yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] shabbypenguin:
i had a htc hero cdma, it sucked but it was a trooper. upgraded to the epic 4g and loved it, had to switch to tmobile due to a possible relocation which ended up falling through. the tmobile g2 was hands down one of teh best phones ive ever held in my life due to the nice bu ild, software, and keyboard. it was hard giving up the qwerty on the ns4g and photon.. but the big samsung screens i can honestly say it isnt a hassle with swiftkey 3 to type.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
That is cause a lot of these keyboard addons are not made by people who want keyboards, they are made by people out to make a quick buck off people and make them as cheap as possible. Just like when you see a keyboard phone with a 4 row qwerty, you know they aren't even trying.

Sometimes I wish they stop making keyboard phones and start making modular phones where you take off the back cover and connect the keyboard which is sold separately. This way everyone is happy, people can keep their slates and we can have any phone as a keyboard phone.

Because the system is rigged that way, if a person refuses to upgrade in between 22-24 month he loses $10 per month. Its not like you can get a discount for not using your subsidy. :(

The T-Mobile G2 is an example of why HTC sucks, I have nothing against the phone itself but how in the world do you go from a TP2 keyboard to a G2 keyboard? They got the TP2 right and then suddenly decided that it was too good and made it worse,then completely removed all keyboard phones :/
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] dbpaddler:
Don't feel like quoting.

1. Didn't like the G2, Desire Z and what not. No number row. No cursor keys. The optical pad was not a substitute. The hinge sucked. I preferred the Sidekick 4g actually, though neither held a candle to the Epic. And yes, I briefly owned both of the former mentioned phones. I'm very happy I didn't push to migrate the account to t-mobile. I would've been forced to buy a Milestone 4 from Rogers.

2. Odd way to look at the subsidy since pricing is what it is. Why would anyone upgrade just to upgrade? Just another side effect of living in a consumptive world. My car is paid for, I have a phone that works well. Why would I use my upgrade to get a phone I don't really need especially if I have to drop $200 to do it. That right there is an expense of $8.33/mo so you're only really losing $1.67 per month. But the analogy doesn't really work in my eyes.

3. Why would I want modular? It's something else to lose or break and it defeats the purpose of the convenience of the slider if you have to constantly switch things out. The design of the keyboard half being an integrated battery cover just seems like more of a design nightmare albeit it interesting. If sliders are already given second tier status, why would they go that extra mile in designing a modular one. And it would still have to slide. Would think the attachment mechanism and slider mechanism combined would add some bulk a simple slider mechanism alone wouldn't.

4. In regards to the BT keyboard cases. Yes, they're made cheaply by China factories with no real thought to layout, travel and feel. So suddenly, because it's the GS3, they're going to be made by some name brand company who actually gives a **** and puts some thought into the design? With two rounds of the same exact phone (4/4S), nobody has gotten it just right, but it'll change now that Samsung's first standardized design worldwide is on the shelves.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
Well that is the human psychology. Why do you think "deals" are so popular? remember when best buy I think was it got caught for actually increasing prices on deals? lol. What they would do is up the price of a laptop by 50$ and put it in their paper as a deal. Since people generally don't want to miss out on deals they buy first without actually looking at the bigger picture.

For me personally, I am sitting on 6 line upgrades lol. So I gotta use up the upgrades anyways. Originally I was planning on grabbing a galaxy nexus for free on a deal to use up one of the upgrades just to play around with it for fun. But changed my mind because the processor of the Nexus is just too weak, so even when I am done playing with it I will have no real use for it. As for the Q, as I mentioned, I am not too happy about the internal battery and the screen resolution. But if I see it for free on a deal I'll grab one. So far cheapest I have seen is 139.99 for upgrade and 100 after rebate if I play the cancel line and open line trick.

