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
Dependable phone minus the battery
I've had this phone for about 6 months now and OVERALL it is an amazing phone. Nice sleek design which many other manufactures are now doing, just like everyone copied the V3 slim design.
PROs:
Size, this thing is small for a PDA, I can't remember at times which pocket I put it in.
The speaker quality is amazing, great for all those MP3's I can store on the memory card.
Screen size is awsome!
Love the keypad, the phone is small enough to where I can still text one handed, a big plus!
Nice for watching DVD rips
Have yet to have a dropped call in 6 months!
CONs:
Battery life (of what you get) is absolutely horrible, I can fully charge it before I leave for work each day, and I still have to charge it thru the day, I have a home charger, a charger at my desk at work and one in the car so i can manage but it is kind of a hassle (and this is with the bluetooth off as well)
Laggy/Chopping video playback, with the amazing screen size this phone has it would be awsome if you could watch a movie or video without it locking up or jumping around its a shame they cant fix this
Over all this is a great smartphone, if these two issues could get resolved it would be a solid 5 but these two things definately are a big factor in the phone. Motorola please fix these with an update or something!!
Just ok for me
I had this phone for 24 hrs and returned it. Not because it did not perform, but because it was just ok. I wanted to upgrade to a better phone, a pda hone from an E815. I wanted a good calendar, good tasks, and easy contacts. I found it to have the same style calendar that I could get on any phone. Tasks were un-effective, and the voice dial was the worst I have ever used. The voice dial went the speaker phone rather than the ear piece. So if you were in a crowd, the voice prompt back could be heard by everyone. The recognition was not even as good as the E815. This was a lateral move, not a step up.
Pros:
Good camera, fairly fast
Good reception (but expected since Motorola is known for that)
Really good screen clarity
Decent size for thickness
Key size ok
Cons:
Speaker was slightly tinny
Hated the voice dial
Bad voice recognition even in quiet setting
Width of phone
Contacts not user friendly
Tasks window could be better
Main window not configurable (what you see is what you get)
I just expected more than I got. But for someone who wants the down & dirty basics, this might work for you.
The phone aspect was really good, but it was like having all the bells without any whistles.
Too Pumped Q User
I Just got my Moto Q from sprint two days ago and I think this phone is so slick. I'm praising it like crazy because I just came from using Nextel's 7100i. The 7100i is a good phone for what is was meant to do when it was released in 2005. Times have changed and the Q does everything. I love that form factor (really thin very razr esque) the and the rubberized texture is a plus.The jog dial and the back key are nice added features. It also has a nice camera that takes decent pictures and nice video clips. Then the spaced out qwerty keyboard real nice. Suretype on the 7100i was real nice but I like the full better. It also has a mini sd slot. The only down side this phone does not come with a holster (what's up with that sprint). So If you have not walked into a sprint store and checked this phone out do it. This phone just makes my day more productive. To me it has earned the right to the nick name razrberry.
All-around good PDA
For this being my very first PDA, and not know much about them, this device was one of the more easier devices i have ever used. Getting the Q to sync with my computer was easy, and transferring files was so simple.. Sound quality and reception are great. Not really any complaints about it.. I've dropped it a few times already and it can really withstand a beating.. the camera and camcorder functions work great for what i need, and the pics always come out great when i put them on the computer..I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, where certain devices don't stand a chance of working in certain areas.. but this one stands up pretty good..
looking for a PDA? This one should top your list..
Not What I Expected
I had been debating between a Blackberry and a Motorola Q but decided on the Q due to its smaller size. This was a mistake as I have had nothing but problems in regards to the e-mail synchronization since I purchased this 7 months ago. At least twice a week I have to come back into my office and have our IT guys work with it to get it to sync correctly. Everyone else in the office has a Blackberry and have had "zero" problems. The purpose of a phone like this "is" mainly for the e-mail capability and this has 0% reliability in that respect. If I go out of town I have to call my assistant to have the IT Dept. work on getting my back up and running. I have decided to bite the bullet and lose big bucks and change to a Blackberry due to the ineffectiveness of the e-mail. Easy to use though.
