SpecEagle
SpecEagle review · Motorola

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE review: A 2012 4G slider with a 5-row QWERTY keyboard for power-users.

SpecEagle Editorial·Aug 2012·$200
Overall
46/100
Class rank
#6 of 17
Tier
Mid-range
Buy?
Look elsewhere
The verdict, up front

A 5-row QWERTY for serious typists.

Motorola Photon Q paired a properly excellent 5-row backlit QWERTY keyboard with 4G LTE — the last great horizontal-slider Android of the era. A power-user phone for the late slider age.

01Display

62/100

62/100 — right at the average for mid-range phones of 2012.

TypeTFT LCD
Size4.3 inches
Resolution960 × 540 px (qHD)

02Camera

56/100

56/100 — right at the average for mid-range phones of 2012.

Main8 MP, autofocus, dual-LED
Video1080p
Front1.3 MP

03Performance

56/100

56/100 puts it above the 50-point average for mid-range phones of 2012.

ChipsetSnapdragon S4 Plus dual-core 1.5 GHz
RAM1 GB
Storage8 GB · microSD

04Battery

56/100

56/100 trails the 59-point cohort average for mid-range phones of 2012.

Capacity1,785 mAh
Standby~ 200 hours

05Build

70/100

At 70/100 this is one of the strongest build showings among mid-range phones of 2012 — 8 points above the cohort average.

06Value

56/100

56/100 — right at the average for mid-range phones of 2012.

What works
  • Excellent 5-row backlit QWERTY keyboard.
  • 4G LTE + dual-core CPU.
  • qHD screen, 8 MP camera.
  • microSD + jack.
What doesn't
  • Slider mechanism added bulk.
  • Mono speaker.
  • Sprint-locked in the US.
  • MotoBlur skin.
Cross-shop it against
Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
$229 · score 64/100

How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 17-phone cohort of mid-range devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .