Help Me To Choose Between Motorola Photon 4G & Droid 3 Global

[st_7 138]

As the title reads I'm looking for a new mobile for myself, after going through few reviews about few mobiles which fall in my budget, I finalised on two mobiles 1) Motorola Photon 4G & 2) Motorola Droid 3 Global, need some suggestion from the people who have used these two phones so that I can decide on one. Presently I'm more inclined on Photon b'cause of it's performance, bright display & 1GB RAM. The only three things that made me consider Droid 3 Global are it's Keyboard, PowerVRSGX540 Graphics(which is very powerful) & its camera which motorola claims that it can shoot 1080p videos @30fps. And I'm looking for the answers to the following questions.

1) Which Screen is Better?, I read Photon has very bright display but uses pentile matrix, what about Droid 3 Global

2) which is better for listening music with ear phones.

3) Which has overall better usability in terms of signal strength, call dropping etc

Also pls add any particular pros & cons that u found on both phones.

[dev997 62]

Hi,

i'd try to answer your query as well as I can. I have owned photon 4g and can say this without any slightest doubt in my mind that its an absolute powerhouse for heavy usage, performance and gaming. Although I haven't have a chance to use droid 3 , I did use Epic 4g slider which arguably has the best physical qwerty keyboard in any smartphone.

- When comparing spec wise (which generally transforms to comparable user experience as both considered phones are from same manufacturer) It is no doubt that photon is way better.

- Best features about photon that sets it apart from other smartphones are - its awesome speaker quality, best-in class radio for call reception both in CDMA/GSM and a handy kickstand. Also Nvidias tegra 2 along with geforce GPU is no way inferior to GX540 for handling games and 3d graphics.

- Although its nice to have a physical keyboard in the phone, but I feel as a casual user its not for actual use in day-to-day life. for typing small sms or regualr work its not very preferable to use slide out keyboard. On the downside it makes the phone bulky and less sturdy (you will always feel slide-out action getting little loose after few months if used very frequently).

Again I have not used droid 3 , so cannot confirm that all those points are applicable to it in same manner. So I think a droid 3 user can comment more accurately. However I think photon would be better choice nevertheless.

On a SIDE NOTE- I'd suggest to go for a pure CDMA or GSM handset if you are going to use a single service only as you will always have some issues with the world phones as you can find in various posts in the forum.

Hope this would be helpful.

[dev997 62]

One point I missed there - as far as 1080p camera is concerned ,I seriously don't think there is much difference in photo/video quality between 720p and 1080p for regular use. But if want 1080p camera , there are few methods specified in XDA by which you can get 1080p res on photon also (one of the method is porting D3 camera app.. lol).

[dev997 62]

One more point I missed there.. ****t i'm getting sloppy....

As far as displays are concerned both D3 and photon have pentile matrix (in fact evey qHD resolution screen for motorola have pentile matrix arrangement). So no differences there.

[Karthik R 246]

Even Droid 3 uses Pentile display. Individual pixels are much more discernable on a Pentile screen than they are on a regular mobile display like AMOLED*. Also reproduction of shades of certain colours like green and yellow is particularly poor.

Among the two, Photon is better anyday. You should also consider that Motorola have confirmed ICS update for Photon while leaving Droid 3 completely in the dark.

Edit : *clarification, AMOLED display which makes use of full RBG matrix

Edited March 7, 2012 by Karthik R

[st_7 138]

Thanks for ur replies.

Individual pixels are much more discernable on a Pentile screen than they are on a regular mobile display like AMOLED.

do u mean pixels are much more discernable on a LCD SCREEN than on AMOLED(which has also pentile screen)?, How bad the pentile screen effect would be on a normal user?, I've little bit of experience with epic 4g, which has SAMOLED with pentile technology, I did notice some pixelisation while playing some HD Videos, doesn't the qHD screen in photon 4g help reduce the pentile screen problem as it packed with more pixels?

[dev997 62]

Video playback is not as good as Epic 4g on photon 4g for a low resolution videos as it appear more shadowy. for high quality video, not much difference.

Also to your other q's yes as compared to SAMOLED , smiple LCD screen with qHD is more discernable (not sure of the reason). I have also checked out Droid Razr which is SMOLED with pentile and qHD and it appears a little better than photon 4g.

That being said, I don't have much difference in user experience for casual users until you dig your eyes closer everytime and have two different handsets side by side for comparison.

[garynsa 8]

I have used both for a short period of time and I will vote for photon.

Dev had already given the tech comparison so mine is about a day to day user view

Photon is light obviously for the lack of keyboard but that makes it much much easier to move around with.

Also about the speaker which blew my mind away when I came from HTC that I was using

Also the look. If you are picky like me about the way things look chances are you will find the photon a step ahead there as well

The kick stand.. This while wasn't something I used a lot but found it handy at times.. Specially while watching some videos

Hope this help

[Karthik R 246]

How bad the pentile screen effect would be on a normal user? Some people barely notice the pixels! It all comes down to individual's preferences. The qHD display resolution which packs more pixels per inch does compensate a little

Why don't you consider galaxy S 2? Is it because of budget constraints.

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

If you have used SAMOLED (even pentile one) before, don't go for pentile-LCD, even with relatively higher resolution like qHD (comparing WVGA)... You can never tolerate the quality of videos on pentile-LCD, if your eyes earlier experienced cool over-saturated SAMOLED displays...

Thats why I have sold my Photon and switched to Samsung Captivate Glide (4" WVGA pentile but SAMOLED display) with KB... But 4" qHD pentile-LCD (Atrix) is much better than 4.3" qHD pentile-LCD (Photon), imho...

I repeat again, going to pentile-LCD is not recommended, if you have used to AMOLED before, the difference will be huge especially when watching videos...

[st_7 138]

Video playback is not as good as Epic 4g on photon 4g for a low resolution videos as it appear more shadowy.

That's a bad news for me as apart from calling I like to do with smartphone is to watch videos infact this is the main reason(& listening music) I'm interested in buying a smartphone

Why don't you consider galaxy S 2? Is it because of budget constraints.

Yes

If you have used SAMOLED (even pentile one) before, don't go for pentile-LCD, even with relatively higher resolution like qHD (comparing WVGA)... You can never tolerate the quality of videos on pentile-LCD, if your eyes earlier experienced cool over-saturated SAMOLED displays...

Thats why I have sold my Photon and switched to Samsung Captivate Glide (4" WVGA pentile but SAMOLED display) with KB... But 4" qHD pentile-LCD (Atrix) is much better than 4.3" qHD pentile-LCD (Photon), imho...

I repeat again, going to pentile-LCD is not recommended, if you have used to AMOLED before, the difference will be huge especially when watching videos...

K, thanks for ur recommendation, Thanks to all of u for ur suggestions, I think my decision to seek some suggestions from this forum turned out good, otherwise I would have bought photon & which I may regret doing so going by all the comments & suggestions above. I'll take some more time & research before I decide my next smartphone.