[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] zurvan2:
I *was* typing this from the Q, but hit the wrong button and lost the message. Blah.

The Q is very similar to the epic, and is a natural upgrade. There is much more in common between the two phones than there are differences. That said, the Q is hands-down the better android device.

Body: The phones are almost exactly the same size and weight. The shapes and textures feel more different than the size or weight do, and even that is subtle. The general design cues are the same: shiny black plastic with a bezel on top, matte black rubberized plastic on the back. External buttons are laid out differently, but it's mostly just different, not better or worse.

Keyboard: I really like the keyboard layout on the Q. The keyboards are very similar overall, but the Q has a real tab button, an "OK" button which acts as the center of a D-Pad or the press of a trackball and works well with ConnectBot/VXConnectBot. The default keys (as opposed to those accessible by fn) seem better. The layout took me about a week to get used to. I DO miss the hardware home/back/menu/search buttons from the epic keyboard, but I think I'll get used to that eventually.

Screen: I was really worried that the screen would not be as good as the Super AMOLED on the epic, especially in daylight. But the reviews were right, and the screen is great. Very comparable... tough to say which is better in daylight. Colors are bright, but they were on the epic, too. I'm even using auto-brightness, which was always annoying and a battery drain on the epic.

Forget about the extra .3 inches on the display. That is taken up by the software buttons that never go away. For practical purposes the displays are exactly the same size. (Looking closely, the display appears to be 1-1.5mm bigger in each dimension)

The increased resolution is noticeable if you look really closely. I definitely can't see individual pixels at normal viewing distance, so I definitely don't regret not having an "HD" screen. I have noticed that some software looks "odd" in the new resolution. I'm not sure if that's because the apps are old and not updated (gsettlers) or maybe just a font difference. Not a big deal, and it only affects maybe 5% of apps, but it surprised me.

Camera: The reviews were not kind to the camera, but it really is at least comparable to the epic. I haven't really done a side-by-side comparison, but I have had plenty of "keepers" taken with the Q. The camera on the Q is definitely faster. The camera button is definitely nice to have, but is not two-stage. There is no "focus only" half-press. Touching the screen can trigger focus, and this can definitely help in some situations.

Battery: For me, battery life is about the same. Both phones would just about hit the low-battery warnings by the time I would go to bed on a typical day with no charging. That said, I have atypical days all the time, so I just charge whenever I'm sitting near a charger. I did have an extra battery for the epic that I used a handful of times, mostly when traveling. I intend to get a battery powered pocket charger to cover this use case for the Q. It should be noted that the Q is more picky about usb cables. I have at least one usb cable that the Q will not use to charge. All the samsung cables and chargers do appear to work, though.

Radio: The radio is, again, comparable. There are a couple spots where I have noticed better signal than the epic, and a couple where I've noticed worse with wifi. In both cases, the Q seems to do less "hunting" than the epic.

Ports/SD: SD card is more accessible than the epic. Q does *not* come with an SD card like the epic did. A 32 GB card is less than $30 on amazon, though. I haven't had a chance to use the hdmi port. There is no port cover like the epic has for the usb port.

Dock: The car dock for the Q deserves a special mention. This dock is really great, and is a stark contrast to the absolutely crap docks that were available for the epic. The car dock has power and audio out, in a single wire (which is great for hard/subtle installs). The dock also leaves all the buttons and the headphone jack accessible. There is even a removable liner so the phone would fit with a case, although apparently none of the cases released so far fit. The software for car mode is good. Audio is routed correctly, even for bluetooth, which means no more "dock sound redirector" needed. The car mode app even has customizable spots for whatever apps you want, which is a big step up from the comparable samsung apps.

Speed: This is by far the biggest thing you will notice about the Q. Or rather, *not* notice it. You know how the epic is pretty fast, and sometimes, everything is smooth and just works great? The Q is *always* like that. No random slow-downs. No pauses where you hit the button twice because you weren't sure if the first one registered. I didn't realize how big the difference was until I went back to use the epic after a couple days with the Q. I could never go back, now.

Also, the extra memory and storage are great. No more messing with apps-to-sd, and fewer pauses when switching between apps. That said, I'm guessing everyone needs more than 4 GB (of the 8GB internal storage, this is accessible to users) so it's not like SD card is optional.

Audio: Sound is about the same, really. External speaker is plenty loud.

Software: I'm not going to write all that and skip software, even though you aren't interested. I was last using CM9 on the epic, and the transition from that to ICS on the Q was pretty smooth. The home screen app is more capable than CM9, so I haven't switched to another launcher like Nova. Similarly, the lock screen has convenient shortcuts for camera, etc. so I haven't had to customize that. The "quick view" on the stock apps is neat. I don't like that you can't pick which home screen is the one you get to when you hit the home button... it's always the leftmost. The camera app is less customizable than the touchwiz or CM9 ones. Panorama mode is in a menu, for example. Settings/etc are not too different from CM9: there are motorola customizations, but generally in areas that are rarely accessed.

Voice Commands/Voice Dialing are better than the epic in any incarnation. (Froyo, the crappy GB or ICS from CM9)

Root: I waited until the phone was rooted before I bought it (thanks shabby!). Unlocking and rooting was very easy, even compared to the epic, which was pretty easy to start with. Unlocking *will* void your warranty, and adds a boot-time warning message about the unlocked bootloader. The few mods that are available now are all geared towards playing catchup with other roms, things like the toggles in the notification drawer (missing in motorola stock), the 1% battery icon and the power menu with more options. I'm guessing that there will be more and more small mods like this, and eventually custom roms.

I don't know exactly what needs to happen before custom roms can happen, but the *need* for them is very different than for the epic. Samsung was notoriously slow with updates. The rom community had Gingerbread long before samsung provided a rom, and there was never an ICS rom from samsung, let alone JB! Plus touchwiz was much more invasive than Motorola's current offering. Motorola, on the other hand, has promised Jelly Bean updates for new phones, and put cash on the line to prove it. But, the epic *needed* newer android versions because they were faster and had better memory and disk space management. I am curious about Jelly Bean, but I don't feel like I "need" project butter or the other enhancements on the Q.

I do hope that the unlocked bootloader attracts the mod community and especially cyanogenmod given the success I had with CM9 on the epic.