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Motorola Triumph Suffering From Screen, Camera Issues

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When Sprint’s wholly owned pre-paid subsidiary Virgin Mobile announced the Motorola Triumph, it was hailed as a groundbreaking device in the pre-paid smartphone market, offering high-end Android smartphone features, affordable contract-free data and rate plans, and bringing an unadulterated Android experience to the masses. The Triumph, priced at $300 without a contract, the Triumph’s impressive specs and hassle-free carrier experience may be the dream smartphone. However, early adopters have reported issues related to the display and the camera with the Motorola Triumph.

In regards to the device’s 5-megapixel camera, owners of the device say that the camera seemingly does not auto-focus. Given Motorola’s rather good camera experience on the Droid series offered on Verizon Wireless, we’re hoping that early camera woes may be the result of software rather than hardware, and can be remedied through a future update. Another issue with the camera may be tinted pictures that are off-colored, according to a report on TechCrunch.

For now, the camera issue may be the lesser of problems for the Triumph. Owners are also reporting that the screen on the device may at times flicker black and white.

According to a report on the Washington Post, hardware exchanges have not fixed the issue, suggesting that the screen flicker issue may also be software related:

“Not-so-proud new owners have reported that the screen starts to flicker after a couple successive taps at the lock button, whereas others have said the screen goes completely white at random. Some of these flicker-victims are calling it a hardware issue, although a number of them have said that even multiple hardware exchanges haven’t solved the problem.”

 Hopefully, Virgin Mobile USA and Motorola can resolve the issues expeditiously as the phone is one of the most attractive offerings in the pre-paid world at such a great price.
12 Comments

12 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    07/29/2011 at 2:52 pm

    One other issue that has been reported is signal strength. Because the Triumph only supports the 1900 band and not the 850 band as well, users are reporting poor reception compared to the Optimus V, especially inside buildings where the 850 signal penetrates much better than the 1900 signal

    • Anonymous

      07/31/2011 at 12:02 am

      I second that. Signal strength has been really spotty for me. I live in the inner city, and with my Rumor Touch I could always get full bars. Now, 1 or 2 is the norm, and I’ve dropped a lot of calls.

  2. Jay Libby

    07/29/2011 at 4:42 pm

    I just activated my Triumph yesterday, and ported my T-Mobile number over today.  The activation was done in-store at Best Buy, and I recieved a 50$ Best Buy gift card for doing so!  I expected the port to take at least 24 hours, but within 30 minutes my phone was ported over. 

    I hear alot of babble and grief about VM customer service, but today I experienced nothing of the negative sort.  I am very pleased with the ease of both the activation, and porting.

    The Triumph, my 3048234038millionth android device so far has been great.  Out of the box the auto-focus is working, no green tint, and there has not been one occasion of screen flickering.

    So far battery life is on par with similar android devices.  I think alot of the complaints of battery life are coming from those that have never had an android device, let alone a smart phone.  Of course a Nokia bar phone is going to last 30days on a charge.  It’s not processing anything, and the display is no bigger than my wrist watch’s.

    Signal seems to be fine, here in Chicago.  This can vary quite a bit depending on your general location with a provider like VM.  Coming from T-mobile ( a very good provider here in Chicago ) I am used to seeing full bars of service, so seeing a consistent 2 bars seems like it’d be a problem.. but it’s not.  The way I see it is, for the typical user, if you have at least that 3G symbol – You’re golden.

    You get what you pay for.  $35.00/month for 300 minutes, unlimited data & messaging.  THAT CAN NOT BE BEAT.

    I’m saving about 70 dollars month because of this switch.  – That alone makes me feel great about buying the Triumph.

  3. Currican

    07/29/2011 at 5:27 pm

    I myself have not experienced any of the issues mentioned in the article. However, I have noticed a few lockups on the GPS. Hopefully that is also a software issue that can get fixed in an update. Even so this deal is still unbeatable and I get 1.3mbs for the 3g in Houston, Tx so that is a big plus.

  4. Rowrowfighttheshowa

    07/29/2011 at 10:24 pm

    I have owned my Triumph since July 19th (got it early at Best Buy) and I love it. I haven’t had any issues whatsoever with the camera, GPS, signal strength, and so on. Although initially the signal strength seemed a bit low, I’ve since seen improvement. I don’t know about the camera, my auto-focus works fine and the camera works well for what it is.

    So far, it’s the best phone I’ve ever had. For all Triumph owners out there, I would recommend downloading the following Apps to improve battery life and performance:

    -Steve’s Gingerbread Keyboard (type keyboard in the market to find it). It’s the gingerbread keyboard and can run on Froyo, and it is EXPONENTIALLY better than any that come with the device.
    -Juicedefender (this is a given). Improves battery life. I personally put the widget, along with the power bar that comes with android widget on a single screen and disable data whenever I’m not using it. Currently, with moderate use of data (occasional words with friends, facebook, surfing, etc) I get about 40 hour battery life.
    -Advanced Task Killer Free

    Disable your GPS, Wifi, and all that other crap when you don’t need it (the power bar widget is awesome for this) and you’re set. You should see much, much better battery life.

