Motorola Photon Q Smartphone Review

The Motorola Photo Q smartphone comes with a 4.3" ColorBoost display, Android 4.0, a 1.5 GHz dual core processor and best of all, a full QWERTY keyboard for only $199 with a contract. Matt Mira joins Kumail Nanjiani in studio for a hands-on look at the Android phone for its Gadget Pr0n rating.

What You Need to Know

• The Motorola Photon Q looks familiar to the Droid 4: it measures about a 0.5" thick, and feels solid from the heavy weight (not flimsy like the Galaxy S3 can feel sometimes).
• The QWERTY is similar to the Droid 4's, which was the best keyboard we've ever used on a phone and this one is no different.
• The long space bar and directional arrows are both there.
• The LED back light is excellent but again, it does suffer from being very loud.
• As far as phone keyboards go, this one on the Photon Q is excellent.
• The 4.3" QHD display is 0.3" bigger than the Droid 4 but the 940x540 resolution is pretty much the same.
• The brightness has improved with what Motorola refers to as ColorBoost technology.
• The screen isn't the sharpest in the world but the color reproduction is good.
• Watching videos on this phone is definitely not going to be a problem.
• The 1.5 GHz Snapdragon processor and 1 GB of RAM means there is plenty packed in on this phone.
• Our speed tests showed this phone performed very well.
• It's also 4G LTE enabled and Sprint's network is supposed to be rolling out to 100 more cities in a move that coincides with the iPhone 5 release dates.
• The 8 megapixel camera is okay: it's not the fastest we've used and as far as we can tell, it's exactly the same performance we get out of the Droid 4.
• In bright light, there is a lot more noise than you would expect to see.
• Blurry shots with motion are common on cell phone cameras and this is no exception.
• The video quality was decent, if you're filming on the go.

Price

• $199 with a Sprint contract.

Rating

• 3 Seals of Approval out of 5. (How do we rate gadgets?)
• The phone is good at what it does.
• It's fast, makes phone calls and the keyboard is still the best you'll find on a smartphone.
• We think the screen resolution and camera could be much better.

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