brad's Experience

Howdy folks.

This is a review of the Moto Q smartphone, made for the Sprint network. I am using it on the Sprint Network.

My contract was up on August 1 (2007) and I decided to re-up with Sprint. I didn't want to, but my entire extended family is on Sprint and attempts at getting them to switch have so far been futile. So basically, I didn't have a choice.

I had never had a smartphone/PDA before. For the past two contracts, in 2003 and in 2005, I had been waiting for a 3G phone from Sprint. As of 2007, for all practical purposes, they still don't sell one.

Of those that are close to a 3G phone, there is a Treo (Palm or Windows), a Blackberry, and this Moto Q.

My mother has the Palm Treo 650p and I tried using that thing. She's had that for a little over a year now and even now, it's as current as the 700p. It is nearly worthless as a Web browser, and that's really the litmus test for me.

Opera Mini is not available for Palm-based systems, and that was a big factor in making the decision to buy a Windows Mobile device. I run Macs, so I have to sync this thing and load software at work.

Of the smartphones that Sprint has, this one is the cheapest. And by the way, I define a smartphone as a PDA with a phone that can do push email, take photos, browse the Web, and have basic PDA functionality.

The Q cost me $120 after tax and rebates, although I haven't yet seen the rebate. Be assured however, that short of suing the company, I will use every available method to collect my rebate, likely involving the Better Business Bureau.

If you have ever tried to communicate with the Sprint company, it is nearly impossible. It doesn't matter what you are trying to accomplish. Billing issues or technical issues, you are not going to get help talking to Sprint over the phone.

The only way to get support from Sprint is to go to one of its physical locations. And when you look up their locations, make sure it is identified as a "repair center."

So I order the Q over the phone from Sprint (had hoped to avoid the whole physical location situation). It arrived in the mail a few days later.

I booted the Q and the software was woefully out of date. No DST patch applied (the clock being an hour off). I tried downloading the patch from the phone, that didn't work. I tried calling Sprint and to make a long story short, called them at least 6 times and was hung up on twice (call was disconnected). I never spoke to a technician. Gave up and brought to physical location. Patch applied.

With all of that out of the way, how's it working?

Pretty good.

Phone quality is excellent. Calls are clear and crisp, assuming I am within Sprint's network (which is iffy, but in Minneapolis it is crystal clear). The earphone is great and the speakerphone is great, also.

Now you have to understand that the Q doesn't have a touch interface. There isn't a stick to click on links. Instead, there are a few buttons and a scroll wheel that help you do that. Surprisingly, it works very well. So far, I haven't seen the need for one.

The most important thing about this device aside from the fact that it works as a phone is that it connects to a 2.5G network. Sprint's high-speed network is called "EV-DO," a network it shares with Verizon. Speeds on this thing are around 300-400kbs down, from my experience. I think that's pretty good. Even the iPhone doesn't come close to achieving these speeds (much closer to dialup speeds).

So the network is fast enough, I guess. Again, this isn't the 3G experience we've been hearing about for it seems like ten years. There is no desktop or laptop surfing experience and while you have the Internet and the Web with you, it's still a pain to use. That said, at least you have somewhat reasonable access to the Web and that's what I was looking for.

With this being Windows Mobile, you can download and install pretty much anything you want. I've only added Opera Mini, but I'll probably add some music and a storage card and maybe a few games later on.

This particular phone only supports up to 1 gigabyte of miniSD storage. Obviously, that's not much, but enough to carry a playlist of music and enough to store extra photos, at least temporarily.

The screen is excellent. Since it isn't a touch screen, it has a glossy plastic cover to it. To me, this is a bonus. I just think the screen looks very good and things on it look very good.

Functional buttons on it are wisely placed and easy to use, moving around the system and making selections, taking photos, etc. I give the engineers an A for design here, since there isn't a touch screen. This could easily have been bungled, but the layout is quite good and I really can't complain.

Obviously from the picture, it has a QWERTY keyboard. This was pretty much a must for me. If it doesn't have a QWERTY, to me it isn't a smartphone. I'm not going to jumple three options to get a character on some of these tiny "smartphones." That's just ridiculous. On this phone, the QWERTY is quite nice, the keys are separated enough and reasonably ergonomic, given the constraints.

This phone comes standard with a cable for syncing to a computer and with an AC charge cable/adapter. No car charger.

The connection is mini-USB. Quite honestly, I despise mini-USB because it defeats the very purpose of "Universal Serial Bus" (since it is not universal in any way), but in this case it is acceptable. I would NEVER buy a device that connected by mini-USB as a computer peripheral, however (that's like four-pin Firewire - annoying as heck!).

I not a photophile, so I can't tell you how good of photos this thing takes, but as far as I can tell, fair enough. Technically, it is a 1.3 megapixel camera, which is not much, but good enough for impulsive photos and casual photos. The lens is on the rear of the device, along with the flash. I've taken some photos and again, I think they look well enough, all things considered.

So overall, I think this is a pretty good device for the money. The Treo 700 was $300 plus tax, this thing $100 plus tax. The Blackberry was also $300, I believe. So for that kind of discount, I think this is a fairly impressive device.

I know that I didn't cover very specific details. You may be wondering exactly what CPU is in this thing, exactly its footprint, etc. I'll direct you to its page at Wikipedia for all that information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moto_Q

To comment on the size and how it handles carrying around...it is fairly small. Definitely bigger than flip phones, but those things are only good for phone calls. One thing that is bothersome is that when this thing is in my pocket, buttons are constantly getting pushed (tucked in my jeans) and that's rather annoying. Maybe I can turn off the keyboard, I don't know. I'll have to do more research.

But the verdict is in on this thing and for the money, I recommend it. I think it's the best Sprint phone for the money. Even a "free" phone will cost you $20-30 after taxes and fees, so the true cost of this thing is really about $100. That's not bad for all that it does.

If you have to stick with Sprint, I recommend the Moto Q.

Brad