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
Solid phone but LAGING and LOCKING are problems
Don't get me wrong I love this phone. I have had it for 2-3 days. Lots of people complain about the battery life on this phone, BUT i am not one of them. I talk, listen to music, and text a lot and this phone still lasts me though the day. I just leave it on the charger at night and it is all charged up in the morning and it will last me. Having to charge the phone every night is NOT that bad! Just leave the charger by the bed or the counter.
Pro's:
Huge screen
Super slim
Feels really nice in your hand
Ruburized sliky feel
Very loud steroe speakers.
Expandable memory
Camera/Video looks very crisp and clear.
Doesn't feel like it is going to break it I droped it, like some other smart phones...wink wink....
Great applications available
SUPER easy to type on keyboard
The thumb wheel on the side is VERY useful! On my old smart phone (ppc-660) had a touch screen and to be honest the thumb wheel and the d-pad is just as useful as the touch screen especially with the Q's User Interface.
Con's
sooooooo much lagging
Has locked up a couple of times (In 2-3 days)
But if you kill some program every once and a while you will be fine. When you first get the phone you open things up and forget to close them and the phone lags and locks up.
Another thing is the time that it takes to turn on. It takes a whole minute just to turn the thing on. But that is no big deal because how often do u really turn it on and off. not often!
Overview:
Great phone! the Pros outweigh the Con's To many good things to say about this phone to not recommend it. For every bad thing there are 10 good things about it. If you think are looking into this phone don't hesitate to just go buy it. Chances are you will fall in love with it like I have.
P.S.
I typed this whole review on the q and just sent it in an email to my self. It took about 1.3 times longer than it would on a full keyboard. I got used to the keyboard very fast. It is the best one yet
After a year...
Ok, I've had this phone for over a year so the newness has worn off and I've stopped fiddling with it and am simply using it. The phone is provided by my company so it's primary use is business productivity and connectivity. I use the Activesync to get my emails and update the calendar and also tether it to my company laptop via bluetooth for remote support.
Overall, the phone has performed adequately. It allows me to keep up-to-date on emails and appointments. Surprisingly, it has withstood over a year of use and some abuse. This is somewhat surprising as it seems a bit flimsy. I purchased the screen/body protector from Shieldzone which has done a tremendous job of protecting all the major surfaces from scratches.
I did learn early not to automatically sync messages as this causes it to constantly vibrate or beep every time a new email arrives. I'm not anal about getting my mail immediately.
The battery life is ok, I just had to re-train myself to make sure and charge it at least every day. I also use the extended battery all the time. The battery goes down quite rapidly when using it to tether to my laptop.
I'm also not a huge fan of the form factor. The thin and wide design make it not exactly pleasant to hold.
Lastly, the audio quality is downright nasty. I'm constantly having to ask people to repeat themselves as most conversations sound muffled on the handset. This is something I noticed immediately upon getting the phone and I thought might get better as I become accustomed to it - no luck.
So here are the pros and cons.
Pros:
Performs all the basic functions necessary
Calendar access anytime
Email works fine
Text messaging is easy
Tethers to laptop
Cons:
Battery is so-so even with extended
Muffled audio
Ergonomics not great
I like it but if I had to get another phone tomorrow I'd probably look at something else as I haven't really bonded to the Q like I did my Nokia 6600.
Use is quickly
Pro: Slim design; plenty of useful apps; clear, bright screen; firm, well-built keyboard.
Con: Poor mic; woeful battery life; case discolors easily.
The Q has a beautiful, clear, colorful screen with great definition. The camera is suprisingly good. And the browser is quick and loads fast. Overall navigation took a few minutes to get used to.
But I've had complaints that I sounded far off, even though in my home area with four bars. The battery life is horrid! The charger has to almost constantly be plugged in - which defeats the purpose of wireless in some cases.
I have a Q and a Treo 700p and in a fair comparison, the Treo is far, far superior and I consider it, not the Q, as my primary.
It has grown on me
I have owned the q for about 5 or 6 months now so I can give a good overall opinion.
At first I thought is was a great phone, but not a great device. The quality of sound and reception was great, much better than expected. However I was a bit disapointed that it did not come with alot of things I assumed it would have. (Notepad, ability to edit tasks, set due dates for tasks, stream video, etc) Plus battery life was a disappointment. I have to charge it every night or it will die the next morning.
