Smartphone Thoughts: Motorola Q: The Trendsetter

Be sure to register in our forums! Share your opinions, help others, and enter our contests.


Zune Thoughts

Loading feed...

Digital Home Thoughts

Loading feed...

Pocket PC Thoughts

Loading feed...



Thursday, October 19, 2006

Motorola Q: The Trendsetter

Posted by Kris Kumar in "HARDWARE" @ 08:00 AM


Performance - Usability
Jerry: The tiny size hides the power of the the EV-DO and the processor. Just surfing the Net and email is a real pleasure with the speed of the connection and the unit itself. Also the Bluetooth seems much more functional than Verizon's previous offerings. You can actually send any file from the Q to another BT device!

User submitted image
Figure 12: Bluetooth file transfer utility.

Kris: I never thought I would enjoy watching live TV or video on a Smartphone. MobiTV and Slingbox based streaming video works flawlessly. The screen is slightly bigger than the other Smartphones, and I think it is just the perfect size anything bigger would have added bulk and anything smaller would have made me squint. The sound quality adds to the complete experience. The twin speakers support SRS WOW surround sound and this time Moto definitely got the volume levels right.

User submitted image
Figure 13: The smooth back with angled edges. The battery cover and battery can be replaced with an extended battery. Notice how it is slightly raised at the bottom, where the speakers are? The extended battery fills that gap.

Jerry: A note about texting here; the contours, the angled cuts on the back side make it easy to grip while using the thumb board.

Kris: I had trouble getting used to the keyboard, what about you? For me the buttons felt too stiff, but they do give good positive tactile confirmation when clicked all the way through. Again BlackBerry has better keyboards but the Q is definitely better than Palm's keyboard. Overall it was fun to hold the device, type a message and slip it into the pocket. About the pocket-ability, I wore a blazer to a party and was able to slip the Q into the inner chest pocket; no one could notice it. I could slip it into my jeans pocket as well.

Jerry: Getting back to the keyboard. I have two complaints. One, the numeric pad is not placed well for a right handed person. Holding the phone in my right hand my thumb has to stretch a bit to reach it for one handed dialing. It is a bit awkward. Two, this one caught me by surprise. I was dialing into a system that required me to enter data by alpha characters. You can't use the alpha keys as they don't send DTMF tones. I was staring at the numbers trying to figure out which letters were on them!

User submitted image
Figure 14: It can do QWERTY. The soft keys are big. The same is true for the home, back, call begin and call end buttons.

Kris: It drove me nuts too. I believe it is a bug and am hoping that Moto will fix it in the future. Talking about layout, I felt the soft keys were spaced too far apart; but the good thing is that they are wide. Again getting back to the keyboard, I felt the lack of copy - paste functionality on the Q more than with any other Smartphone. And why did they not provide a dedicated back button on the QWERTY key pad, I had to move my finger up to the main button area to hit the back button. This is something I noticed the Samsung I320 and HTC Excalibur have fixed.

Jerry: Instead they chose to add the camera button on the keyboard which is silly!

User submitted image
Figure 15: The 1.3 Mega-pixel camera with the stay-on LED flash. Love the styling.

Kris: Talking about Camera; the best camera experience ever in a Smartphone. Love the stay-on flash. Again the landscape screen makes it fun to view the photos.

User submitted imageUser submitted imageUser submitted image
Figure 16: Some sample shots taken with the Q. Click on the thumbnails for the hi-res images.

Jerry: I haven't taken too many pictures but the few I have were of decent quality.

User submitted image
Figure 17: The Start Menu list.

User submitted image
Figure 18: The About screen.

User submitted image
Figure 19: The new Connection Manager provided as part of the ROM update. The tabs show the status of each. Notice the Broadband indication when access is taking place.

Kris: One of the things that threw me off was that the Start menu program list is not paginated like in case of other Smartphones. All the applications are listed in one screen, the scroll wheel makes it easy to scroll thru and select the application; but how come the menu cannot detect key strokes and highlight the application? This seems like a bug, not sure if Microsoft is responsible or Moto? Also the order of the items in the Start menu is interesting, unlike other Smartphones the applications like Contacts and Messaging do not show up in the initial screen. You have to scroll to get to them. The good thing is that Messaging has a dedicated button.

Jerry: In the Settings menu did you notice A..B..C..D..E for the items instead of the traditional numbers? I think the alphabets on the QWERTY keyboard make it confusing; they should have stuck with numbers. Overall nothing is as annoying as the battery life on this unit.

Kris: Yeah, the Q is fast and responsive, the screen is awesome, the Internet access is super-fast but all good things must be balanced by something negative. In this case it is the battery life. I got a day's worth of use, and I had to charge it once I got home. Push email, videos and the Internet drained the unit fast.

Jerry: The extended battery is a must if you are a heavy user. While it adds a bulge to the lower back of the phone, it doesn't affect the pocket-ability of the phone.

Kris: We haven't talked about the bundled software. I know most of it is standard Windows Mobile stuff.

Jerry: Yeah, you get the standard Pocket Outlook with calendar, tasks, Office viewers, the standard Windows Mobile bundle. Nothing exciting.

Kris: Isn't it strange that this unit didn't have third party notes application? I know Microsoft does not provide text notes as a standard feature on Smartphone.

Jerry: Tell me about it! The unit has a keyboard and a notes application would make sense.

Kris: I installed OneNote Mobile Beta and loved the experience. Hopefully other QWERTY Smartphone manufacturers will include an application to take text notes.


Top Smartphone Software

News Tip or Feedback?

Contact us

Thoughts Media Sites

Pocket PC Thoughts

Smartphone Thoughts

Digital Media Thoughts

Recent Posts

  • Rocco Augusto: MOTO Q Global with Windows Mobile 6.1 Now Available from AT&T
  • Hedge: Speereo Voice Organizer and Abidia Wireless for Smartphone - save 30%
  • Jason Dunn: Samsung/Rogers: Where's My Nice Phone Graphic?
  • Rocco Augusto: CohoSoft ExpenseIt v1.1 for Windows Mobile Smartphones
  • henryhlin: Pay work for debugging Win Mobile 5.0
  • henryhlin: Looking for techie on debugging project
  • zander: how can i delete text?
  • zcamov: Map software for my BlackBerry 8120

Thoughts Media Network: Recent Articles

Loading feed...

Thoughts Media Network: News

Loading feed...

Sponsored links