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First Impressions and Questions Thread

I wish I could fully take advantage of how awesome this phone is, but mine seems to want to die every few minutes. On the bright side, I've gotten really good at taking the back cover off and putting it back on!

Is there any trick to doing so quickly and without breaking the tabs?

I've just been sticking a fingernail in the top edge and then prying and going around it doing the same.
 
So, just to be sure I understand you, on your Droid phones, you used Batteryminder and it didn't change the increments to single percentage increments, it just kept the 10% increments, correct?

For the app that fixes the linking of contacts, I'm glad to know there's an app that fixes that. I'll continue to dig for that until someone finds it.

Since you had Droid phones, what was your solution for the camera shutter?

TIA
drex
I am using the circle battery widget and it is showing 1% increments. Most of the other widgets I tried only showed the 10s
 
For those of you who came from the Evo 4G, how does screen brightness compare, when setting the Photon's screen to its DIMMEST setting ?

Something I really like about my Evo, is that the dimmest setting is actually REALLY dim, in comparison to my girl's Samsung Vibrant.

Anyone ? thanks !
 
For those of you who came from the Evo 4G, how does screen brightness compare, when setting the Photon's screen to its DIMMEST setting ?

Something I really like about my Evo, is that the dimmest setting is actually REALLY dim, in comparison to my girl's Samsung Vibrant.

Anyone ? thanks !

It's def. brighter...but it still somehow gets better battery at normal brightness compared the Evo at it's lowest brightness.
 
It's def. brighter...but it still somehow gets better battery at normal brightness compared the Evo at it's lowest brightness.
I agree! Well I can't speak for battery yet but I had mine side by side with DH's EVO and the Photon is definitely brighter.
 
I'm not sure I trust the circle widget. When the phone sysem shows 100% the circle only shows about 95%. Odd thing is that the percentage will continue to rise until it gets to 100% but their phone's battery indicator no longer shows it is charging (flashing thunderbolt symbol icon) during that time.
 
I'm not sure I trust the circle widget. When the phone sysem shows 100% the circle only shows about 95%. Odd thing is that the percentage will continue to rise until it gets to 100% but their phone's battery indicator no longer shows it is charging (flashing thunderbolt symbol icon) during that time.
I haven't watched it while charging as I put in on after this morning. I've only watched it drain and it seems to match up with the battery indicator and the percentage listed in the battery info.

I've noticed most battery indicators aren't great past 95% for some reasno. My Transformer widget (to show both dock and tablet) rarely gets past 97% for both when fully charged but will go up to 100% as the dock is charging the tablet to keep it at 100%

None are perfect.
 
drex, to be 100% honest, I don't remember if it showed the 10s or 1s, you might be right though. Now on my Epic 10 months later, I have been using the FlipClock BlackOut and it works amazing. I know on this phone, it shows % in 1's. Have you tried that app before? I love it to be honest. Weather, storage space, battery life, large clock. Awesome!

It's all good. I appreciate the feedback nontheless. I know the Epic for sure does 1% increments, just cuz the Epic is on one of my secondary lines. Really does seem to me like a system default for Motorola phones. Not a huge deal, but I prefer 1% increments.
 
Not sure, it might not work. It's just something I saw on this forum...figured it was worth a shot.

Social Networking Problem

I figured it out!!...LOL. It's so simple (not as simple as HTC, but still simple). Part of the reason some of my contacts weren't syncing properly was because of the names not identifying how I have them in my google contacts.

Open your contacts. If you see someone that has a Facebook account, but is not linked to it, open their contact profile.
Go through the following steps:
Edit Contact>Menu>Join>Pick the appropriate Social Network contact...or...search through all the contacts if it doesn't show up.

Wow, that was not rocket science at all, but still a lot more involved than I was anticipating. Nontheless, it works!
 
It's def. brighter...but it still somehow gets better battery at normal brightness compared the Evo at it's lowest brightness.

I agree! Well I can't speak for battery yet but I had mine side by side with DH's EVO and the Photon is definitely brighter.

I concur. The Photon is brighter and seems to do a little better on battery drain (when in Auto mode), although it's kinda hard to tell because my EVO 4G did really well with battery (unlike some others that had a horrible experience after the gingerbread update).
 
I am using the circle battery widget and it is showing 1% increments. Most of the other widgets I tried only showed the 10s

Does that one show the percentage in the status bar?

-EDIT- Nevermind, I downloaded it. I like it a lot, in conjunction with my Simi Clock (especially because it's customizable). If only there's another app out there that can have both the widget and indicator in the status bar. That would be ideal because when I'm not on the home screen, I just have to press menu on my phone and it'll show the percentage. Right now, I'm running both batteryminder and this.
 
I'm getting a little crazier with the customizations on this phone than I think I did with the EVO. I think maybe because with all the additional apps I've downloaded, the phone hasn't really felt bogged down at all!

My initial impressions are still going to continue to come as time goes on, but after 2 days, I absolutely LOVE this MoPho!

I actually feel like the build quality feels better than HTC's. And Motorola makes their OEM accessories MUCH more functional and usable than HTC. The car dock only loses in the "looks" department, but functionality is night and day (w/ exception to where the charger plugs in...but I'll still take that).

I haven't had time to put the HD dock together yet with my home setup, but that'll be left for this weekend.
 
