Have Photon Questions? Ask 'em here

[JayWill]

For HDMI cables, Monoprice.com has never let me down.

HDMI Cable, Home Theater Accessories, HDMI Products, Cables, Adapters, Video/Audio Switch, Networking, USB, Firewire, Printer Toner, and more!

I've never had an issue with quality, and they're very well priced. I've bought a ton of stuff from them, from all sorts of cables and adapters, to HDMI switches, to LCD wall mount brackets. They ship REALLY fast from my experience.

I can't recommend this online retailer enough.

 

[VDub2174]

how do we unlock the sim card to work on ATT
The phone does show the sim number for the prepaid ATT Sim card
The phone does show the sim number for the "comicel" Sim (colombian)
how do we unlock the phone, one site I checked wants 29.95
and they ask for 15 # meid code and there is no 15 digit number for the meid


the codes are 14 or higher than 15

???

Its a good phone and easy to use in daylight
and I love the multi shoot camera

AT&T SIM cards don't work in this phone. It's made for international SIMs only. Read here.

 

[cbuhay1]

Has anyone been able to connect their photon via 802.11-N? I have a dual channel router, and my photon sees G, but not N.

 

[susuki12002]

I have.

 

[b_ge0rge_xo]

As a Sprint employee I've had the Photon since FedEx came on the 30th. I went from my EVO 4G with Synergy RC2 on it. I absolutely LOVE the photon. My only gripes are FB contact syncing,I hate that I have to sync ALL FB contacts in order to have their profile picture show up unlike my EVO I had the option to link their profile to their contact card. Also... thankfully this is a known Motorola issue... about twice a day I try to make or answer and call and there is NOTHING. Trying to call out there is no dial tone, the call is connected.. I try speaker phone and everything; neither you or the person you are trying to call can hear anything, same with receiving a call, you can answer it but you can't hear anything and they can't hear you even on speaker phone. A battery pull is all you can do to resolve this. As far as battery life.. It's an android device... it's not going to last as long as my old, old Palm Centro, but it almost blows my EVO away. Thanks Motorola

 

[beantown]

hello....i too used to have the HTC EVO 4G, and I just got my new Motorola Photon 4G in the mail...for the moment I have one question and i'm hoping is a quick fix as it was on the EVO 4G. When using the stock browser for the EVO if you go into settings it gives you the option to change the viewing format from desktop or mobile. I can't seem to find on that same option with the Motorola Photon 4G when using the stock browser, any suggestions on how to fix this...and yes i know i can always download another browser from the market, but before I do, I want to give this one a chance...thanks for the help.

 

[milominderbinde]

hello....i too used to have the HTC EVO 4G, and I just got my new Motorola Photon 4G in the mail...for the moment I have one question and i'm hoping is a quick fix as it was on the EVO 4G. When using the stock browser for the EVO if you go into settings it gives you the option to change the viewing format from desktop or mobile. I can't seem to find on that same option with the Motorola Photon 4G when using the stock browser...

Yes on the HTC EVO Browser, tap Menu > More > Settings > Mobile View On.

For the Photon, I Googled to find the Motorola Photon User Guide and got this link:

Sprint Photon User guide - Motorola

I read the Browser section beginning on page 89 and the Photon browser does not seem to have this feature or much beyond the basic Android browser.

I think that you need to install a browser. From the Getting Started section on Internet:

General
? To see the Topbar Notifications or time while browsing: Tap Menu.
? There are many popular Browsers such as Dolphin or Opera that offer the basic features listed below and more.

 

[beantown]

Hi Milo,

Thanks for the quick response, its really appreciated. I had a funny feeling the Photon's stock browser wouldn't let you change viewing modes...again, thank you!!!

 

[Cubfan]

Does anybody ever use the stock browser on these phones? There are so many better choices in the Market.

 

[stu5797]

I use stock... . I tried dolphin and was not too impressed. I am probably missing something as everyone seems to be using a differ browser. Can someone please let me know other browsers are better? Thanks

 

[beantown]

I had dolphin installed on my HTC EVO 4G, but I found myself using the stock browser a lot more than dolphin, and I would have been considered a heavy internet user on my EVO 4G, simply becuz i work with computers all day and the thought of having to turn on my home pc after 8 hours of working with one and the thought of having to sit at my desk when I could lay in bed, with espn on, browsing the web on my EVO 4G was a lot more convenient for myself. The stock browser did the job just as good as dolphin, ok so it didn't have tabs, but it still allowed you to open 5 different windows, and the amount of time it took to scroll to the top of the page to change tabs, i would hit menu and select windows and change it that way. I'll give dolphin it's props on just one thing, you can organize your bookmarks into different labeled folders, but honestly the stock browser was not even close to being as half bad as A LOT of people would say. I'm defiantly in the minority in that respect, but again, I know I was a heavy web browser when I had the EVO 4G, which makes me somewhat disappointed that the Photon won't allow to change from mobile viewing to desktop view. So, I guess I'm outta luck for the moment and will need to download a 3rd party browser.

 

[BearTrap]

... the Photon won't allow to change from mobile viewing to desktop view. So, I guess I'm outta luck for the moment and will need to download a 3rd party browser.

