Motorola Triumph (Virgin Mobile)

Pros: + Powerful and fast.
+ Quality screen/video.
+ Quality speakers/audio.
+ Forward and front facing cameras.

Cons: - Camcorder lacks tremendously.
- GPS can flake out.
- Android 2.2 has occasional hiccups and app crashing.

Summary: The Triumph is just about the best option one has in the pre-paid smart phone market, as one of the few high-end models available. This being pre-paid, of course the technology behind the phone is about 2 to 3 years old now, a solid 1Ghz single core processor, and 512mb of RAM, while current contract phones have moved on to dual core processors and 1gb of RAM. To get an idea, you could say that the Triumph is about on par with a iPhone 3gs.

Physical design - For me, the Triumph teeters on the line between being too big and just right in size, anything larger is not practical for a phone, and anything considerably smaller would leave something to be desired. The Triumph is satisfyingly thin and light-weight, but the boxy design with it's rather large dimensions kind of make it a slightly uncomfortable phone to hold in your hand, despite the soft almost rubber-like material of the plastic. So far, I have not purchased a protective case for my phone. I strongly recommend that you do buy a protective case, as I can see how a phone of this size and shape would sustain some pretty catastrophic damage if dropped onto a hard surface. Unlike some other phones offered through Virgin, the Triumph only has three side buttons, a standard standby/power, and two media/ringer volume buttons. I was slightly disappointed to learn there was no physical button for shooting pictures.

In addition, there is a standard headphones jack at the top, and a standard USB as well as a mini HDMI-out on the bottom. I've yet to use the HDMI-out function, as mini cable was not included and can be very expensive. The capacitive keys for menu, home, back, and search are a nice feature, but can occasionally lock up where they don't want to respond and you must tap the home key to regain full functionality. There are two speakers on each side and they can get pretty loud, the sound quality is pretty sharp.

Screen - The screen is vibrant, colorful, pretty to look at. The resolution isn't as high as an iPhone, but is still the standard for any Android phone. The screen automatically adjusts levels of brightness to accommodate your needs by detecting the level of external light which is nice. There is a noticeable screen "leak" in the bottom left and right corners below the screen. For me, it's not a big deal at all. My only complaint would be that there is one tiny "dead pixel" on my screen, and a couple of small blotches behind the factory installed screen protector. Touch sensitivity is a little too rigid really, could have been a bit more responsive.

Performance - The phone performs quiet well in every capacity. Apps and widgets are quick to load and install, games run nicely, web surfing is fast and smooth running even on non-mobile sites, videos run nicely without lag. Note that performance with any data related app will partially depend on Sprint's 3G service and coverage in your local area. The first three days I had the phone I also had problems with the GPS being very slow, soon after it began working much quicker, but still struggles to pinpoint your location from time to time. So not the greatest GPS, but with a little patience, it's fine. Unfortunately, app do crash occasionally, and have been doing so more often than when I first got the phone which is disappointing. I have on occasion experienced some general malfunctioning as well, such as the screen flickering green during a Youtube video. I've also woken up from standby to a washed out screen. I'm not sure what causes these issues, but they don't occur very often.

Camera - Very disappointing for me. At the price point, I really expected a better camera. It's a 5 megapixel, apparently capable of shooting stills in 1080p, and video in 720p. You're offered a lot of resolutions in the settings and on the highest the still shots are good, but I wouldn't say great. Lots of light will greatly benefit a still shot, while dimmer locations will be less impressive. Perhaps the biggest let down of the phone for me is the camcorder. While the picture isn't bad, especially on the 720p resolution, it tends to suffer a lot from motion blur and lagging with a very low frame rate. In fact, a video shot in 720p will often result in 10fps, which is unacceptable. It's disappointing that the camera in the Triumph isn't up to par with my standard definition Canon from 2007 in that regard. A standard 30fps would have been nice. The mic in the camcorder is very quiet and muffled as you would expect with a typical camera phone, again very disappointing. I would have really liked the Triumph to have a overall good camera for $300, but I'm afraid it's very mediocre. The front facing cam is about on par with typical web cam quality.

OS / pre-loaded apps - The phone comes pre-loaded with an outdated version of Android, 2.2. This doesn't make sense as 2.3 was already out when the Triumph was released, and now there's a 4.0. As far as I know, there is no "official" update as of yet, your only option is to install a custom ROM if you don't want 2.2. This particular Android is pretty straight forward, but of course there are at least a two or three apps on Virgin's end that most will find unnecessary or useless, and unfortunately they're hard to get rid of if you're not big on hacking your phone. The rest of the pre-installed apps are pretty much standard, except for the camera and gallery apps, which I'm not too fond of. I don't really like sloppy way the gallery mixes still shots with video, and doesn't seem to allow any sort of custom organization or editing. I also find that the zoom is horrible, you try to zoom into a still shot and it will just blur the image.

In summary: A very solid phone, and I'm going to stick with it until Virgin decides to release the LG Optimus Black , which stands to offer everything the Triumph does with a crisper LCD display and a much nicer 720p camera/camcorder.

P.S., before you're will buy the Motorola Triumph, for low price I suggest you have to compare prices at: Compare-lowprices.info/Motorola-Triumph

Hope my review is helpful.