I am hoping they refine the process, get it right and then we can use it. If it is modular means you can leave it on and if they do it right they can fit 2 batteries inside 1 phone to give it more juice. I mean they are shrinking phones every single revision, and we are not seeing any top end keyboard phones...so I'd rather have a choice of phones rather then being stuck with half baked keyboard phones. Plus I have no desire to constantly switch things out, I just want to walk into a store buy any phone I like, buy a keyboard for it and ready to go. I can think of a few designs that will make it work without adding much heft.

I agree there...maybe we need to starts a kickstarter for making a decent keyboard lol
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] LexLuger82:
Cancel line and open trick? Explain
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] dbpaddler:
I thought that way when they had one year contracts, but with the two year ones people are pretty much ready to upgrade when their contract is up. I've got about 25 lines going, and in some cases I have a couple of bosses that think they can get a new phone whenever they want. I've finally dropped the hammer and then the one says to just start a new line. I'm like, whatever dude, it's your money. I will be picking up a ZTE Optik on the Air Rave line as soon as ZTE gets back to me about them upgrading it to ICS or JB. If not, I'll look at something else, but the ZTE is free. So I'm rarely sitting on off contract lines. And it's a rarity I can get a "deal" on a phone unless Sprint is running it. Once in a blue moon I'm able to buy a phone from a 3rd party. It never seems to go through. Playing with company money anyway, so if the bosses want to just open a line to get the phone they want, I have no problem always ordering from Sprint. With the $100 amex card for opening a new line with the Q, I'll probably do just that. Just ordered a new line with a GS3, but I already told my care rep that I will finagle the $100 gift card and she can either do it the easy way or the hard way. Return the GS3 and cancel the new line and start from scratch with the Q on the new line and upgrade my line on the GS3 then ESN swap. That's the hard way.

I'll still see it as being bulkier than any current slider design. Anything "modular" usually is compared to something that isn't.

That would be a great idea if it wouldn't be obsolete by the time it gets made. By then it would be selling for 70% of it's original price and the kickstartees would essentially be paying normal price by the time it came to fruition because the GS4 would be announced and the GS3 would be on its way out.

---------- Post added at 02:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 AM ----------

Would imagine it's just canceling a line not on contract and opening up a new line.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And another thing....considering the Epic never fully worked as promised (ie. GPS), they should give Epic owners $100 Amex cards for upgrading to the Q. Would at least cover the costs of buying a battery pack for charging the Q on the go along with more chargers and cables so we can have one for every regular place we go since we'll need to charge the phone all the time.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
So for you none of the 3rd parties work? It might be the type of accounts you have or something. As for ordering from sprint directly, the only two promos are the $100 AMEX card and the $50 statement credit. though with the $100 promo your not really missing anything out atm because cheapest GS3 for new line is like 109.99 though with a self referral you might be bale to push it down to $85. If I see a GS3 for free I might grab one but if it is going to be a slab I might wait for a LG e970 which should be coming out soon and has a better processor. then again GS3 has a lot of development going for it :/

A little, but for a good slider its worth it. That is how desperate I am for a good top end slider.

If someone was serious about such a project, it would have to be a keyboard that fits on all phones of certain size so that all you have to do is make minor modifications. So it should work on GS2, GS3, HTC One X, LG e970, Motorola Atrix, and etc. And once the GS4 comes out as long as it is around the same size it would work as well.

Rumor was that it was related to the Skyhook debacle but who knows, as interesting as it sounds the CDMA variants had better GPS then the GSM ones so you can only imagine how it was for them.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] bitbang3r:
I agree that the slide-out BT keyboards have largely sucked. But then again, so did the Epic's keyboard.

I bought an Epic instead of an Evo because of that miserable keyboard, and regretted it daily for the next year. Why? The idiots made the keycaps too big & totally flat, so it was impossible for me to press keys without pressing adjacent keys as well. It's like the Epic's designers intentionally bent over backwards to un-learn everything Palm, Blackberry, and Motorola have learned over the past decade about "how to make a tiny keyboard usable", and instead cobbled together a half-assed keyboard that looked really pretty in pictures, but was basically unusable by an adult male with normal-sized fingers.

