Photon Owner's Comments, Issues, and Reviews

[Puzzlegal]

Septifurmus, there's an app or widget or something to toggle each radio on and off. I have buttons for airplane mode, 4g, blue tooth, and wifi on one of my home pages.

 

[Septiformus]

Septifurmus, there's an app or widget or something to toggle each radio on and off. I have buttons for airplane mode, 4g, blue tooth, and wifi on one of my home pages.

I have that too, the power control, along with individual widgets, but not one for 3G, on HTC's it's just labeled "mobile"

 

[milominderbinde]

I have that too, the power control, along with individual widgets, but not one for 3G, on HTC's it's just labeled "mobile"

See the Getting Started section on Applications and then the Widgets area for the Data Data (APN) On-Off widget (free). There are some other great widgets there:

Widgets
Beware: some widgets will drain your battery!
• Tajm - The amazing clock widget in words instead of numebrs shown above.

Battery Status (free, Upgraded $1) - Puts the real battery percentage in the Notification Bar.

The Weather Channel - Puts the temperature in the Notification bar.
• Speed Dial Widget: Folder Organizer (free), Go Contacts (iPhone theme), MeContacts, or QDial.
• Battery Left Widget - Estimates battery time left.

Today Widget - Day and date in a 1x1 widget. ($1 Pro version has color options)
• Curvefish: • Brightness Level • WiFi On-Off • Bluetooth On-Off • GPS On-Off • Data (APN) On-Off
• Volume Button Controller – All the volume levels in one place.

 

[anon(409656)]

I cannot move apps to the homescreen from the app drawer. I open all apps, longpress the app I want to move (tried several to make sure), tapped add to homescreen. At this point, the homescreen reappears and no app icon comes with, and it is no where to be found. I have a co-worker who got a Photon on the same day, and tried the same operation on his, and it worked fine. Any suggestions, anyone else see this issue?

 

[Puzzlegal]

Instead of opening the app drawer, press and hold the spot on the home screen where you want to put the app. A menu will pop up (maybe after you release?) and from there it's pretty obvious. Most apps are in shortcuts /apps.

Once an app is on the screen you can press/hold it to move it.

 

[MacBook]

I cannot move apps to the homescreen from the app drawer. I open all apps, longpress the app I want to move (tried several to make sure), tapped add to homescreen. At this point, the homescreen reappears and no app icon comes with, and it is no where to be found. I have a co-worker who got a Photon on the same day, and tried the same operation on his, and it worked fine. Any suggestions, anyone else see this issue?

thats a bit strange... I just tried it with mine and it worked fine.. maybe your unit is slightly defective??

 

[anon(409656)]

Instead of opening the app drawer, press and hold the spot on the home screen where you want to put the app. A menu will pop up (maybe after you release?) and from there it's pretty obvious. Most apps are in shortcuts /apps.

Once an app is on the screen you can press/hold it to move it.

that worked, fantastic! Thanks.

Ex-Pre- owner support, i see!

 

[milominderbinde]

Instead of opening the app drawer, press and hold the spot on the home screen where you want to put the app. A menu will pop up (maybe after you release?) and from there it's pretty obvious. Most apps are in shortcuts /apps.

Once an app is on the screen you can press/hold it to move it.

Look at you!

In just a couple days you have gone from newbie to helping others!

Way to go Puzzlegal! Have fun in Germany.

 

[rrobster]

You can go to 'all apps->accounts' then at the bottom of the screen is an add account button. Touch that and then select 'e-mail' and enter your gmail user name and password. Then when you select the e-mail icon, you can then press the phone's menu key and select 'choose account' to switch between any (gmail, yahoo, hotmail-etc.) you want. This even works for POP 3 mail too.

 

[willstwins2]

Anyone know how I can get a # to appear for Text Message. I have it on my home screen, but I cannot see if I have a new text, without opening it.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Look at you!

In just a couple days you have gone from newbie to helping others!

Way to go Puzzlegal! Have fun in Germany.

As a newbie, the memory of struggling with exactly that issue is still fresh

Any advice re launchers? I would like to be able to toggle between two apps, say, to check a number in email half way through dialing it.

Thanks.

 

[jfenton]

Just a Quick Obsrvation

Turned in my EVO 3D a few weeks back as I have hearing aids and the sound quality was horrible.....plus it kept dropping calls as the radios left something to be desired.

Have had the MOFO since last night so I haven't delved into it entirely but I have two points....

Call quality is superb. I was always looking for something which came close to my BB Tor and this is even better.

