Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Motorola Q on the Verizon Network?
Posted by Mike Temporale in "HARDWARE" @ 05:15 AM
According to an email we just received, the Motorola Q will be shipped in Q1 for Verizon. The email also claims that there is are CDMA (with EV-DO) and GSM (with EDGE) versions - something we've heard in the past. From the sounds of this and all the other news, it sounds like Motorola is working hard to get things right, and not just rushing this to market. It's unfortunate that Q1 is so far off because, I want one of these now! Give the email a read (see below) and let us know your thoughts.
"Everything that I've read about the Moto Q has talked about a GSM device. Today, at a conference, I played with a Q that was connected to Verizon. The Motorola rep said that they could launch CDMA or GSM phones in Q1 (I didn't think to if he meant that they only had the resources to do one of those formats during Q1 or if he meant that they were ready for both formats at once). The CDMA phone has EV-DO; the GSM phone will be EDGE 10 only because there isn't a big UMTS infrastructure in the U.S. yet.He said that some folks (I don't know if he meant inside Motorola or the carriers) wanted to have the phone come out in Q4, but that he didn't think that they could do it and feel comfortable about the quality.As for the handset itself, the size was a bit wider and thicker than I expected, but it wasn't as lopsided as traditional Blackberries. It fit comfortably in my hand, against my face, and in a shirt pocket. The screen was very nice (there might have been a polarizing filter on top because it seemed to have a bit more contrast than I'd expect in a backlit LCD. The landscape layout was a bit weird inefficient because many of the lines on the home page don't need a lot of width so much of that page was empty, yet scrolling was necessary to see everything. The phone was not yet fully functional, i.e., I couldn't get it to dial reliably. (Could just be a bad keyboard.) I did not spend much time typing, but the keys are fairly small, as is typical for devices of this size.Finally, the connection that the phone had was 1xRTT, not EV-DO. The Moto rep told me that it could do EV-DO. I don't know if he meant that the signal was bad in the conference area, or if the prototype that he had was not capable."
"Everything that I've read about the Moto Q has talked about a GSM device. Today, at a conference, I played with a Q that was connected to Verizon. The Motorola rep said that they could launch CDMA or GSM phones in Q1 (I didn't think to if he meant that they only had the resources to do one of those formats during Q1 or if he meant that they were ready for both formats at once). The CDMA phone has EV-DO; the GSM phone will be EDGE 10 only because there isn't a big UMTS infrastructure in the U.S. yet.He said that some folks (I don't know if he meant inside Motorola or the carriers) wanted to have the phone come out in Q4, but that he didn't think that they could do it and feel comfortable about the quality.As for the handset itself, the size was a bit wider and thicker than I expected, but it wasn't as lopsided as traditional Blackberries. It fit comfortably in my hand, against my face, and in a shirt pocket. The screen was very nice (there might have been a polarizing filter on top because it seemed to have a bit more contrast than I'd expect in a backlit LCD. The landscape layout was a bit weird inefficient because many of the lines on the home page don't need a lot of width so much of that page was empty, yet scrolling was necessary to see everything. The phone was not yet fully functional, i.e., I couldn't get it to dial reliably. (Could just be a bad keyboard.) I did not spend much time typing, but the keys are fairly small, as is typical for devices of this size.Finally, the connection that the phone had was 1xRTT, not EV-DO. The Moto rep told me that it could do EV-DO. I don't know if he meant that the signal was bad in the conference area, or if the prototype that he had was not capable."