The Epic's *pitch* was fine. Had they gone through with the original prototype and made tiny buttons with the same pitch as the final keyboard, it would have been great, because each key would have been surrounded by an ocean of empty space. I could have probably even typed on it using my thumbs. But no, they had to make it pretty... and unusable.

I really wish I had a Makerbot. I'd buy a broken Sidekick2 on eBay, then spend the next 3 months gutting a GS3 and giving it a body transplant (with new display module containing the transplanted GS3 display) with an extended battery, and the keyboard & gamepad controls wired up with a microcontroller to drive a bluetooth module. I'd kill for an old, thick phone with the guts of a modern Android phone inside and a battery that can run it with aggressive use for a couple of days. Call it a hunch, but I'm pretty sure I could charge $500 and do at least a few dozen similar body transplants for others, who'd subsequently guard the phone with their lives and cherish it for years.

Sigh. I look at all the things we've been forced to sacrifice so the size nazis can have razor-thin phones, and just want to scream. Dammit, I want a real battery, proper gamepad controls, and a keyboard I can actually use. In terms of pure form factor, I still think the Sidekick phones were pretty much the pinnacle of "phone-as-pocket-laptop-and-videogame" design.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
While the Epic keyboard was not perfect, I would not put it at the same level as those BT junk.

I think they just took whatever was cheaper to make, but I really don't expect a company to learn from others that much, what I am upset is at HTC because they seemed to have un-learned everything they themselves learned which is much worse.

The 3d printer prices are dropping there are some 300$ ones like MakiBox and Printxel though I don't know how good they are. All the kickstarter discussion made me think of the ultimate keyboard but too bad I don't have the time to make one :(

I am thinking of like a totally modular keyboard which every part modifiable. So in itself it will be a sliding mechanism that connects to a backplate, the backplate is exchangeable so you can buy a separate backplate for each phone and mount it on. Then inside the shell you would have the keyboard and they keyboard itself can be swappable to multiple choices from gamepad to keyboard to something custom. On top of the keyboard will be a dedicated camera button and left/right click buttons. The swappable keyboard will use standard microusb and bluetooth and zigbee, so you can actually remove the swappable keyboard, plug your cellphone into the TV via HDMI and use it as a GoogleTV/Game station.In Zigbee mode the portable keyboards waste 0 power and are powered by your keypress(I have seen a module that does this). The shell itself will also allow to adjust itself for different battery size expansions and allow other forms of components such as adding NFC and wireless charging to phones that don't have it. Also it will have room for an extra microsd card for extra storage. Oh an an option for a keyboard with micro mechanical switches. And I am just getting started on how awesome it can be if enough effort is put into it ;)

But hey I can dream. :(

I just wish they would at least be willing to compromise, I hate it how people who like thin phones attack all the keyboard phones as though they don't have enough choices and need another slate. But in terms of pinnacle of keyboard phones I'd go with the TP2.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] tetrabyt:
OK folks, show of hands, how many in here have actually used a photon Q?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] inimitableac:
Me! Honestly its the best keyboard I've used in a long time.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] hellot1M:
I used one all day yesterday. Love the phone!
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] WhiteSites:
My client just got the Photon Q yesterday. He had me setup his email on it. I have to say its the best QWERTY phone I have ever used. However the stock ROM is also one of the worst. Is there a thread of ROMS for this device yet? I need to get something AOSP like on this phone quick. The stock ROM is slow, and the data speed is terrible!. Don't know if its just Sprint in Houston, but I was truely disappointed by Sprint's 3G/4G data was last night. Nothing about the UI on this phone is logical.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] tetrabyt:
I haven't even played with the keyboard all that much and I love this phone.. :D

---------- Post added at 05:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:35 PM ----------

