motorola Photon