Check out this thread at XDA

 

[beantown]

awesome, I'll have to give that a try...thanks, beartrap!!!

 

[Joshua Munoz]

Alright Photon owners, users and lovers (hopefully!), here's the dilemma.

I'm rockin' the EVO 3D. Good phone. Fast. Feels nice in hand, similar to the EVO 4G. You get my drift. I knew the Photon was coming out but thought, GingerBlur? Pentile Matrix? Ha! I laugh at thee!

Well, then Phil gets his review unit and says its the hottest thing since sliced bread and he thinks it could be a better phone on Sprint than the EVO. So I'm confronted with the dilemma, return the EVO and try the Photon, or just stick with my EVO?

I need it all, horror stories, love stories, tales of how it saved a life, took a life, whatever ya got, learn me something.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

Well, then Phil gets his review unit and says its the hottest thing since sliced bread and he thinks it could be a better phone on Sprint than the EVO. So I'm confronted with the dilemma, return the EVO and try the Photon, or just stick with my EVO?

I need it all, horror stories, love stories, tales of how it saved a life, took a life, whatever ya got, learn me something.

I'm sort of in the same boat, and will only tell you what I have done so far. Go check out the phone in person. Hold it up against your 3D. Play with it, poke it, prod it, check out the settings and such. If, like me, the pentile screen bothers you at first (especially compared to the Evos), put the Photon down and go look at something else for a bit (like the Epic or the Nexus). Then go back to the Photon, and see if things look different. I know in my case the pentile screen really struck me the first time I looked, but 10 minutes (and two phones) later it didn't seem so bad. I'm going to go look again this evening; with any luck it will look even better. I really want to like this phone beyond its specs!

 

[wynand32]

I need it all, horror stories, love stories, tales of how it saved a life, took a life, whatever ya got, learn me something.

I got a bit tired of my Epic and some of the nagging issues that Samsung never fixed (spotty GPS, laggy orientation switch, missing icons for many seconds when switching orientation via the keyboard, etc.), and so took an advantage of my daughter's upgrade to get the Photon. She's fine with the Epic (since it's free to her, why not, right?), and I really wanted to try someone other than Samsung.

I'll say so far that, specs aside, I'm finding the Photon to be much more polished and reliable than the Epic. I had no idea how bad the call quality and performance was on the Epic until I tried the Photon--just a night and day difference. And, the Photon just feels better in actual use, with things like orientation changes and such working as I expect them to. Again, just more "polished" is the best way I can describe the difference.

There are some issues, like a flakey automatic dimming/brightness function that isn't as reliable, and the inability to turn off the camera shutter sound, which I hate. However, otherwise, the Photon is VERY fast, very smooth, very polished, and is a much, much better phone than the Epic. I'm about 99.9% sure that I'll be keeping it in spite of whatever specs the Galaxy S II has on Sprint, because I'm discovering that I really, really don't like the Epic after using the Photon.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[UGA-Rick]

my biggest gripe is when using the kick stand you cant charge. That is kind of a turn off for me

You can just flip the phone over, the kickstand will support the phone in both directions.

 

[UGA-Rick]

You can just flip the phone over, the kickstand will support the phone in both directions.

Should have added that I got this on one of the Photon tip articles here on the site.

 

[beantown]

so i wanted to give an update about changing the stock browser using the link beartrap provide, sure enough it works like a charm! again thank you! also wanted to provide an update after owning and using the HTC EVO 4G for about, so far i can say is that the battery life is better than expected. the keyboard will take some getting used to, i might finaly crack and try swype. the phone is deff quicker the EVO 4G. Gaming which is one of the main reasons why i had to get this phone, well all i will say is, its much better than i ever hoped it to be. If you own an OG EVO 4G, and you enjoy that phone as much as i did, i truly believe you will not be disappointed with the Photon 4G. Just remember its a new phone, made by a different company with its own out take for Android. As with anything in life when u encounter change, it'll take some getting used to, but the more and more you give it a chance with time everything will start to click....

 

[b737thurman]

I love my android, but..... I need one SIMPLE function and it isn’t on any phone or any browser I’ve installed. And then I went and played with a Photon at the sprint store. With the phone in the dock, I can log onto my work website and I can double click a button and it works!!! It opens the new window! Yes!!! So I log off, take the phone out of the dock, log back in, no workie on the phone without the dock. In fact, Firefox webtop 1.1 (or what ever it is) is used when you put the phone in the dock, but there is NO Firefox at all in the apps list. I don’t get it. I switched to phone mode while the phone was docked so I was looking at the phone screen (on the monitor) and again, if you double click the button, the screen gets bigger or smaller just like on the phone. It will NOT select the button and open it. I have tried EVERY browser I can find, but I guess that webkit thing has it’s limitations. Yes I’ve tried every setting, long click, desktop view and nothing works, BUT, IF it works on webtop mode isn’t there SOMEWAY to make it work on the damn phone? Seriously, the double click has been part of computers from the beginning, hasn’t it?! And NO, my company could care less and they aren’t going to fix it. They are cheap and sure this technologically thing with the phones is a passing fad (not kidding).

Also, My POS Epic 4g is never seen by my Mac unless I plug it in through a usb hub. Anybody plug their Photon into a Mac yet?

Thanks

b737thurman