Your personal phone an iPhone?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] dbpaddler:
Seriously. App drawer and basic functions all at the bottom. Such a radical departure from smartphones since Palm OS.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] AllBlaxx:
I'm still holding out hope for a teardown video that shows how to disassemble the phone and remove the SIM so I can get this to use in Canada. Either that or Motorola releases it for one of our carriers in a few months
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Puzzlegal:
if anyone us seriously interested in making a new case, keyboard, etc., they should check out shapeways. They will do the 3-d printing.for you, and then you can sell chores to other people.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] jefbal99:
I bought one for my mom yesterday, got her all setup. Used it on and off for 4hrs. Very solid device, I'm impressed
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
If someone is serious about making what I said I don't think it would be made out of plastic. Unless you mean for people to make the keyboard case for themselves.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Nippero:
Going to be switching from Tmobile to sprint soon. Switching from a G2 so I'd like to get the Photon Q to keep having a qwerty.

I read earlier in the thread a rep said this thing comes with an unlocked bootloader? Is that confirmed to be true with the production units?

You guys think this device will be popular enough to have good support from these forums? (If not I'd be getting a SGS3... but I'd rather not).

I've been happily using my G2 for years now thanks to the constant ROM updates from XDA devs, awesome guys.

Hope the same can be said for the future of the Photon Q.

Oh and can I tether via BT out of the box or is that locked by Sprint (probably is right?). Asking cause I tether my N7 to my G2 via BT right now.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] tetrabyt:
Any loss of functionality when you unlocked?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
me tooo
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] tcrimsonk:
I'm hoping for a root other than the official bootloader unlocking. If you do it their way, you have to send them your device's ID, and request some confirmation code from them. In doing so, they mark your device as no longer covered by their warranty.

I'll also be curious to learn if that also voids the insurance you can pay for through Sprint.

I've had mine for three days now, and I'm pretty happy with it. If you get one, pour a few drops of water on the screen. The hydrophobic coating they put on there is pretty cool, but it only works if the screen is clean. Fingerprints cover the hydrophobic surface, and then you can't see it in action.

Also, who do I need to talk to to get rid of this captcha every time I post?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] dbpaddler:
Sorry. I don't agree. I'm an adult male with normal sized hands. I have zero problems only pressing on key at a time. I've been typing on the Epic since the day it was released. I've owned a Moment, Evo Shift, G2 and Sidekick 4g. I also play around with my sister's Droid 2 on a weekly basis. The Epic is still my favorite of the bunch. And the Sidekick 4g was ok, but it relied on the optical pad which wasn't well integrated into the keyboard. The keys of the Epic, while flat, have some left/right rocker to them so you can feel adjacent keys while pressing one. So unless you're mashing keys with the pad of your fingers, I don't see that argument. Not to mention no oddly placed keys like a mic key to the left of the enter button.

––-------------

And I thin the modular BT wouldn't adapt well to multiple phones. The nice integrated part about sliders is both halves match. The modular one is what is, and you have slates of various sizes with screens from 3.2 to 4.7". The backside is just going to look goofy if it's not a perfect fit. Plus the backs of phones are compltely varied. Some are rounded and full size, some are flat and not much bigger than the battery itself. Trying to adapt each to the slideout and keep bulk reasonable while maintaining an OEM like fit of an integrated keyboard slider.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
It does not void insurance, insurance takes the device as-is. As for the warranty,it depends on the laws in your state.

You are a new member, once you post more it will disappear eventually. It is to prevent spammers from making accounts and posting.

---------------------------------------

Edit:

It can work, remember the shell is the cheapest and easiest part to create. To be fully modular the keyboard itself with all the wiring is inputted inside a shell. Same way Synapse works with their trackpads and that new keyboard they released for ultrabooks. The only sacrifice you are going to have to make is small phones. So you can only target 4.5" or higher, maybe 4.3"+ is possible if it is well designed.

