The Motorola Photon 4G was a high end

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

-based mobile

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

that was distributed exclusively by

Sprint Sprint may refer to: Aerospace * Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design *Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile Automobiles *Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989 *Chevrolet Sprint, a rebadged v ...

. A very similar model was available as the Motorola Electrify from

U.S. Cellular United States Cellular Corporation (doing business as UScellular and formerly known as U.S. Cellular) is an American mobile network operator. Its stock is publicly traded, but Telephone and Data Systems Inc. owns a controlling stake (83% econo ...

User interface

The Photon runs a customized interface similar to the standard Android interface with several additions. Motorola provides custom widgets to toggle settings for airplane mode, bluetooth, wireless 4G access (

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMA ...

2.5 GHz), and

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

access as well as resizable widgets for functions such as the calendar,

social networking A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

, 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 Roaming is a wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or oth ...

; it accepts a GSM SIM card with quadband GSM and triband UMTS/WCDMA/HSPA+ capabilities. The phone also, like most Android phones, features WiFi access, Bluetooth 2.1,

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

, 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 Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the relat ...

mail servers, including the support of several

Exchange ActiveSync Exchange ActiveSync (commonly known as EAS) is a proprietary protocol by Microsoft, designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from a messaging server to a smartphone or other mobile devices. The protocol also ...

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 The Motorola Atrix 4G (also known as the MB860, ME860 in Asia, or MB861 in Korea) is an Android-based smartphone developed by Motorola, introduced at CES 2011 along with the Motorola Xoom, Motorola Droid Bionic, and Motorola Cliq 2 on Janua ...

, it has the integrated

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

-based 'Webtop' application from Motorola. The Webtop application is launched when the phone is connected 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 Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

web browser, SNS clients and 'mobile view' application enabling total access of the Photon and its screen. In September 2011, Motorola released the source code of Webtop application at

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

Detailed specifications

* Also known as Motorola MB855 * Nvidia

Tegra 2 Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics pr ...

(dual-core 1 GHz

ARM Cortex-A9 The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a 32-bit multi-core processor that provides up to 4 cache-coherent cores, each implementing the ARM v7 architecture instruction set. It was introduced in 2007. Features Key features of the Cortex-A9 core are: * ou ...

+ GeForce ULP) * World phone capable of running on multiple types of networks (WiMAX/CDMA/GSM/UMTS) *

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 PenTile matrix is a family of patented subpixel matrix schemes used in Electronic visual display, electronic device displays. PenTile is a trademark of Samsung. PenTile matrices are used in AMOLED and LCD displays. These Pixel geometry, subpixel l ...

qHD QHD or qHD can refer to: * Quad HD, a video resolution at 1440p or 1540p * Quarter HD, a video resolution at 540p * Quantum hadrodynamics * Quantum hydrodynamics * Qinghuangdao Qinhuangdao (; zh, s=秦皇岛, link=no) is a port city on t ...

display (540×960) with

Gorilla Glass Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning Inc. Currently in its ninth generation, it is designed to be thin, light, and damage-resistant. Its surface strength and crack-resistance are achieve ...

* 8.0 MP with dual LED flash, 4x digital zoom and autofocus, 1080p video capture at 30 frame/s *

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. T ...

front-facing camera for video calls * TriColor LED notification light * 1650 mAh user-changeable battery * Built-in kickstand * Motorola Webtop interface * HDMI mirroring * *

Android updates

In 2011, Motorola joined the Android Upgrade Alliance, promising to release operating system updates to all its phones for 18 months following initial release. However, in October 2012, Motorola announced in a forum post that several phones, including the Photon 4G, will not receive updates to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, instead offering a rebate program for users to trade up to newer devices. Punit Soni, who runs software product management for Motorola Mobility, stated "I think some of them oyal customershave gotten a raw deal, We understand strongly and apologize for it."

References

External links

Sprint.com

MotoDev site

Review of Motorola Photon
{{Linux devices Android (operating system) devices Linux-based devices Motorola smartphones Mobile phones introduced in 2011 Discontinued smartphones