Smartest Smartphone I've owned yet. Excellent PDA/Internet

First of all, I was surprised that nobody had reviewed this phone yet, but I found reviews at other sites before making my purchase. I had difficulty finding the place to review this phone! If you do searches for “Motorola Q” or “Moto Q” (even though the title is “Motorola q”), you will not find this review: rather, a typo “Motoq” is how I found it. I hope that someone can tell me how to get this corrected so that others looking for it might find my review.

Anyway, my Samsung i600 (which I reviewed here: http://www1.epinions.com/content_196790292100) started to act up after a couple years of use, so I decided to move on to a new phone. With current rebates and service commitment, the phone ended up costing me only $99.

At first glance, I was not sure about the Q, because I have become accustomed to “flip” phones, like the i600. Although my last phone was an ounce heavier, the compact-ness of it made it feel lighter to me. Another “issue” for me with non-flip phones like the Q is the fact that keys are easily depressed accidentally. (Have you ever received a call from a friend who did not know he was calling you? I have.)

Technical Specifications & Features are at the end of this review, for those interested.

Anyway, the phone is approximately 4.1 ounces, and about 4.6” by 2.5” and only .45” thick. It’s slim enough to comfortably fit into a shirt or suit pocket and you’ll hardly notice it’s there. I’ve had my Q for 2 weeks now and I’ll address the different features, as outlined on the Motorola website, with my comments along the way:

Full, ergonomic QWERTY Keyboard, 5-way navigation button, and thumb wheel for one-handed operation. The keyboard is very nice to have. My last phone did not have a keyboard and I was forced (for the occasional email or text message) to use the telephone keypad for typing. The Q makes typing easy for my medium-sized hands with the keys being adequately spaced apart. I imagine someone with large fingers would have a difficult time typing quickly, but it would still beat the telephone key method! I am unaccustomed to using the thumb wheel, but am getting slowly used to it. I think Blackberry users will appreciate the wheel the most.

On my previous phone, I would only view appointments and rarely enter one into the phone. Having the keyboard has changed all that, I now find myself regularly reaching for the phone instead of opening outlook on my computer when I have to change my schedule.

Dialing this phone is a little awkward and takes getting used to. The WER, SDF, ZXC and ? buttons all double as numeric keys, and are silver colored – where the remaining keys are black. When you go to dial, it does not come naturally at first but you will get used to it. When you want to type something, though, that requires numbers and letters, you have to hit a key that “shifts” the letters to numbers, and that is quite annoying – especially for email addresses that have letters and numbers within the same line. But, you will get used to that, too. I did. Also, forget calling numbers that are in the form of words, for example, don't try to figure out "1-800-mattress" without looking at another phone to figure out what numbers match the letters!

Broadband enabled. I did not really expect to use it as much as I am now using it – thank goodness, my plan includes unlimited Internet! The phone has built-in pop email, which you can use to sync with your desktop (outlook) or wirelessly through any pop server. I’ve setup mine to sync with my gmail account, and setup was painless. They have built-in support for AOL, Comcast, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail Plus. The phone actually did all the work and tested my gmail settings for me with no information from me other than my username/password. The options allow for automatic synchronizations from every thirty minutes to once a day and you can download portions or entire attachments, depending on your choice.

The phone allows you to view email attachments that are standard Word, Excel, PowerPoint, & .PDF files, but if you want to edit those files you will need to buy third-party software. I have no need to edit, so I’m happy being able to simply view. I’ve been surfing websites, downloading files, photos, videos, and having a lot of fun – at lightning speed. Secure websites and sites with frames work well - my last phone had difficulty with both.

There’s a built-in application called “on demand” that allows you to setup all sorts of news and entertainment stories/photos/weather, and you can automatically schedule the device to update them. I have no interest but tested it and it works nicely.

One of the neatest things I found I can do (but something I really have no use for) is that I’ve setup my Q to login to orb.com and I am able to view content from my Tivo. If I wanted to, I could stream and watch shows directly from my home tivo from anywhere I have my phone and a signal. Note, my battery life appears to be about an hour and a half doing this, so unless you’re plugged in to a charger, or if you have an extended battery, this is not really practical!

Charging. The phone uses a standard mini-usb cable, which is the same one my digital phone and mp3 players use to both sync and charge. This makes it very convenient for me because I have extra cables, and when I travel or visit friends, I can charge my phone very easily. They also give you a standard wall-charger that you can use, but so far I have not even removed it from the plastic bag, since the usb cables are so convenient.

Motorola claims 4 hours of digital talk-time, but I barely talk 4 hours per week, so I cannot verify their claim. I have been syncing/charging my phone every day (overnight) and have not had it run out yet. However, I have seen the battery go very low after extreme video streaming (see above) and I think continuous internet use (maybe 2 hours) would probably drain the battery. I’m buying a spare battery to keep with me, just in case.