I thought I would hate the screen but you know what? I like it!I'm a photographer and I am really picky about screens and image quality and for a phone, I am more than happy.

More after I really have a chance to get a feel for it.

Sprints 3G speeds still suck but they are stronger than they were on the 3D.

 

[anon(409656)]

As a newbie, the memory of struggling with exactly that issue is still fresh

Any advice re launchers? I would like to be able to toggle between two apps, say, to check a number in email half way through dialing it.

Thanks.

Have you tried Perfect Task Switcher? Once set up, you have a way to look at running processes in a psudo-card view. You can even long press and flick off screen to kill the app. Not actual Cards but similar. still slower than WebOS as far as that goes but similar (the ONLY thing slower!) Otherwise longpress home might help.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Have you tried Perfect Task Switcher? Once set up, you have a way to look at running processes in a psudo-card view. You can even long press and flick off screen to kill the app. Not actual Cards but similar. still slower than WebOS as far as that goes but similar (the ONLY thing slower!) Otherwise longpress home might help.

No, I I will give it a try, thanks.

 

[mrhanki]

I'm having an issue...every couple of hours, my phone stops working...I can't hear anything from the speaker and no one can hear me on the other end. A power cycle fixes it though. I've had to do that 3 times already today though.

I've experienced this issue as well a couple of times. I really like this phone and hope I won't have to return it.
I also noticed that apps installed on the phone's "Media Area" randomly uninstall and disappear from the app drawer. This has happened twice already and I can't figure out why. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[RBrown9180]

I've experienced this issue as well a couple of times. I really like this phone and hope I won't have to return it.
I also noticed that apps installed on the phone's "Media Area" randomly uninstall and disappear from the app drawer. This has happened twice already and I can't figure out why. Has anyone else experienced this?

it happened to me today. Lost 2 apps but put them right back on. I was like "huh wtf"

 

[TheM8rix]

For battery life: I'm on my 13th hour off the charger with 20% battery life. That's all on 4G, using Google+ to chat, Twitter, Facebook, downloading a game (want to see the Tegra 2 processor in action), texting, emails, and market browsing.

My EVO wouldn't have lasted that long.

I've been 14 hours and counting...still at about 20% with approximately the same amount of usage (indoors and out) as you! I would have charged my Evo4g 3 times by now! Never thought I'd see this kind of battery performance from a Smartphone EVER!

 

[TheM8rix]

Thats very disappointing to hear that the signal strength and data speeds arent that great because thats one of the main reasons that im returning my Evo 3D tomorrow for the Photon... Hopefully its just your device and not a widespread issue.:-\

Honestly, I have had none of these antenna issues with my phone...so it may just be that particular phone, or tower problems in that area. Best to check in with Sprint to see if the weirdness is on their end....my data experience has been impeccable.

 

[VDub2174]

I've been 14 hours and counting...still at about 20% with approximately the same amount of usage (indoors and out) as you! I would have charged my Evo4g 3 times by now! Never thought I'd see this kind of battery performance from a Smartphone EVER!

Awesome!!

When I was on 3G I got about 30 hours on one charge. Unfortunately, 4G isn't too strong in my area but compared to my EVO the Photon lasted way longer

 

[jbuggydroid]

Think its a bit too early to see what kind of docks will come. The two sprint stores I went to were displaying the media dock, but didn't even have it for sale yet.

There is sometimes a delay for the kickstand mode clock options to appear. Put the kickstand back and try it again and wait like 5-10 seconds.

Well I figured out that when using a custom launcher (go launcher in this case) the clock widget would not appear when I went into kickstand mode until I pressed the home button. Then it would pop up. So fyi for people using different launchers. (only tried it on go launcher. Dunno if other launchers do the same thing.)


I also love how the moto widgets can still be used even if you don't use the moto launcher.

Another positive... I mentioned earlier that I game on my phones and this phone is amazing for it. I have been using emulators with a wiimote awhile mirroring the phone to my tv and it is awesome. Also some roms that didnt work well on n64oid work better on the photon then the epic. I was able to get some gameloft games to run on this device tho it is not officially supported by gameloft yet. Th e tegra games are fun too I did notice that playing them on a tv in mirror mode the mirror image wasnt as crisp as the image on the phone but was still pretty cool.

All in all I simply love this phone. Love the fm radio, built in shoutcast internet radio, and how things just seem to go together nicely. I especially love the blue theme.

I def see this phone lasting me two yrs easy.