Sprint moving to the big leagues with Motorola

Sprint and Motorola are BFFs today as they have announced a reinvigorated relationship with two new phones, the Motorola Photon 4G and the Motorola Triumph. The Photon 4G is an impressive Sprint version of the Atrix 4G, and the Triumph offers a high-end Android phone for Virgin Mobile customers. Earlier this year, the two companies announced two other Android handsets, the Motorola XPRT and the Motorola Titanium--the XPRT is essentially the same as the Droid Pro, while the Titanium is an enterprise-level phone for Nextel's iDEN network.

This is a welcome move, seeing as Sprint and Motorola's previous partnerships have resulted in mostly midrange to low-end handsets. A majority of them have been Nextel and Boost Mobile phones like the Motorola Brute i686, the Motorola Clutch i475, and the Motorola i886. The Motorola i1 was the first Android phone to make it to Sprint, but it turned out to be rather disappointing, with lackluster features and performance. As for Virgin Mobile, the Triumph is the first Motorola phone we've seen for the prepaid carrier, and will certainly be one of the best prepaid smartphones around.

Seeing as Verizon Wireless has commanded most of Motorola's flagship phones in the past, we're very happy to see some of Motorola's high-end phones go to Sprint to provide some competitive edge. The presence of dual-mode CDMA/GSM phones like the Photon 4G and the Droid Pro are especially important to elevate Sprint's profile. It looks like Sprint is doing more to stay ahead of the competition than just filing a formal complaint against big mergers.

Readers, what do you think of Sprint's latest offerings? Are they enough to make you stick with or switch to Sprint?