After doing research I was able to find software for free to accomplish all of the above. Plus, I found how to edit the phone registries to make it run faster and smoother, a NES and SNES emulators, full office 06, and so much more. (also free)
One of the best things about the Q is the amount of information available through 3rd party websites. I have found so many sites dedicated just to the Q. This makes being a noob to the phone so much easier.
Okay so here are pros and cons
Pros:
-Huge amount of good freeware available
-Great phone quality
-not as "laggy" (after registry hack) as my other pda's (Treo 650, BB 7100t)
-Camera is Great
-email is great
-WM5 is very versatile
Cons:
-Battery life
-Not a great device out of the box
-Screen in direct sunlight is lame
I would recommend this phone to two types of users:
A person who wants a phone that they can change and customize but is not a pro.
Or a person who primarily wants a good phone with ability to get email and has a calender.
qSatisfied
i recently purchased the motorola q on sprint. after reading some mixed reviews on the phone, i must say i am satisfied with my purchase.
i was in the market for a smartphone and settled on the q for its value and form factor.
pros:
-call quality
-phone reception
-qwerty keyboard
-form factor
-price
cons:
-battery life
-sluggish OS
one item of note is the poor battery life. on casual usage it lasts about a day. one solution is to buy the extended battery which takes a bit away from the form factor appeal and costs a bit relative to the price of the phone (i got it for $99/new activation)
conclusion:
if you are casual cell phone user who uses the phone for voice, messaging, and occasional news/web usage, this phone is great. power business users should probably look elsewhere.
4* due to sub-par battery life
A very positive review
I purchased the Q about a week ago. So far I am very impressed. I needed a phone that I could mod the screen easily so I could read it without my reading glasses and this fit the bill.
PROs:
Excellent screen resolution
Great signal
Love the EV-DO (whished it was Rev-A)
Great slim sized phone
Good PDA funtions (use it all the time to keep my appointments)
Really good camera
CONs:
No wi-fi, would have been nice to have
The battery life is OK, I wish it was a little better but it does suffice for what I need throughout the day (though I like a little extra margin at the end of the day than what I am getting now).
I initially had problems with my phone spontaneously rebooting several times a day. I logged onto the Motorola update webpage and downloaded the current software for my phone. Since flashing it a couple of days ago, not a single problem with it rebooting on its own.
I also had a minor problem at first syncing with Outlook 2007 but after a couple of minutes I was able to find out what I had done wrong and fix it.
All in all a really good phone. If Motorola was smart, they will release WMT6 for this phone.
wow!!! what a fantastic PDA for verizon
this is one nice phone, camera could be better!! but everything else is perfect!!! theres tons of pros and only one con, the camera!!! if you want a sleek phone, great functions, get this one!!!
Ahh come on now it's not that bad!
I have been using my Q on the Alltel network and really itâs a pretty good phone the one thing I am finding out is it really helps if you know PC programming at least with registry hacks, for someone not knowing anything about Pcâs in general I can see where it would be a real pain just trying to navigate through the phone, Picture quality is excellent I have a slingbox at home and it is real easy to watch TV on. The battery life could be better but hey nothing is perfect and it would also be nice if it were WiFiâ¦.. I guess the way I look at it would I get another one if something happened to this current one and the answer is yes active sync works well as does the Office sync. If you were a person on the go this would make a great phone for you.
Q gets an A-
i work for one of the national mobile carriers and i've had the Q for just over a month and i find it to be one of the better pda phones available. initially i considered returning it because of the poor battery life (was only getting about 9-12 hours out of a full charge with very light use.), but after i downloaded the firmware update from motorola i hve seen an exponential increase in battery life. now the battery last 2-3 days with light to medium usage.
the main thing that i think can be improved is to have the device automatically cut programs once you exit. currently you have to open task manager and kill all otherwise they keep running in the background. this would probably improve battery life even more. the other thing that i find annoying and is a windows issue rather than motorola, is that you can only send video/pics to email addresses from an email address. this means that you have to figure out the phonenumber@carrier address for anyone you'd like to send content. still works, just a minor nusance.
