Motorola PHOTON Q 4G LTE Pro Reviews

Unlike your typical slate -- a form factor that comes in a plethora of shapes, sizes, colors and specs -- it's much more difficult to find a suitable device that offers a full QWERTY keyboard, if you're hunting for one on the higher end. Sadly, carriers often treat phones with slide-out keyboards as second-class citizens, which means that QWERTY fans will rarely find a truly top-notch product. Indeed, the Photon Q 4G LTE is one of the best phones on the market for its form factor. It performs well and its spec sheet is quasi-respectable, but we can't call it a premier offering for Sprint (not with a straight face, anyway). At $200, this particular handset feels a bit out of place sitting next to heavyweights like the Galaxy S III and the EVO 4G LTE. Chop its price in half, and Motorola will have itself a strong contender in that price range.

The Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE is an easy phone to sum up. If having a keyboard isn’t important to you, there are better options on Sprint. However, if a physical keyboard is a must, then this is one of the few choices in smartphones that doesn't sacrifice on build quality or performance.

While the Motorola Photon Q is not going to win any design awards, users who are looking at a QWERTY slider already know all the usual size trade-offs and we found that the main things that mattered to them was “typing performance”, followed by overall system performance. You don’t buy a slider to look good (that would be silly, right?), but to get the job done. In my case, this meant a 36% boost in typing speed and less typos, which is definitely not negligible. In terms of system performance, the Motorola Photon Q really stands on its own when compared to other dual-core smartphones. For games, it had no problem playing the most recent games like Dead Trigger – not bad for a “work phone”, right? The cameras have also been improved and work much better than the previous Motorola Android sliders. That said, more work needs to be done on the imaging side.

The Photon Q 4G LTE is a very good phone, and it has a very good keyboard. That could be a perfect combination for some people, but fusing the two together causes some real problems with the phone's build quality, and its overall look and feel. Still, there's a lot to like about this handset: from Motorola's software enhancements to its solid speed and performance, the Photon Q checks nearly all the boxes. But unless you absolutely need a physical keyboard on your phone — and reviewing this phone made me realize how comfortable I've become typing on a screen — there are much better phones on Sprint. The HTC Evo 4G LTE and the Samsung Galaxy S III are both faster, thinner, and better-looking than the Photon Q, and they're also ready for Sprint's LTE network whenever it rolls out to your neighborhood. As I've said, if you can't live without a physical keyboard, buy this phone — it's one of the best in its class. But think long and hard before you decide you can't live without one.

The Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE is arguably Motorola's best device for texters and emailers since the Droid 3, and has a lot of things that will make business travelers happy. Unfortunately, it also has some compromises that make it problematic for that same group. A marginal battery is one thing, but mixed with a design attitude that says "We know how you should use your smartphone better than you do," it becomes a serious flaw. Which is disappointing, since otherwise the Photon Q is nicely built, has solid ergonomics, and blazing fast performance. If you can live with never being too far from a charger, it'll serve you well. If not, you might want to look at other devices.

With the Photon Q 4G LTE, Motorola succeeds on a few fronts. It spruces up Sprint’s unremarkable hardware-QWERTY lineup, and gives Verizon Wireless converts looking for a Droid 4-like experience reason to consider the Now Network. More important, though, it improves on the experience provided by the original Photon 4G, and goes a little way toward restoring the prestige of the venerable “Q” brand. As in Hollywood, success in the smartphone world can’t always be found by going back to the well and rebooting an old title. But if it’s done right, a successful sequel late in the game can revitalize a retired brand while lending some old-school panache to a new product. This device might not fully deserve its “4G LTE” designation yet, but the “Photon Q” in its name is doing a great job of living up to its proud legacy. And if you’re in the market for a hardware-QWERTY-packing smartphone on Sprint, there’s nothing else we’d recommend as readily.

The Photon Q 4G LTE is a solid effort from Motorola. Sprint customers looking for the QWERTY, 4G, Android 4.0 combo will be mostly satisfied. The biggest weakness of the Photon Q is the voice performance. It simply doesn't match the high-quality calling powers that I expect from Motorola devices. For those who make few calls and mainly connect via email, SMS, Facebook, or other tools that make use of the keyboard, perhaps this can be overlooked. The other weakness is the camera, which took disappointingly fuzzy images. The physical QWERTY keyboard, however, is one of the best Motorola has produced and the ColorBoost display brings content to life on the Photon's screen. Add to those the Photon's flexible menu system and Android 4.0 platform, and the Photon nearly hits the mark.

Though a bit on the chunky side and hampered by a mediocre camera, the Photon Q is a solid choice for anyone who wants a phone with a physical keyboard. If you're a huge texter, or if you compose a lot of email messages on your phone, this model is well worth considering. It's not perfect, but the Photon Q is currently the keyboard phone to beat.

Sprint, like most carriers, has few options when it comes to phones with a physical keyboard, so the Motorola Photon Q is clearly in a class of its own. The question is: does that have more to do with quality or a lack of competition? The Photon Q becomes harder to sell once taken outside of the context of being a great phone with a physical keyboard. This is the best implementation of Motorola's software yet, so there's plenty to like about the phone, but it's biggest draw is the keyboard. It excels mightily in that regard, but it fails miserably as a camera, and Sprint's hard-to-find LTE network will force most buyers of this phone to make due with 3G. The Photon Q is an obvious purchase to make if you yearn for a hardware QWERTY keyboard, but not everyone has that requirement. Anyone who feels comfortable tying on a virtual screen is probably better served with other options.

The Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE packs plenty of power and a fantastic hardware keyboard for Sprint subscribers that prefer sending messages to making calls.

With the Photon Q 4G LTE, Motorola continues its upward trend in design and usability. The Q keeps up with competing phones in every important way and though the battery and camera still leave something to be desired, they are serviceable. Most importantly, the Photon Q is a perfect phone for anyone who wants a slide-out keyboard. For mobile typing, it doesn’t get better than this. It’s a good, different option for users on Sprint and is one of our top picks for the carrier, much like the last Photon. The Q is now available for $200 with a two-year contract.

Just like its Verizon relative the Droid 4, the $199.99 Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE provides one of the best Android smartphone typing experiences available. Other benefits are its modern Snapdragon S4 processing, bright and colorful screen, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich software. Unless you're committed to BlackBerry, a habit I strongly urge you to kick, the Photon Q is must buy for physical keyboard addicts looking for their next Sprint purchase. If you're not tied to using real keys, by all means go for the feature-packed Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC Evo 4G LTE, which offer better cameras plus LTE data if you can get it.

As it stands, this is a rather nice piece of hardware on a surprisingly less than acceptable network. If you’ve used this carrier before and you’ve had a lot of luck, then certainly you’ll be good to go with this device. But if you’re new to the smartphone universe, we’re currently recommending that you stay away – or at least test your device out on a test run before you commit. Motorola has once again brought on a solid piece of hardware, with a QWERTY keyboard that is easy to use and a processor from Qualcomm that has a fire in its belly as it has on each of the devices it’s been released on thus far. This device will be available throughout the USA immediately if not soon!

So, is Motorola’s Photon Q a good enough phone to keep the QWERTY alive? Probably not, considering it is probably the carrier's fourth best LTE phone. Still, for those who just can’t let the QWERTY go, the Photon Q does offer an outstanding keyboard to go along with a respectable set of features. The Photon Q may not have the highest resolution screen or best camera, but it does offer quality hardware and quick performance with some nice software tweaks. There is plenty of room for improvement and we hope to see a true high end Motorola device on Sprint again soon, but for now the Photon Q is a good option for users upgrading from the Epic Touch or coming from a BlackBerry.