With the way smartphones are designed nowadays, most of the handsets we encounter are full touchscreen devices. With this design aesthetic, smartphones can have a bigger screen real estate while at the same time have a slim and sleek form factor to boot. However, there is still a portion of the smartphone-buying population that never really got the hang of typing on a full touchscreen device and would gladly trade in thinness for a physical QWERTY keyboard that ought to make messaging chores a whole lot easier. Sad to say, capable devices that pack a slide-out QWERTY keyboard are hard to come by nowadays so your choices are a bit limited for that matter.
However, if you happen to have Sprint for your wireless provider of choice and are eyeing to have a QWERTY-packing device, you wouldn’t have to contend with searching far and high for this kind of smartphone because the carrier has finally launched the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE, a very capable smartphone with a slide-out keyboard and all the bells and whistles you could ever want.
The existence of the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE was no secret having been the topic of rumors and speculations as early as a couple of months back. For a change, rumors back then were spot on because physical attributes of the handset down to its keyboard were right on the money. Then we saw the handset drop by at the FCC for some certifications and then later unofficially made official by Sprint big boss Dan Hesse during the Q2 earnings call of the carrier. Now that we have the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE available off the shelves, we take a look at the tech specs of the handset and see if it is worthy of all the attention.
The Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE was announced back in July and is the successor of the original Motorola Photon 4G released by the carrier last year. Both handsets have the same design aesthetic except that the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE is a bit thicker than its predecessor because of the slide-out QWERTY keyboard it packs in its chassis. The full dimensions of the handset come up to 126.5 x 66 x 13.7 mm and it weighs in at 170.1 grams. Despite its bulk and heft, the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE was surprisingly comfortable to hold even for extended periods and have that solid build quality as well.
Under the hood, the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE ships with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich for its operating system and its operation is powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. It has an internal storage capacity pegged at 8GB while a microSD slot in its chassis allows for memory expansion. Display-wise, the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE is blessed with a 4.3-inch TFT ColorBoost display with a 540 x 960 resolution while its camera department is just as impressive with a rear 8MP shooter with autofocus and LED flash paired with a 1.3MP video call camera out front. Pre-order the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE now.
September 24, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Buyer beware: the battery is not removable. If it’s Sprint’s only mid-to-high-end QWERTY phone when my contract is up next, I may still jump, but that “feature” put a huge damper on my enthusiasm.
And I can type on a touchscreen fine. But for those of us who do real technical work on our phones in emergency situations, losing half or more of the Connectbot screen to a virtual keyboard is unacceptable. To tell you the truth, the virtual keyboard takes up too much space when making a spreadsheet, too. Not all of us use our business-issued smartphones for Instagram and Angry Birds.