Questions before buying Motorola Photon 4G from ebay

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Gaurish

ex-Mod
I was thinking of buying Motorola Photon 4G from ebay. want to know your thoughts

1) As bad esn ones are cheap,if I get a bad esn phone, will it work with Vodafone(voice + data) in India?

2) Any negative point of running this CDMA phone on gsm network? e.g lack of USSD codes etc.

3) How the the camera perform in low light. I currently have Nokia 5800, whose camera is crappy in low lights. is it a same case with Photon?

4) What is the current good price for this phone on ebay?

5) Can that searching for "Sprint network" problem be fixed?

Thanks in advance!:)
 
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My brother is in US and i am thinking of getting a Photon 4G

My take on ur querries

1) As bad esn ones are cheap,if I get a bad esn phone, will it work with Vodafone(voice + data) in India?

Yes it will work ok ... no issues , India 2G n 3G

2) Any negative point of running this CDMA phone on gsm network? e.g lack of USSD codes etc.

Some issues on USSD codes are there .. u need to do more RnD on this issue

3) How the the camera perform in low light. I currently have Nokia 5800, whose camera is crappy in low lights. is it a same case with Photon?

Camera is ok and in line with the one in Atrix

4) What is the current good price for this phone on ebay?

275 USD to 325 USD

5) Can that searching for "Sprint network" problem be fixed?

Yes .. solution is availabe in xda .. u need to rename and stop certain processes
Overall a great phone
 
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tomemmanuel said:
I

Low light camera is not good
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Seems you are correct, here is what androidpolice said about Photon 4G's camera

Ah, the only other big weakness of the Photon (aside from the screen): the camera. To say the pictures are a bit disappointing would be putting it lightly.

If you look at the pictures full-size, you can see that colors are almost universally off, detail is lacking, and most pictures are washed out. Even amongst camera phones, it's decidedly sub-par
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:(

This is a dead breaker for me:|

Gsm network detection is not robust
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Any specific problems you would like to point out?
 
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Motorola Photon camera reviews from various sites:

Engadget:

The Photon 4G's eight megapixel auto-focus camera appears to be identical to the one used in the Droid X2. As such, it nixes the mechanical shutter found on the original Droid X and Milestone XT720, two handsets that can be coaxed to produce fantastic shots. While we applaud the decision to include a dedicated camera button, we're completely dumbfounded as to why Motorola chose a single detent mechanism instead of a proper dual-stage shutter key -- it's truly a case of two steps forward and one step back. Rounding up the spec list, you'll find a dual LED flash and three microphones (one on the front, two in the back). In most conditions, the Photon takes lovely pictures. Color balance and exposure are generally quite accurate, but low light performance is average at best and noise always creeps in a little too soon. While the sensor gathers plenty of information, it's just not sensitive enough -- there's no night mode and pictures shot in low light just end up looking dim even when adjusting exposure.

Ultimately, this camera gets the job done, but leaves us wanting more.
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Slashgear:

Now the PHOTON 4G has an 8 MP camera with dual LED flash and the camera performed just as I expected it to, with low light indoors it took great shots and the shutter speed was faster than a lot of phones I’ve used in the past. I took a few pictures of my faithful puppy taking a nap but I don’t think he was happy with me for waking him.

Here is a close up for some detail, this is natural lighting without flash and the 8MP camera does a great job again.
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Phonearena:

Motorola Photon 4G’s 8-megapixel camera performed very well, especially in strong light. Details were crisp, color reproduction was accurate. We were particularly impressed with the macro shots the Photon 4G produced. The dual LED flash performed about as well as you can expect from a cell phone but has a tendency to wash out close subjects. Keeping with Motorola tradition the controls are very limited, but thankfully the camera produces images just fine on its own. The camcorder does quite well also, recording at a max resolution of 720p. We would have liked seeing 1080p though.
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Androidcommunity:

Then I’ve got nothing but nice things to say about the camera. You’ve got many modes to work in and the photos are fully awesome. You’ll only be able to go up to 720p resolution for recording with the camcorder, but you’ll find that you like the results. The best part of the camera experience, incidentally, isn’t in the camera at all, but in the gallery after the photos are taken. For more information on what you’re looking at with the camera and how it’ll lead you to an awesome GPS-tastic experience all day long, check out my review of the Motorola DROID 3 from just about 24 hours before this post was posted. Slightly different camera interface here, same fantastic gallery action. Now for some example media so you know what you’re dealing with here:
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To me it's good enough but again I'm never a fan of mobile camera. I only use it occasionally and when extremely needed Even my 10 year old 2MP standalone camera snaps better photos than todays 5MP cameraphones.

As someone pointed this is a great piece of hardware at sub 20K level.
 
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