Built-in Bluetooth. I don’t have a Bluetooth headset, printer, or any Bluetooth accessories, so have disabled the feature on my phone to save the battery. But, having the ability to use Bluetooth is nice and eventually I plan to use the feature.

Mini SD cards up to 2gb. I bought a 2gb card for $20 and have loaded half of it up with my home videos, which play very nicely on the Q. The landscape screen is perfect for this, and for short trips or plane rides, this will be a lot of fun. I like showing clips of my kid to friends, and usually we only skip to our favorite parts. The built-in camera can be set to save pictures/videos to the storage card, which is a must if that’s something you’re going to use the camera for.

Windows Media Player. The device has built-in stereo speakers but they’re so close together that you cannot really enjoy the stereo unless you use headphones. Luckily, I had a pair from my last phone (built-in microphone) because Motorola does not supply any!

1.3 mega pixel camera, that takes video clips. I’ve been playing with the camera and taking short video clips, and them emailing them to friends and family right from the camera. The video clips are in a strange format, but if the recipient has Real Player installed, they can view them with no problem. The clips are approximately 1mb per 30 seconds of video. The photos are averaging about 200k per photo, and mine is set to “high” quality.

The built-in calendar is acceptable, but I am considering upgrading to one of two shareware products, both of which I tried out (papyrus and agendus) but a discussion of those is outside the scope of this review. Suffice it to say that the built-in application does not display nearly as much information as the shareware products, but unless you’re going to rely on this device extensively for your calendar, you probably won’t care.

I’ve discovered some neat things about this phone that I did not expect, even having come here from another “smartphone.”

This phone lets you assign photos (that you’ve taken with the phone or otherwise) and assign them to contacts. When the phone rings, or if you open an email from someone whose photo you’ve associated with a contact, you see their photo.

I’ve always had the ability to assign different ringers to different callers, but this phone allows you to record a voice memo and from the voice menu application you can assign the recordings to a ringer and then specifically for use with a particular contact. I have my 2 year old’s voice associated with my wife’s record, so that when she calls I hear “come on daddy, pick up the phone, it’s mommy.”

The Q can be used as a modem (usb or Bluetooth) to connect your pc to the internet, but I have not tested this because the phone is good enough for my internet use. If you live alone and do not require broadband access at home for anyone else but yourself, I believe this phone could replace your current service.

I think it’s an oversight that the thumb dial cannot be used to control the volume of the phone’s ringer. It is used to control the volume when you’re in a call, and for the media player, but strangely not for the ringer. The ringers are all “preset” for Outdoor, Silent, Meeting, Headset, Car, Automatic. How it works is you edit those profiles (or use their defaults) so that outdoor is loud with a simultaneous vibrate, for example; meeting is ringer off, but alarms on; silent is no sound, no vibrate. And you have control over all the settings. But, what I would like to be able to do is simply change the ringer volume without having to change ringer profiles.

The voice-dial function is phenomenal. Without ‘training” the phone, I have been able to say simply “call John Smith, mobile” and the phone will confirm and then dial John Smith’s mobile number. You can also have it bring up a contact or your calendar, or associate the voice commands with other applications (this I have not tried).

The phone feels sturdy. I have yet to drop it, but eventually that will happen and I think it will stand up. The keys have a firm, solid feel and the screen is sealed nicely – so far, no dust has worked its way into the screen. The phone is a good size for my hand and once I get entire used to the thumb wheel, I have no doubt I will use it one-handedly for everything that does not require the keyboard.

I recommend the phone highly and am happy with my purchase. With the current promotions, it’s a steal.

Here are Motorola’s specs, as promised:
Video
Video capture with sound and playback. Supports most popular audio and video formats
Time and Date Stamp
Yes
SMS1
Yes
Email Support1
POP3/IMAP4, Microsoft® Exchange and GoodLinkTM
Alarm Clock
Yes
Advanced Speech Recognition
Yes
Bands
Digital dual-band CDMA 800 / 1900
Standby Time2
Up to 212 hours
Phonebook
Picture Phonebook
Calculator and Currency Converter
Yes
Built-in Memory
64MB RAM / 128MB of Built-in memory
Volume
85 cc
Form Factor
Tablet
Carrier
Sprint
Network
CDMA
Talk Time2
Up to 4 hours
Dimensions (H x W x D)
4.57 x 2.52 x 0.45 inches
Bluetooth Compatible8
Yes
Bluetooth Profiles
Headset, Hands-free and Stereo
Camera
Digital Zoom
1.3 megapixel
Removable Memory
miniSD TM
Speakerphone
Yes
Feature
Video Player
Camera
Bluetooth
Removable Memory
Music Player
Dual Stereo-Quality Speakers
Address Book
Browse the web with Internet Explorer® Mobile
Photo Caller I.D