Digital Trends

Motorola Q

October 15th, 2006 | by Stewart Wolpin

Performance

One of the gear-head complaints about the Q is its lack of WiFi, to which we say, “Big deal.” Verizon's EV-DO Web service is speedy and reliable and far more accessible than haphazard hot spots.

Where Q falls down is in text input. Predictive text and the default setting on the Q, with a full QWERTY keyboard, is more than just useless, it's plain annoying. Windows forces you to drill through the settings menus to turn predictive text off system-wide, rather than making the option available through the varying e-mail and text applications.

Windows Mobile 5 and the Q also fail to supply the kind of intuitive text input shortcuts that Blackberry users take for granted, such as automatic capital letters to begin sentences, holding down a letter key for two seconds to change its case, and clicking Blackberry's space key twice to produce an end-of-sentence period. Further, unlike Treo's dual "Shift" keys bracketing its space bar, Q's single "Shift" key is on the right side of the keypad, which is awkward for the predominantly right-thumbed (Blackberry's shift key is on the left, allowing near-simultaneous shift-letter hits). Also, Q's "back/delete" key is part of the navigation array, rather than a dedicated keypad key as it is on the Treo and the Blackberry. Minor annoyances, admittedly, but thumb keypads are difficult enough without these extra roadblocks.

 
The Motorola Q Keyboard

For multimedia, you have to have a miniSD card inserted when you sync it to your PC to upload music and video clips to the phone. Use a 512 MB card or higher so you have the option of both automatic and manual syncing for your music files. There's a dedicated camera key to the immediate right of the space bar, a dangerous location when inputting text. The camera (which includes a photo light) does take above-average pictures compared to other 1.3 MP cell phone cameras, but that's damning by faint praise.

Q also offers voice recognition that is mostly spot-on. But one user reported that when he said to dial "Blum" (rhymes with "plumb"), the Q asked if he meant "Bloom" (rhymes with "room"). When Q would not be corrected and would not dial the assigned number, the user sighed and said "yes, fine, Bloom." We leave the social implications of this concession to a mechanical device for another discussion.

The Motorola Q Screen

Your final determining factor, especially with all the multimedia usage, might be how long you can play before your toy dies. Q sits in the middle with a rated 234 minutes (nearly four hours) of usage time and 212 hours (nearly 9 days) of standby time, compared to Blackberry's 198 minutes (3.3 hours) of usage and 192 hours (8 days) of standby power and Treo's generous 270 minutes (4.5 hours) of usage and 360 hours (15 days) of standby power.