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Motorola Q Windows Mobile Smartphone uncovered. Before you have the Q, we have the A. Part 1 May 24, 2006 [MS Smartphone] | By anonymous 6. There has been an awful lot of buzz about the amazingly reasonably priced Motorola Q that has been officially announced by both Verizon and Motorola to be available on May 31st, 2006 for only $199 with a two year contract. Why is there so much buzz about this new Windows Mobile Smartphone? Does the Moto Q really deserve this much attention? Well, we have one and we can answer the questions for you in our four part introduction of the phone. Part One: What makes the Moto Q so cool?  QWERTY Thumb Board: First, but not least, the Moto Q is first Windows Mobile based Smartphone to have an easily accessible QWERTY thumb board, similar to a RIM BlackBerry. We know, you may bring up the Sierra Wireless VOQ, which did have a thumb board, however it was not accessible, and felt flimsy. The Thumb Board is on par for usability with the Treo 700w and any RIM BlackBerry, its very easy to use with one hand, or two thumbs. We will go much more in-depth about the thumb board in Part 3.  Thumb Wheel: The Moto Q is the first device with a fully functional thumb wheel. The Thumb Wheel is like the rolling clicker on most current mice for PC's. it makes selections in lists easy, and allows you to click by pressing in to activate items you have selected. A conveniently located back button is located right under the thumb wheel. The thumb wheel has a great feel to it, there is a great tactile feel to each roll, and activation press is easy, provides adequate response but does not accidentally press with normal rolls.  Landscape: Another first for the Motorola Q is the Landscape 320x240 screen resolution used by the device. All previous Windows Mobile based Smartphone devices have had either the low res 176x220, or high res 240x320 portrait landscape. We had our doubts at first if software support would be available for the device, but it quite apparent Microsoft and Motorola has done an amazing job wooing developers to add support for the new resolution. Industry Heavyweights like Orneta, Handmark, and ALK are just a few of the developers offering applications specifically designed for the Moto Q. 1.3M Camera: The camera on the Moto Q takes very decent photos and crisp videos. For a cell phone the quality easily makes the Moto Q one of the best phone cameras available. While the 1.3 mega pixels doesn't compete with a pro-sumer 5-8 Mega Pixel camera, the camera is quite capable for consumer needs from a integrated phone camera. The camera includes a flash, but unlike a normal camera flash, the light simply stays on similar to the Motorola MPX220 flash. Some new phones have been including macro mode, and landscape mode, sadly these features are not available on the Moto Q.  Easy Directional Pad: Motorola has a great track record of creating easy to use directional pads, the Motorola MPX200 has one of the best directional pads ever released, the MPX220 is just as easy, and the Moto Q is every bit as good.  Mini USB: The Moto Q uses industry standard Mini USB to synchronize and to charge, so you can use a simple easy to use universal connection to charge the phone. External MiniSD: Unlike many Windows Mobile based Smartphone's, the Moto Q has an external MiniSD slot, so its easy to switch out your music library, or simply add more space to your devices. The MiniSD slot is SDIO compatible, meaning you can add the missing WiFi to the device at a later time. A2DP Stereo Bluetooth: The Moto Q supports stereo Bluetooth headsets out of the box, a first for any Windows Mobile based Smartphone. There is nothing quite like wireless music from a cell phone. The setup is extremely easy, and the quality is amazing. You can leave the Moto Q in any room of a house, and clearly hear the music anywhere else in the home. The setup may be the easiest I have ever seen, simply set the headphones to be discoverable, chose the device on the Moto Q, and it will ask if you would like to add it as a Stereo Headset. Very nice indeed. Stereo Speakers: The Moto Q comes with integrated Stereo speakers, another first for a Windows Mobile based Smartphone. The sound volume is very clear and gets amazingly loud. The Q could actually be used for music at a party.  EVDO: The Moto Q's first release is a CDMA device, meaning it will only work with North American providers, namely Verizon at the release. There are GSM versions in development, which are scheduled for release in Q1 2007. The CDMA version does have support for EVDO, which according to Verizon can sustain data transmissions around 500 to 700 KBPS, with peak speeds toping 1MBPS. In practice, speeds have not been this high, and are dependant upon the radio signal of the device. We can say that it may be the fastest Windows Mobile based Smartphone to date. Fastest Processor: The Moto Q has a 312 MHz processor, one of the first Windows Mobile based Smartphone devices with a processor as fast as many of the Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones. What is the Moto Q Missing? The Moto Q has many innovative features but does lack some functionality. The device does not support WiFi (802.11b), but you can add WiFi support via a MiniSD SDIO Card. The device is also missing AKU2, which means no support for MSFP (Microsoft Push E-Mail), which can be solved by the release of an upgraded ROM for the device. Its also important to note that the previous version of AUTD push email does work with the device, which is not a serious problem for the Verizon network. To summarize, the Moto Q is an amazing Windows Mobile based Smartphone with many first's and great features for the Windows Mobile Smartphone platform. In case you didn't notice, we didn't even mention the looks of the device. Check back for for Part 2: Moto Q Usability. Find out More from Verizon @ http://www.vzwshop.com/q/ Win A Moto Q from Microsoft @ http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/motoq/offer.mspx - by Adam  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 5 Comments ]
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