The more I play with this phone , the more I seem to like it. dloaded another home launcher, like it a lot better because in your apps you can scroll left and right which to me is easier then up and down. This is the best phone for making calls, get 6 bars in my house. It is very powerful, especially when dloading apps and games, snappy as can be. It has a great feel to it, light and sturdy. I see no pixelation, so my eyes must be horrible, lol. Overall an excellent device, you can check out my review here:

‪Motorola photon software review‬‏ - YouTube
 
Okay, so I have new thoughts on the camcorder...it's good, but doesn't have the ability to turn the LED lights on to shoot night videos.

I saw a Sprint Business commercial featuring the Photon that I shot a video of in the dark. Came out okay, but would've been nice if the light could be turned on (unless I missed the button that can do this).
 
Okay, so I have new thoughts on the camcorder...it's good, but doesn't have the ability to turn the LED lights on to shoot night videos.

I saw a Sprint Business commercial featuring the Photon that I shot a video of in the dark. Came out okay, but would've been nice if the light could be turned on (unless I missed the button that can do this).


It does have that option. When u open the camcorder app touch the screen, on the side it says "light on"
 
Don't have my phone yet to try this, but They claim on page 15 of the manual that:
"If you need to plug an HDMI or micro USB cable into
your phone while it is resting on the kickstand, you can
also rotate the phone and rest it with the micro USB
and HDMI connectors on the top."

You might look to see if there are any other settings for the kickstand that might help.

PS, has anybody confirmed that you can go into the full webtop app withe the hdmi cable only, and without the doc yet? It was inferred int the manual, but I will believe it when someone actually does it.

The kickstand is so strong that the phone can be placed "upside down" with the cable sticking out the top to watch vids while charging - I LOVE that!
 
I just got a new Photon, cannot zoom (pinch) with the calendar - any thoughts?

As far as I can remember, I don't think Android has ever had a pinch to zoom function for the calendar.

What exactly are you trying to do that you need to zoom on the calendar?
 
I've had the Photon for about two days now, enough to have delved deep into it and found things I love and things that annoy me. I upgraded from the OG Evo, a phone I dearly love (it was my first Android phone - never forget your first!) but had been experiencing all sorts of quirks and bugs in the past few months. So, the following is from the perspective of an Evo/Sense fan:

LOVE

1. The speed. Although I noticed it does hiccup once in a while (usually after I've been on a install/remove tear for widgets, themes, launchers, etc.) a reboot fixes that. Overall the phone is lightning quick and smooth.

2. The email app. Far superior to that of Sense, it's much easier to use and seems more capable. The Evo's app is clean, but takes extra steps to do little things like delete multiple messages. I have not tried the Exchange features, primarily because I don't like checking my work email away from work. :p

3. Call quality. My first Evo had decent call quality and speaker, but the replacement had a mediocre earpiece. Both would sometimes hiccup during calls and I'd miss half a word. The Photon locks in and is very clear, and I've experienced little to no hiccups, even with weak signals on both ends.

4. The music app. Oh my god, it's so nice to have a functional stock music app. Also, it sounds great through headphones. No hiss, no distortion, or anything (not that the Evo suffered from that, either). I didn't use my Evo as a music player much for want of a good music player, but I might finally swap from my trusty first gen iTouch for my PMP needs.

5. The screen. Love how bright it can get, and how visible in sunlight it is. I actually was able to use my Evo in full sun as well, but the Photon is even better. If you spend any time outside, you'll appreciate this. The screen is also overall very bright but can also dim down significantly so you're not blinding yourself at night.

6. Too many others to mention!

HATE

1. The stock dock. Why, Moto, why did you put that nasty white bar behind the dock? Would it have killed you to allow us to make it transparent at least?

2. Moto widgets. I tried to like the social app and widgets, I really did. But they're garbage. I couldn't find an easy way to look at my whole Facebook stream, only "recent updates" and those would vanish once you looked at them. Eventually I gave up and just installed the Facebook app. Also, the flat white theme of not-Blur just makes me sad, although I am currently using the calendar widget and the 4G toggle (because I can't find anything else that works). The clock is terrible, too.

3. Camera options. The camera itself doesn't seem too bad, but the options leave much to be desired. The Evo was never known for its great camera, but I was able to get some quality shots thanks to being able to tweak white balance, ISO, and the like. The Photon's camera app leaves me feeling a little cold. Also, why isn't the camcorder 1080p?

4. Charging cable. Why is it so dang short? My Evo's cable is a foot longer!

5. Elimination of some stock Android apps. Where's my Google News/Weather app, aka Weather Genie? I did find it on XDA, but it should not have been removed in the first place. Also, doesn't Android come with more stock wallpapers?

6. The cramped keyboard. The keys are much smaller than on the Evo, which makes typing harder. I use the Swype keyboard, which makes things a little easier, but the keys are still smaller and harder to hit for when you need to type.

NOT LOVED, BUT NO HATE

1. The Pentile screen. Although I usually don't notice it, sometimes the pentile effect does rear its ugly head. Viewing Engagdet's website, for one: the blue links look terrible. Also, sometimes things that should be dark purple come across as black, leading to a loss of some detail.

2. The default black on white menus. Not a problem, unless you're not using the stock launcher. Then the white/grey "filler" used for menus that are not full screen contrast sharply with the white on black menus a lot of apps/launchers seem to use. I thought it was a defect at first until I realized its present in the stock menu appearance as well.

Overall, once I stopped trying to make my Photon look like my old Evo and just embrace a new look and layout, I really started to dig the phone. I'm still not 100% certain I'll keep it, but it's rapidly growing on me. Car dock is the next thing to try out, and from what I hear it's awesome. That may be what finally pushes me from watching the calendar for my 30 days to not caring how time is passing.
 
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