Motorola's Quirky New Smartphone

The Q is lighter and sleeker than its popular rivals, but its short battery life and complicated e-mail function make it a hassle to use

by Roger O. Crockett

Editor's Rating:

The Good: The lightest, best-looking of the e-mail devices can be operated with just one hand

The Bad: The software is overcomplicated, requiring too many steps to perform simple functions

The Bottom Line: The $100 rebate makes it cheaper than rivals—and easy to overlook its drawbacks

Reader Reviews

First off, let me confess: I'm not a mobile e-mail guy. I've never owned a BlackBerry (RIMM), nor a Palm (PALM) Treo. Sending a text message via the phone is nothing but a nuisance to me. My thumbs were built to grip a football or to aid in twisting the caps off beer bottles more than typing on a smart phone's compact QWERTY keypad.

No worries, say Motorola (MOT) designers. They made the Q for people like me. It's not really intended for hard-core mobile professionals, but rather for the masses. That's why, I was hungry for the Q's debut. I knew it would be slim—0.45 inches thick, to be exact—and I prefer phones that slide imperceptibly into my suit pocket. Motorola gets kudos for delivering yet another stunningly sleek device.

Motorola and Verizon Wireless (VZ), the phone's exclusive provider at the moment, also deserve applause for pricing the phone reasonably. At $199 with a $100 rebate and a Verizon contract, it's $100 less than the Treo. If only Verizon would ratchet back the monthly charge for its new swift data service (EV-DO) that the Q operates on. A typical plan costs $110 a month for 1,350 minutes of talking and unlimited Net use.

That said, the Q's runway-model looks might be enough to get you to bite on the service. Almost everything about the Q hardware is spot on. At about 4 ounces, it's remarkably light. So it doesn't feel like a paper weight in your pocket. It's a bit wider than the Treo and a tad longer than most BlackBerry handsets, but it fits comfortably in my hand.

ONE-HANDED WONDER.

That shouldn't be a surprise. Motorola designers wanted people to be able to operate this phone with one hand. And for the most part, you can. It has a toggle wheel on the side that lets you scroll up and down through information on the screen. But it also gives users options. Don't like the toggle? Try the navigation control below the screen.

The thing it doesn't have is a stylus. With the Q, thankfully there's no fumbling around to pull that little stick out to touch and move around the screen. So using the Q with one hand is far easier than manipulating other smart phones singlehandedly.

There's more to this one-handed approach. Motorola designers say it's far more costly to make a touch screen (required with a stylus) rugged enough to withstand the abuse of phone users. The good news is that the Q's screen looks good. Motorola tipped the screen on its side to give it a landscape shape (wider than it is tall). This extra width makes the screen feel spacious, though it's not as tall as, say, a Treo's.

The Q screen's resolution is sharp and colorful, boasting 320 by 240 pixels. You can put it to use by snapping photos with the 1.3-megapixel camera. Strangely, when taking pictures, the image doesn't fill the screen. It's sort of like trying to watch a DVD made for a widescreen TV on your basic, old 32-incher—it's irritating.

FANCY FEATURES.

In addition to pictures the phone shoots and plays videos. That was one of the first applications on this phone to impress me. Motorola CEO Ed Zander loves to show off a video he took of the Chicago Bears defeating my favorite team, the San Francisco 49ers. I was struck by the lack of the herky-jerks in the imagery.

The Q also packs in another fancy feature that makes this gadget far more than a text-messaging device: a digital music player for blasting your MP3 files. Fortunately, Motorola and Verizon decided to include a mini SD card for storing extra data. (Believe me, you'll need that card since the phone only has 60 megabytes of free memory—barely enough to store a handful of songs.)

If you want to slap down another $80, you can get Motorola's wireless stereo headphones. Using Bluetooth technology, they let you start and stop your music and even place calls without ever touching the phone—cool stuff.