So lets rehash, you have a modular keyboard that goes into a shell and then the shell is attached to a custom back plate. So only thing that needs to be changed is the backplate depending on phone and the shell depending on size. With the cheapest part being the backplate and the 2nd cheapest part being the shell. This way perfect fit can be achieved at minimal costs.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] dbpaddler:
Does the unlocking violate Magnusson in any way in regards to no longer honoring the warranty?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gTen:
Not really, Magnusson does not really address software.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] shabbypenguin:
it does however violate the magna carta ;P
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] bitbang3r:
Few laws are completely bulletproof against attack by well-funded corporate opponents, but Magnuson-Moss comes pretty close to it. Basically, if you submit a phone for a warranty repair and they deny it, saying "Magnuson-Moss" to a CSR is like going up to an old woman in medieval Britain and saying "Nee!". Even Apple, at its most arrogant AT&T-exclusive moment, never dared to try fighting Magnuson-Moss.

Think about it for a moment. M-M was passed in the 1970s, when General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were three of the most powerful companies on planet Earth, and it was passed largely because the American auto industry abused so many people so badly, even individual members of Congress & the Senate were pissed.

M-M was an incredibly popular law the auto industry fought to the last drop of blood, and the abuses it was written to contain are basically the same for phones as they were for cars 30+ years ago. Vendor lock-in, attempts to limit and restrict what end users could do with hardware they purchased and owned, aggressive attempts to restrict the availability of information needed to repair cars & the tools necessary for fixing them, and endless lawsuits involving patent law used to seal and lock down their hardware platform as hard as tightly as possible.

40 years ago, our parents were as pissed about attempts by the auto industry to tell them they couldn't have an 8-track player, or change their own oil, or tune their engines for a few more horsepower, as we are about locked bootloaders, gimped kernels with crippled bluetooth profiles, proprietary kernel modules, and keyboards that suck. As a matter of pure good luck, M-M was written in general terms, and the FTC has taken a fairly expansive view of it over the years.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this: if a manufacturer refuses a warranty claim on a rooted phone, they're risking a fine that exceeds the value of that phone by a factor of a thousand or more... and all you have to do to make it happen is file a complaint. No lawyers necessary. The only wiggle room they really have is the right to reflash the phone to stock and wipe it clean before trying to fix it, and no duty to give it back to you with the firmware or configuration you sent it with.

They COULD theoretically try to charge a "JTAG-reflashing" fee for rooted phones... but the moment someone filed a Magnuson-Moss complaint against them, the onus would be entirely on them to convince the FTC that JTAG-reflashing isn't something they routinely do as the first step in troubleshooting a returned phone *anyway* (with a hefty fine waiting for them if they dare to challenge the FTC & lose).
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] dbpaddler:
I was giving it a read while at the gym which was why I mentioned it. The only time you're really going to screw up a phone with a custom rom is when you screw up flashing it. Actual hardware issues or software issues not cleared by flashing a rom, hard reset or what not are pretty much a warranty issue. Flashing the phone back to stock and being able to reproduce the problem should support that it is not a fault of screwing with the phone due to the unlocked bootloader. And more often than not, thanks to the forums and google, you can pretty much find others having the same problem and show it has zero to do with rooting and romming . I just don't get the hoopla around it when others have had unlockable bootloaders for a while. One reason why i like Samsung. ODIN/Kies is just as easy as it gets to get one out of trouble.

But hence why I don't really fear unlocking the bootloader. And slashgear has done an unboxing with a review to come next week. I think I'll hold off till then and maybe a few others come in and talk about battery life. I never once questioned the build and feel of the phone. Have owned enough moto to know better. I wish the specs were a notch better (HD Screen, 2gb RAM, nothing embedded), but the battery just scares me. I really wish they'd at least go to conductive charging. Would make for a pretty sweet belt clip holster with a built in battery pack. Contacts at the bottom, LiPoly battery running full length and width of the face of the holster. Would put my mind at ease in picking this up. Conductive charging seems like such a no brainer. Shame BB even shied away from it.