Motorola Q user reviews (Verizon Wireless)

Pros Thin, sleek

Cons No Touchscreen, wider than a Treo

Summary I have been eagerly awaiting the release of the Q as I thought it might serve me better due to the thin form. However none of the early reviews I read noted that there was no touchscreen. I am a physician and a PDA power user and have many medical applications that I rely on. There are several physicians at my hospital buzzing about the Q and running out to order one. I hope that they are aware that many of their Windows Mobile/PocketPC medical programs may not be as functional without a touchscreen and also consider that editing documents on the Q will not be easy if at all possible. They may want to think about this before purchasing. If motorola had included a touchscreen they would have had a wider market by including the PDA power users.

Pros Form factor, screen, Internet speed

Cons feels slow, lousy synching, doesn't support outlook notes.

Summary When i purchased this, i was excited as hell.
Having taken it home and worked with it for the last 12 hours or so, i can tell you that i'm bummed and that it is going back.

First of all, if you use pop email, synching is a nightmare. Even with techs on the phone from both Verizon and Moto, they couldn't tell me how to set up pop email in a way that even resembled real time email. I put it next to my bberry and sent a half dozen messages. They were like night and day. The bberry get's it instantly. The Q has to wait 15 minutes to send a message. Then, it only sends you part of the message. if you have atachments you have to request that they be sent the next time around. Yes, you can force a synch but it's a tedious and pointless process just to read an email you are already in the middle of.

Next, the active synch product synchs to Outlook, as long as you don't use the notes portion. What??! Are t hey serious? Yes, in fact they are. If you don't have exchange , the activesyncyh doesn't support all of Outlook on your Q. In fact, the Q doesn't even have a memo/notes application on the unit. i thought i must have missed the sw or accidentally deleted it but the Moto tech guy confirmed that the Q doesn't support NOTES from Outlook. How lame is that?! Why build a phone and then have it handle 3 qtrs of the synch???

I tried downloaded 4 programs that shoudl have run on the Q. of them, only 1 of them (Slingmedia's player) actually ran. The others all bombed out - and this was on links directly from Moto's Q web page. I'm hopeful that this will get fixed as firms gen up Q based solutions but for now, it was pretty weak.

The Q has a gps on board and has the capability to turn it on (vs just accessible for 911 calls). I did so and had hopes to find a mapquest type solution that would make use of it, but here again i was dissapointed. I did find a site www.alk.com that claims one is coming but that didn't do much for me during my 15 day trial period.

Again, i was very excited to get the phone. Now that i have had it and tried to work with it, i have to say, it feels like a miss.

(A friend of mine independently got one 2 days ago and he has already returned his as well due to similar reasons).

Sufing on the phone was very nice. EVDO is fast and the screen is sharp. However, not having a touch screen sucks when surfing. It's just not efficient using a scroll wheel to scroll though all possible links....

In concept the phone is great. Maybe if you are an exchange shop, many of these hassles go away. Otherwise, I'd stear clear and wait for Moto (or Nokia) to get it right with their next model.

Pros Design, Phone Performance, Price Point

Cons Battery Life, Email Software, Windows Mobile OS

Summary I have lived with a Motorola Q for three months now, so this isn't a review from someone who has only had the phone long enough to hate it. I'm also a long time smartphone user, having gone through too many Treos and Blackberrys over the past six years to count. In fact I still have to carry a Blackberry a good deal of time for work.

But the Q is my personal phone, paid for it out of my own pocket when I moved over from Cingular to Verizon, because Cingular coverage wasn't matching up to my needs. It has earned its place in my pocket and while its not the absolute homerun I would have hoped for, its more solid than some reviews here might lead one to believe.

Let me focus on my biggest complaints: First is Battery Life. My early impression was that the extended battery was going to be a permanent installation. Turns out that my battery life was directly affected by two things: Reception and Wireless Sync. Foregoing the Wireless Sync feature (which doesn't mean you still can't get your email automatically) really made a big difference in my situation, because I often go into marginal coverage areas, and it appears that Wireless Sync will just keep trying to make a connection when it can't. That said, the Q is a phone which will need to be charged up every night, pretty much like my Blackberry and any other smartphone I've had. The extended battery is a worthwhile accessory if you are a heavy talker or email junkie. It adds a little bulk to the back of the phone, but its still more "pocketable" than a Treo or Blackberry

Email works well enough on the Q, but its not heavy-duty email like a Blackberrry or a Treo running Snapper Mail. If you are buying this phone more for email than for calls, including attachments and html-based email, my suggestion is to look harder at the others until someone releases an alternative mail client for Windows Mobile. By the way, the Q is one of the better phones for voice calls that I have used in a long time. Quality of what you hear is solid, the speakerphone actually is decent, and bluetooth headsets (at least the two different ones I have used) work fine.

Most of my other real knocks on this phone are mostly about the Windows Media Smartphone software. It just feels a little clunky and all the edges haven't been rounded off. It is important to occasionally clear the memory out by killing all of the running programs via the Task Manager. Maybe a future update from Motorola and Microsoft will help this weak point.

A note to Mac fans, despite the Windows Mobile software being...well, Windows--Mark/Space's Missing Sync for Windows works just fine for syncing the Q to your Mac Address Book and iCal. Be sure to get the latest version (2.5.1) which improves the sync performance greatly.

Bottom line: You should look at the Q and decide if you need more of a power tool than this phone is. Hardcore tech types will likely be happier with a Treo 700 or a Blackberry 8000 series unit. However, if you are a normal person, who wants a sleek cell phone that can do email, surf the web, carry your address book and calendar around in your pocket for a smaller price than the Treo or Blackberry, the Q is a solid choice in my experience.

Pros unknown at this time

Cons unknown at this time

Summary Oringinally stated in the review of this product (8/10/2005) the only available "Mini-SD memory size is 256MB" is incorrect.

I have been using the SanDisk MiniSD 512MB product since December 2004. MiniSD is currently at 1GB capacity and available from many digital media outlets for as little as $75.