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4.0 stars
"Motorla Q, BlackJack & Treo 750"
Pros: Great look, and feel and design
Cons: everything costs extra
Summary: Over the past month, I have been going Cell phone crazy and wanted to provide my review and experiences with these phones.
I needed a phone that I could use goodlink(basically blackberry software on a cell phone) on, and after quite a bit of research, I came up with the list below as my preferred phones.
BlackJack - Samsung - Cingular
Black Q - Motorola - Verizon
Dash - ??? - T-Mobile
Treo 750- Cingular
I first got the BlackJack from Cingular for a 30 day trial, but told the guy to call me as soon as the Treo 750 came in, so I could trade for it.
First, I have to say, the BlackJack has about as cool of a form factor as there is in cell phones today. Small, light weight, good feel in the hands. It uses Windows Smartphone. which works well for one hand operation, particularly with the side roller.
I used it for a couple of weeks, then decided to try the Black Q simultaneously on my Verizon service. The Black Q, I could only order over the internet(wasn't sold retail yet) as I went into the Verizon store to get my phone numbers transferred from my old phone, no one there had seen a black Q yet.
The Q is also light, thin and small, but a noticably wider than the BlackJack. After holding the BJ for a couple of weeks, the Q felt too wide for me, but if I had never had a BJ, it probably would have felt great. The black coating on the Q feels slightly better than the BlackJack. The Q display is noticably brighter, but is probably related the battery life issue too.
The keyboards are very different on both devices, with the BJ having many more keys and about every combination that you can think of, with the Q using a much more context senstive approach with fewer keys and a simpler layout. The Q does a great job with the context aware keys, and is much preferrable than the BJ, particularly considering the BJ's alternating key numeric layout. However, there was a fatal flaw for me on the Q and it's context sensitve keys, and that is in the scenario where you are connected to an IVR trying to input account numbers and passwords and you have an alphanumeric requirement that includes the letter G. You cannot get the G key to input anything other than a # sign. I realize that is a a very isolated situation, but it drove me crazy as I needed the G key as part of a account/password number combination.
Both the BJ and Q, use the windows smartphone I/F but they are very different in their implementations. Again, the winner here was the Q, very well thought through menus and easy to access features. The thing that kills me on the BJ, is that bluetooth menu item is two levels deep, and if you need to connect to your bluetooth headset, you have to dig down each time, which was very annoying after a while, but the BJ did do a much better job of indicating BT connectivity to your headset by displaying a headset on the top bar of the phone.
Until I was using both phones together, I didn't realize the differences in the depth of applications avaiable for the phones. Verizon has many more applications for their phone than Cingular does, and their approaches are much different. Cingular only has a few applications such as yahoo messaging, etc. and they are free. Verizon has many more useful applications, but almost all of them cost, such as the messenger client is $30. Verizon did have a free over the air backup service that was very cool though, that Cingular did not. So the verdict on availability of applications was a big plus for Verizon, but no, I don't want to pay for them.
Battery life and power, they both are battery limited, but they take different approaches to solve that. The BJ, gives you two batteries as part of the package and way to charge a standalone battery. The Q, gives you the option to buy a bigger battery. I prefer the BJ approach here. I could get one day's use out of each unit, but I don't know what battery life would have done if I had received lots of emails. The BJ, also would sometimes hesitate with the Goodlink software running, which is some combination of lack of memory/processor power problem.
Internet Access was much better on the Q than the BJ, but with that said, I still would have preferred wifi on the unit also, which is why I am still interested in the Dash from T-mobile. It has all the same features along with Wifi. However, as the cellular data networks get better, eventually wifi will be redundant and not of much value on a cell phone at all.
So, what did I do:
1. I sent the Motorola Q, back, mainly because I was really just trying it out, but the extra width, and the "G" key issue really played big with me, even though I think the Q is a better thought through unit. On a side note the Q, is really a right handed unit, I would expect it to be very awkward for a left hander.
2. Cingular called me with 5 days left on my BJ return, so I went and traded it in for the Treo 750.
The Treo 750, is slightly smaller, lighter and with no antenna nub than previous Treo models, but it uses the Pocket PC software. After using the windows smart phone and one handed operation, it feels like I am stepping backwards with the 750. I still have it, as I am giving it a chance, but the analogy I would make is that the BJ and Q are phones with PDAs attached and the 750 is a PDA with a phone attached. I think I am going to personnally prefer a phone with a PDA attached, but understand how others would make the other choice.
In my first day of use, I didn't make it through the whole day. The battery was dead by 2pm, and I only made a few phone calls. I realize that the battery life may get better after a few cycles, but I thought I could get through the whole day at least. A guy in the office next door, has a Treo 680, and I thought I could sneak over and use his charger, but no, it doesn't fit. On both the Cingular phones, the BJ and the 750, they use proprietary connections for everything, the data jack, the power, etc. and it drives me crazy. It was nice that the Q, uses standard mini USB for power, for data connections, and they use a standard headset jack, where the BJ either has none or uses a non-standard option here too.
I have a habit of putting my cell phone in my front pocket and walking around. Both the Q and 750 have a habit of dialing or typing on the keypad unless you explicitly turn off the keyboards. The BJ never had that issue.
- 4 replies to this review
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Thanks for your research because I have been pulling my hair about which phone to get, Q, BJ, Treo and I think your review won me over. Thanks again.
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You forgot to mention the most major difference among the three. While the Q utilizes a mini USB the other two are using proprietary chargers and connectors. A HUGE plus on the Q.
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Maybe you don't understand what a product review is??
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ok if you still have the treo right now you can considerably reduce battery usage by pressing the ok button and hold it down task manager will come up and just cancel all and you will be good to go you just have to do this a few times a day and you will get a good 9 10 hours of off and on use of emails and bubble breaker internet and such. oh and if you wait till q2 the q9 is coming to cingular it will be fater it eill be black the keys are going to be redone and a 2 megapixel camera with newer faster upgrades.
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