Too glitchy to be good.
I work for Sprint and we've had the Moto Q as one of our demo phones for the past two weeks, what a nightmare.
Our first issue was downloading things onto it, it isn't compatable with Sprint vision downloads! So you cannot download anything from the Sprint web site to the phone, it all has to be done through another web site, I know Sprint has to be loosing money over this.
Then, when we started having problems with it not letting us text out (we could recieve them) We called Sprint tech-support and NO ONE had any answers, what did they tell us? "it's too new, we don't know anything about it." This is from tech support! Don't sell a phone you don't know anything about!!
The tech's only suggestion was a full reset to reset the phone to factory settings. Well, we have quite a few important numbers in there, too many to write out by hand, so we tried to sync it and save all the contacts, no go. It only syncs with Outlook. Not outlook express. And even in outlook, it takes FOREVER to get it to sync, and tech can't help because the phone's so new they don't know anything about it
THEN, it kept freezing up, we'd have to take the battery out, wait ten minutes, then put it back in and hope it started, this happened three times.
Last night it just stopped working, shut off and wont turn back on.
Needless to say, this phone has been a pain since we got it. The only good things I can say about it is the screen quality is awesome and the internet loads and runs well (when the phone works)and it is surprisingly thin.
I suggest not getting this phone until the bugs have been worked out of it.
SPRINT Q is a LEMON
I got the Motorola Q (for Sprint) 2 days after it came out and I have had one major problem. The phone TURNS OFF BY IT'S SELF if I even play with it for 30 minutes. I have called Motorola Q support and they have told me that "its not normal." Thanks for letting me know that useful information, I would be lost without support (sarcasm). It seems like a good phone, IF IT STAYS ON!!!!. Best part is, the phone is on back order so I have no idea what the estimated wait time is going to be. Way to go Motorola, thanks for releasing a device before turning it on YOURSELVES!!!!
Unstable Left-Brain wanna be PDA!
Q will seduce you -- it looks GREAT, but simply too many bugs - you can not depend on it.
Pros:
Looks good!
Cons:
Unstable pre-Beta software
Not a one-touch navigation device
Hard to use
Hard to type
Browser keeps re-setting back to home page
Poor battery life
Poor contact and email processes
Long reboots!
Multiple apps running and draining your system resources. Hard to stop the apps from running!
Poor camera performance and usage!
Speech recognition requires major therapy!
I tried it for a week and returned it today. I am going with the Blackberry 8703e instead.
Great phone!
I've had this phone for about two months now. I had my share of good days and bad days.
Pros:
For a PDA it's very slim
Able to store more in the planer
With no touch screen it doesn't have the mistake of dialing, or deleting info
Able to write, send, recieve and read e-mail & text messages
QWERTY key board
Able to lock key pad
There's more, get in touch with me with your questions
Cons:
Buttons are too small
Dial & button on the side easily does something if key pad isn't locked
Froze 5 times in my first week of owning the phone
limited battery life, if you use all the applications (you have to by a bigger battery)
Not able to edit documents
There's more, get in touch with me with your questions
But over all I love the phone, but some things need improving
Great phone, but get the extended battery
Great phone, it does so much its going to take me a week or 2 to figure out what it cant do.
PRO's
1. Size is right, even with extended battery
2. Decent load-out of apps pre-installed
3. More and more 3rd party apps available now
4. Push now works on the Q
5. Camera and video are pretty good
6. Screen is very clear and sharp
7. Bluetooth 1.2 and voice dial are great
8. Media player is nice
9. Excel and Word viewer pre-installed
CON's
1. Standard battery is a joke, its dead in
9 hours, having only spoke on it for 25
minutes with the bluetooth.
2. You MUST get the extended battery
3. Slight delay after button presses
4. Battery cover seems to pop off on dial side of phone, but not sweating it since the extended batt comes with a different cover.
5. Belt clip that comes with the phone forces you to put your fingers right on the camera lens to pop it out of the holster.
6. Nice that it has the Windows Mobile installed, rather than it be neutered by having verizons generic "OS" installed.
