Hasta La Gadget!

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of October 15th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Refresh Roundup: week of October 15th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The future of Motorola post-acquisition may still be a mystery, but the manufacturer has managed to stay quite active over the last few weeks: it unveiled the Atrix HD, its first smartphone with an HD display and native ICS build, and there’s already much anticipation around Verizon’s Droid RAZR HD ahead of the holiday season. For the here and now, however, it’s Sprint’s turn to soak in the Moto love with the Photon Q 4G LTE. (Say it five times fast.)

Naturally, the name of the phone doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. As you’d expect, it’s a follow-up to last year’s Photon 4G that trades WiMAX for LTE and adds a full-sized QWERTY keyboard. What the name doesn’t tell you, though, is that this phone costs a lofty $200 on contract, and features a qHD ColorBoost display (not to be confused with the Atrix’s 720p screen, which uses the same branding). In other words, it’s gotta be pretty good to have any success at that price point. How does the latest Googorola device hold up against the rest of Sprint’s LTE lineup? Is it worth the premium? Follow us southward to find out.

Continue reading Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE review: the best full QWERTY phone on Sprint’s network

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE review: the best full QWERTY phone on Sprint’s network originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint subscribers aching to get their thumbs on some QWERTY keyboarding, LTE action won’t have to wait much longer. The carrier announced today that Motorola’s verbose Photon Q 4G LTE will be hitting the network on Sunday, August 19th, carrying a $200 price tag. The handset’s packing a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Ice Cream Sandwich and an eight megapixel rear-facing camera. Interested parties can pre-order the Photon Q, et al. today. More information can be found in the press release after the break.

Continue reading Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE up for pre-order, hitting Sprint August 19th for $200

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE up for pre-order, hitting Sprint August 19th for $200 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks at Sprint seem to be having a busy day so far — this morning saw (among other things) the release of the carrier’s latest quarterly financials, an announcement about new LTE markets, and the revelation that birds are keeping the company from lighting up “hundreds” of LTE sites.

If that wasn’t enough Sprint for you, now the carrier has announced the Motorola Photon Q, a new LTE-capable handset with a physical keyboard for all those customers who could stand to do a little future-proofing.

Putting the sizable five-row QWERTY keyboard — which looks as though it’s been transplanted directly from a DROID 4 — the rest of the spec sheet looks rather familiar Like the recently-released Atrix HD for AT&T (which, if you’ll pardon the aside, was quite a treat), the Photon Q sports a lightly-tweaked version of Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, 8GB of internal storage, and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. Sadly it sports a slightly smaller 4.3-inch qHD ColorBoost LCD than its 720p cousin on AT&T, but its support for NFC may help to take the sting out of the switch.

As usual, Motorola is playing its cards close to the metaphorical vest when it comes to the Photon Q’s chipset. The last time Motorola did that, it was to conceal the Atrix HD’s Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 SoC, so here’s hoping for another pleasant surprise. Also up in the air at this point is when exactly the device is going to be released; all Motorola and Sprint will say for now is that the hefty-looking device is “coming soon.” With any luck, you’ll have some sweet LTE access in your neck of the woods when the little guy launches, but I’d advise against holding your breath.

During Sprint’s earnings call, CEO Dan Hesse revealed that Motorola’s Photon Q, the company’s latest LTE “world phone” is coming “very soon.” The Photon Q is believed to be the Android 4.0-running QWERTY-slider you can see in the image above, but now that the company’s head has let the cat out of the bag, we expect more details to roll around very shortly.

Update: Sprint’s PR engine has kicked into gear, offering the deep dish on the new handset. It’s a super-specced edition of last year’s Photon 4G and will indeed offer a QWERTY-sliding experience on Ice Cream Sandwich. Beneath the 4.3-inch ColorBoost display you’ll find a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera and NFC as well as Motorola’s Smartactions application to help users extend battery life and anticipate your daily routines. Pricing and availability will be announced within the “next few weeks,” but given how excited Dan Hesse sounded, we can’t imagine we’ll be waiting too long.

Continue reading Sprint’s Motorola Photon Q LTE is coming ‘very soon’ (update)

Filed under: Cellphones

Sprint’s Motorola Photon Q LTE is coming ‘very soon’ (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 08:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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