    Good luck!

  5. Andy

    07/30/2011 at 5:25 am

    I got my on 7/20, I have not experienced any of th issues mentioned except. The weak reception issue.

  6. BrikkzUHV

    07/30/2011 at 7:10 pm

    I’ve had mine a week no complaints here. Works fine except can someone explain why the hotspot app isn’t working.

  7. rrrrrichard

    08/25/2011 at 4:55 pm

    I’m one of the many who found the Triumph defective.  I returned it for a refund.  I’m unhappy about this because the phone and the VM plan (even after their outrageous price increase) are attractive.

    The phone’s screen had two issues which seemed to me to be hardware-related.  Both problems were visible immediately and did not vary with use.  The screen was uneven in brightness.  So when a web page with black characters on a white background was scrolled, a kind of wavy effect was maddeningly present.  In addition, when scrolling through settings (white text on black), the text became very unstable.  When the scrolling ceased the text would stabilize again.

    Both radios (wifi and cell) had problems.  The cell radio showed highly variable connection level (bars) and registered very poorly on speed tests.  The wifi radio had similar issues.  In a side-by-side comparison with a Nexus One, the Triumph showed poor speed test results.  And the excellent app, Wifi Analyzer, showed strange results running on the Triumph — APs only a few feet away showed signal strength levels the same as far away APs.

    These problems were so severe that I never got to the point of testing the Triumph’s behavior as a cell phone.  I just sent it back.

    I’m not a Triumph hater.  On the contrary, I’m still following news about the phone, hoping I’ll read about a recall or some other reason to hope its many problems will be repaired and a new release will be worth trying again.

  8. motorola triumph

    12/20/2011 at 3:19 pm

    Dear users,

    We are pursing a class action lawsuit for the defective Motorola Triumph. While it appears many customers are very happy with the phone, there is a sizable group who have been in limbo trying to obtain a working phone.  It would reason that if this group was small in size that Motorola could simply replace known defective units with units that worked.  However users have received 4-5 to 8 defective units in a row instead of a new unit.   

    It is assumed since Motorola is not sending new units as replacements that they know there product is defective.  If you have experienced this issue please email 
    motorolatriumphclassaction at gmail.com.  Please inform us if you already have a lawyer and what your situation is.   

    One of the primary defects can be noted below in the picture. The box should be completely white, instead all photos have a yellow/green spot that ruins the image.  It is even very hard to remove spot in Photoshop with out creating a customized filter.  For those who purchased this phone to take on the spot photos such as for ebay etc you see how this will make the phone unusable . 

  9. PR

    01/28/2012 at 8:37 pm

    With these tough times I was happy to get a prepaid plan that I could handle and a great looking phone to boot. I am very happy for those who have no issues, but unfortunately  I have returned the phone four  times.  Issues inlcuded battery cover falling off, phone  totally died, GPS forget it, no bars in my  own house, force closing, flikering occured while utilizing the phones key pad while putting in my bank account numbers ( I know I could use voice, but after all I paid over $300.00), grainy front camera pictures in-doors no matter what the lighting. I have heard some wonderful constructive suggestions for improving with apps, but at $300.00 there should be some admission by the companies that the phone still needs to be tweeked.

    On the point about service:  I am being held captive because after a month they claim they have have not recieved one of the (4) phones back. It was returned just like the other three that made the trip to the IN distribution center just fine in their postage paid envelopes.  I have received apologies and assuraces, that it is not my fault, but the fault of USPS,  but I have still been put on  an indefinite investigation. My phone is suspended even though it is paid 3 months in advance.  I did due diligence and called starting in December when I first got messages and was told not to worry that my service would not be interrupted. After ten phone calls where I have been put on perpetual hold waiting for the next department to tell me they can not lift the suspension and countless emails, I have now been told I can not cancel the Virgin Mobile service and I can not get a refund. Every time I call I have to tell the story over again as though it is not in the data base.  You would think that the fact that I kept returning the phones, showing good faith on my part, as I did not ask for a refund, I wanted to believe. 

    Customer service should not be based on how many people have issues, nor is being polite enough if at the end of the day you  have a $300.00+ paperweight and no phone service. 

    Thanks for listening and I am open to any constructive ideas on how to handle this.  I have gotten enough abuse from Virgin Mobile:-( 

    By the way, I have their full data plan…paid ahead at the store and have payments coming to them direct from bank account.

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