Hasta La Gadget!

The Photon 4G is capable of connecting to a desktop dock, which lets users display content on other connected devices. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Motorola’s latest Android smartphone lives up to its name.

Fast, big and light, the Photon 4G is Motorola’s new powerhouse smartphone, another in a trend of increasingly powerful handsets debuting this year. We had some hands-on time with the phone before its debut next week.

Picking up the device for the first time is a bit strange. With its 4.3-inch screen and considerably large physical dimensions (2.63 by 4.99 by .48 inches), you’d expect the Photon to possess some degree of heft. And yet, it doesn’t — at least, not to the degree that its appearance suggests.

At 5.57 ounces, the Photon’s weight feels more like its titular particle than anything else (aptly, an actual photon has no mass). That’s the result of the plastic construction that composes the phone’s body, complete with a slightly matted rubberized back panel to make for an improved grip. While it’s nice not to lug around a brick in my pocket, the phone seems almost too light for what ultimately feels like a cumbersome shape. It felt bulky yet still fragile in my hands — and I’ve got pretty big hands.

Flip the Photon over and you’ll notice a nod to HTC’s Thunderbolt — both devices come with a metal kickstand on the back, ostensibly for watching video on the phone for an extended period of time. It was a clever flourish, though I can’t see myself using it on surfaces other than airplane tray tables. And besides, if I decide to use the multimedia dock (not included) to hook my Photon up to a larger monitor, why worry about the 4.3-inch screen at all? Still, it’s fun to flick open and shut, and it may appeal to the frequent flying crowd.

Whether or not you want to view media on the phone’s screen, it’ll display brilliantly. I watched a few YouTube music videos with the brightness cranked up to 11, and clips ran beautifully. It’s like a miniature drive-in, sans popcorn.

One of the main perks of the Photon is its dual-core processor innards. It’s sporting the same Nvidia Tegra 2 1-GHz chip that debuted in the Motorola Atrix earlier in the year. Like the Atrix, the Photon is zippy. Applications launched swiftly, and I zoomed in and out of menu screens with relative ease. Backed by a gig of RAM, a dual-core smartphone is the way to go (until Nvidia debuts its quad-core chips for mobile, that is).

Another big bonus — for the Photon, Sprint’s Wi-Max connection works swimmingly. Page-load times were cut into fractions of what we’ve seen on rival networks like T-Mobile or AT&T. The Thunderbolt — which runs on on Verizon’s 4G LTE network — was the last phone we’ve tested that performed at speeds like these.

It’s worth mentioning that the Photon ships with Android version 2.3.4 — the latest iteration of the operating system for smartphones. While being super up to date may not be crucial to you, it’s nice to see at least one manufacturer not shipping an out of date OS directly out of the gate.

The Photon hits the street on Sprint’s 4G network on July 31, and will cost you a cool $200 with a two-year contract.

The rumors were true, but given the long, torrid affair between these two it shouldn’t be a surprise. Sprint and LightSquared have confirmed their intentions to the world, stepping into a whopping 15 year agreement that will be worth $9 billion in cash for Sprint and will save LightSquared an estimated $13 billion. LightSquared will have the right to sell access to Sprint’s burgeoning LTE network, while Sprint can also piggy-back on the other’s existing capacity where needed. Additionally, LightSquared will be able to roam on Sprint’s current 3G network, opening new doors for one while helping the other accelerate its apparent transition to LTE. This is of course good news for Sprint and naturally for LightSquared, which is trying desperately to put the whole GPS fiasco behind it. The loser? Clearwire, we’d say — and WiMAX in general.

Continue reading Sprint and LightSquared confirm agreement, 15 years worth of LTE network sharing and more

Sprint and LightSquared confirm agreement, 15 years worth of LTE network sharing and more originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Sprint-bound Galaxy S II already posed for one candid and now it also appears to have made a tour of the FCC’s testing facilities. Packing CDMA and WiMAX radios, along with a design that matches the leak and and an appropriate model number (SPH-D710), this definitely appears to be the Within we were expecting. So far the only additional clue teased from the FCC documents comes from Wireless Goodness which points out it’s 5mm taller and 3mm wider than Euro-spec Galaxy S IIs, but feel free to click the source link and look for yourself.

Samsung Galaxy S II with WiMAX stops by the FCC on its way to Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s a whole batch of previously unsuspected launch dates on this leaked Sprint document, but our looking glass is drawn to the very bottom of the list. Here you’ll spot a red arrow, subtly added by us, pointing at the words “ZTE V55 TABLET.” Could it be the very same 10-incher we spotted at CTIA? It certainly could, but there are two irksome discrepancies. Firstly, the CTIA slate was scheduled for the second half of this year, which is earlier than the 2012 date suggested on the leak. Secondly, the CTIA tablet was LTE compatible, whereas Sprint isn’t — at least not yet. Our attempts to make a connection must therefore be abandoned for the time being, leaving our intellectual appetites to dine on a weevil-infested question mark.

Leaked Sprint release table bears a tablet: the unknown ZTE V55 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How would you feel about a little Android 2.3.5 (!) action on that Nexus S 4G of yours? What about some WiMAX performance improvements? You should be getting all that plus WiFi connectivity and speakerphone quality tweaks, along with TTY support on Monday July 25th, which is when Sprint is expected to begin rolling out an OTA update for Samsung’s pure Gingerbread handset. We were given an exclusive first look at the new software, and while it’s still being finalized, we tested it side-by-side with the original, and our results show a welcome increase in 4G speeds across the board. As you may remember, we observed repeatable WiMAX performance issues with the old software, so this update is excellent news indeed. The amount of improvement will likely depend on your locale, but even in signal-challenged San Francisco and New York we noticed the difference right away — so kudos to Google, Samsung, and Sprint for addressing this. We also experienced performance in-line with our Epic 4G — the benchmark device used for our initial testing with the previous firmware version. Take a look at our gallery below, and peek at our hands-on video after the break.

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

Continue reading Sprint readies Nexus S 4G update with improved WiMAX performance, we go hands-on (video)

Sprint readies Nexus S 4G update with improved WiMAX performance, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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