The Spotlight fades on the Photon

Our six week journey with Motorola’s new flagship device has come to end.   After having such a good experience with the EVO 3D the Photon had lofty measurement standard to deal with and I can honestly say it did better than I initially expected.  Yes I realize that complement sounds a little back handed so let’s talk about what the Spotlight experienced in terms of the highs and lows of the device. 

What I’m going to Miss:

1.       Native Music App-  after I let my Doubletwist bias go and leveraged the native music app on the Photon this was my biggest surprise and delight.  I fully expecting a dumb down media player but the app does a superb job integrating social media aspects to give you artist news, concert dates, and like artist recommendations.  This discovery taught me not to under estimate each manufacture’s overlay on the Android OS, best native app I’ve experienced thus far.  

2.       Kickstand-  the frivolous has become a near necessity, I’m surprised how much I ended up leveraging the kickstand giving me hands free viewing of media content.   The kickstand viewing mode is a nice finishing touch making the kickstand functional both from a hardware and software standpoint. 

3.       HDMI Connectivity-   not a new feature to the market but it was the first time I’ve had a chance to experience.   The cable was my accessory purchase for this device and it proved to be a good one.  Coupled with the Photon’s mirror display mode the connection allowing me to view content on my HDTV that was displayed on the Photon.   This came in very handy at home as I was able to stream Netflix through a WiFi connection making my Photon a flexible source component.  Thanks to the device I’m now up to speed on Sons of Anarchy and unfortunately had to sit through “Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure” to appease the daughter.  (someone shoot me now) 

4.       App List Organization-  In the theme of gearing the device toward techy professionals Motorola added a nice touch to their Android overlay by providing the ability to organize your apps.  As previously discussed having the ability to organize and view apps by categories allowed for quicker access and a cleaner a cleaner home screen look by eliminating the need for subfolders.

5.       Battery Life- 4G connection-  Battery life overall was good for the smart phone category, standby was fantastic.    Add on top of that no additional battery drain from a 4G vs. 3G connection and you have an overall battery experience that surpasses any phone I’ve experienced to date.

6.       Speaker/Sound output quality-  Motorola spent some money on the speaker hardware as it is loud and provides a distortion free tone.   An equalize app never hurts but not necessary with this device, rock on dude!   

What I’m glad to see go:

1.       Social Media Notifications-  mainly because they didn’t exist.. .   I’m used to getting notifications at set intervals but no matter what settings I selected Twitter never chimed through.  I suspect it has something to do with how the Photon handles programs running in the background for battery management purposes. 

2.       Widget Presentation-   The variety of widgets available is comparable to any other device on the market but Motorola really fell short in their presentation.   The lack of attention to graphics presentation and use of animation really let the phone down and was one of my main let downs.

3.       App Multitasking-   Several bugs started showing up once a program was asked to run in the background.   The most apparent one I experienced was with music applications producing interruption and stuttering.  This became increasingly annoying when I wanted to listen to music while accessing other applications or turning the display off to conserve battery life.    

4.       Basic UI layout-  Not a huge deal but outside of the app the organization point I discussed above Motorola’s overlay was rather bland.  This might have been an unfair expectation I had given the device’s hardware specs and my experiences with the EVO 3D.  It just seemed that the Photon’s UI overlay is a generation behind in presentation and animation, similar to its Widgets. 

Ultimately my recommendation with purchasing this device over others is how you intend to use a smart device.  If you aren’t a multi and social media nut and are looking for a device with excellent battery life, amazing hardware performance, and excellent integration of professional applications then Photon is the clear winner.  For those of us that are looking for a more entertaining device I would still steer you toward the EVO 3D.  Any one device isn’t going to draw the admiration of every smart phone enthusiast so having two very diverse devices in the EVO 3D and the Photon will give Sprint an excellent portfolio to appeal to the wide array of consumer tastes.   I’m not quite grown up yet and still cling to things like multimedia, music, twitter, etc so this device really isn’t ideal for me but will be a great Android option for folks much more mature than I.   So kudos to the Photon for a great showing in the Spotlight but all things must end and it is time to move on.  Last week I surprisingly found out that I’ll be part of the Samsung Epic Touch, also known as the Galaxy S II, ambassador engagement and I am truly geeked over this phone.   Take a minute and go Google this device and you will get an idea why, it is a huge hit worldwide.  There will be several variants of the device for each US carrier but we’re the first to market and the tech reviews are impressive.  I’ve cheated a bit and have had it activated for a couple of days now and can say the Epic Touch is living up to expectations.   Expect to see an update in the next couple of days with some tech spec info and initial thoughts.  Until next time Spotlighters be good!      

Link to Previous Motorola Photon post:
http://mblspt.blogspot.com/2011/09/spotlight-on-photons-battery-life-and.html