Motorola Q
Phone Scoop Review
Jun 5, 2006 by Eric Lin
In Depth review of the highly-anticipated Motorola Q, the first EVDO Windows Mobile Smartphone and slimmest smartphone to date. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Good phone, Failure as PDA
Pros:
Great screen, Killer form factor, Good phone, but failure as PDA
Cons:
Are they kidding. Basic PDA features not supported. For example, you cannot edit To-Dos you sync from Outlook other than to mark them done. Oddly, you can edit To-Dos you create on the Q.
Alarm feature only 7 days, only one alarm.
Button layout is poor, settings (like kill function) buried under miles of menus.
Button layout poor. Why are the soft buttons flat and located along bottom of screen - guarantees that you will get fingerprints all over screen.
Yeah, it looks great, but I need something that works. Very dissapointed.
great phone
i was deciding whether to get the motorola q or the treo 700p. i went with the treo because i had 15 days to play with it and if i didnt like it i could get the q after one day i didnt want i went to get the q and i after ten minutes was extremely happy with my decision. GEt the Q.
Pros:
speakerphone
keyboard
sreen resolution
apps
simple
fun to play with
very customizable
slim and wieghtless feel
voice clarity
responsive
great price
60 dollar extended battery for 20 bucks
almost like an ipod video
5 days in
Almost everything I expected. Previous phone/PDA was XV6600 (2 years)
PROs:
+Small, thin and light
+Call quality excellent
+Bright clear screen, even though less than half the size of previous, not a real issue
+Excellent camera (4a phone)
+Sync with Exchange a snap
+Adding Goodlink made mail better (see below)
+Voice dial=GREAT, true hands free phone (using Moto H500)
+Battery life =2 or better than XV6600
+Cool factor is very high, everybody in the office wants one NOW
+Supplied holster works fine, no need for case in my use
CONs:
-Needed Goodlink to sync sent/deleted items (Exchange only had inbox/contacts/tasks/calendar)
-Jog wheel takes a little time to get used to (changing from touchscreen)
-Battery meter doesn't seem to be accurate
-Less "direct access" (1-touch) keys, less shortcuts, no touchscreen
-A few less keys on the keyboard
-Included games not too hot, but hey it's a phone!
-Just because you can put a 2 gig card in it doesn't mean you can load a BUNCH of content. I put 750 megs of WMA/MPEG videos and it took FOREVER to read the folder before being able to browse it.
All in all, no regrets. Bottom line is the phone is GREAT!
MOTO Q is alright
I have had this phone for about a week now and there are alot of things I like.
Pros:
-good screen quality
-good phone book capacity
-nice grippy feel, not slippery
-of course it is thin
-nice calender
Cons:
-the task manager is annoying
-bad battery life
-the active sync sucks...you only can sync your outlook. On my treo you can sync: pics, documents, etc
-Internet does not allows connect, you have to turn off phone and turn back on to get it back on
In all i like this phone, the treo does do more. I just didn't like how big the treo felt in my hands. Since I am a girl my hards are small and the size really matters to me.
I do recommend
The best phone i've ever had.
People need to quit hating on the Q. In my opinion, it's superior to the treo, mda, sda, the 6700, etc... This phone is my 2nd PDA phone and it's the best phone i've ever had, PDA or not (and i've had many).
PROS:
Reception is great (not one dropped call)
Camera/video is great
Internet is pretty good, even withour wi-fi.
Decent memory, even w/o the memory card.
It has everything in a phone a person could want.
I love watching videos on the big screen w/ the Windows Media Player.
CONS:
Battery could be a little better.
No V-cast (but that's not the Q's fault, none of Verizon's PDA phones let you do that, but that's life)
The Q may not be for everyone, but it's definitely for me. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's worth the money.
Lovin' It
I've had my Q since May and I absolutely love it. It's all I really need in a phone - Windows based, Internet Access (EVDO), Calender, Email, Messaging, MP3 Ring tone Support. I've read quite a few reviews on this and some of them are mixed. Yeah some bad, but mostly good and that's what I like to see.
I really tried to use this phone... But Failed
I waited months for this phone. I checked the status here on phone scoop every week hoping it would be released. I got my phone the very first day it was available. I love the hardware. It is sleek, and feels great in your hand or in your pocket.
If I only wanted a phone that looked good, then I would still be using the Q. Unfortunately, the phone is way too Quirky thanks to the EXTREMELY buggy Microsoft software.
The software would frequently lock up, or pause when I needed it most. Hourly reboots are a fact of life if you use the phone heavily. The user interface is overly complex, and you will find yourself spending too much time trying to figure out what the phone is doing and why.
We purchased 5 Q's for our support staff, and have returned them all. I suggest you wait a year or two for Microsoft to debug the software or switch to a non-Microsoft Smart phone.
Before you ignore this review because you think we are not technical enough to deal with the complexities of this phone, you should know we are a software development firm that writes applications for mobile devices. We really wanted the Q to work, but it doesn't.
Don't Buy This Phone Until it is updated.
First Phone Worth Reviewing
I've gone through several "Smart" or PDA phones in the past few years; my first being a Treo 650 (good), XV-6700 (bad), and now the Motorola Q (AWSOME!).
What I love about this phone:
I find that tasks such as creating new contacts, appointments (things I do the most often) on the Smartphone OS is much faster than using the standard Mobile OS. Only the Palm OS competes in this area.
This phone also feels very responsive. This was a big problem with the XV-6700, no so much with the the Treo, however.
It's a wide and long phone, but it is extremely thin. You barely notice it when it is in your pocket, which I love. The XV-6700 looked like a brick in my pants.
Some things that could be better:
I'd like a little more battery life (don't we all). I did have a couple of crashes when using the browser also.
It's Great!
Just wanted to drop a quick line, this phone is the first one of it's kind I have ever owned and so far it has been great. It's size is a little hard to get use to but compared to similar phones it's much smaller. I just came from your standard flip phone which of course will be much smaller. Everything is pretty easy to navigate and although the VZW sales rep didn't know much about the phone yet he gave me a number which I was able to contact with questions, they were very helpful. Also you get some great software to guide you through the set up process. All in all it has been a great experience!
Q Review
I purchased my Q about a month ago and for the most part have been very happy with it. I have taken advantage of the internet access features and full synching of Outlook with absolutely not issues. That being said I believe most of the issues people seem to having is with email and since I don't need to receive my emails via phone I have not encountered those issues.
There are some issues I would like to see addressed in the firmware upgrade including enabling of the wifi capability of the Q, incorporation of a way to synch Outlook notes (I had to purchase 3rd party software to get that capablity), better viewing of the "today" view of the calendar, and more flexibility in the "home" screen layout. The only other issue for me and probably most older users is the key size...it is hard to see the lettering on the keys.
The only other non software issue is the reception which is not a good as the razr for example.
But all in all I think Moto got it right this time, although it sounds like there were some quality issues with the early phones. Knock on wood, mine has never locked up yet.
