Hardware Review: Motorola MOTO Q Smartphone by Sprint

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 07/24/07 at 11:07:51 am

As I mentioned in an Earlier Post I recently switched back to Sprint from Nextel. When I switched over I received a great offer on a Motorola MOTO Q Smartphone. Before discounts the retail price for the Q is around $449.00. Sprint is offering it to new customers on their website for $250.00 before a mail-in rebate. However by going through Sprint INS I was able to get one at a steal.

I’m going to say off the bat that the Motorola Q is a slim, sexy device. It measures at 0.5 inches thin and weighs a mere 4.1 ounces; I can easily put this thing in my pocket and not even feel it. With it being so small you would think it would feel cheap and overly light but in reality the device has nice almost rubberized feel to it and it sports enough weight so it feels like you’re actually holding something. Overall I wouldn’t say it feels cheap at all. The QWERTY keypad is great and the jog wheel on the side is nice and sturdy. The buttons above the keypad could be a little better, you can feel the plastic along the top edge like it isn’t perfectly flush with the screen, but it took me a few days to notice it.


The Motorola Q runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphones which is very similar to the PocketPC’s I’ve had in the past such as my Dell Axim that ran PPC 2003. However at the same time WM 5 navigates like a cell phone, the menus and everything are pretty basic. I think in my case it’s a good thing, I’ve had plenty of PDA phones in the past that run a full PocketPC or Palm OS and they never worked that great and were overly complicated to use, especially when I was on the go. The Q is a fully functioning PDA but it’s stripped down enough to where it’s extremely quick to navigate. The UI itself is very intuitive and I like how it has a lot of options I’ve always wanted in a phone such as setting an mp3 as a ringtone or easy to manage sound profiles. The little details are what make the Q awesome and best of all everything works flawlessly.

The Q has all of the basic features you would expect. In terms of connectivity it sports Bluetooth which works great, I just picked up a Bluetooth headset for it this week. The Bluetooth also has stereo support for headphones and such. The Q doesn’t have Wi-Fi but it does support Sprint’s EVDO network which seems to be quick enough for basic tasks such as email, IM etc.

The 320×240 2.4 inch LCD is very nice and bright, it really looks good and sharp. The screen is very easily smudged up by finger prints with its glossy finish, it also looks like it could be easily scratched so I went ahead and picked up a screen protector from EverythingQ right away. It’s nice to see a backlit keypad on this device too however I would prefer it to be a little brighter…

The Q has a 312-MHz Intel XScale processor which in my opinion is plenty of horsepower for WM 5 and applications that it runs. The device also has a nice 1.3 Megapixel camera with an LED “flash”. It takes acceptable photos in well lit conditions such as outdoors. The built-in camera also features a video function which seems to work well for short clips.

A lot of the Moto Q reviews I’ve been reading get into all of the online content that Sprint has to offer for the device. I’m not going to really get into that because I’m using this thing primarily for business and email. I did purchase a data plan for the phone but I really haven’t had a chance to use it. I do know that Sprint has exclusive NFL content for the Q and it looks like there’s a software store app and a neat On Demand thing that I have yet to really take a look at. To be honest I’m not really interested in the web features outside of my communication needs that this device has to offer.

When it comes to voice quality and battery life I would say that the Q is pretty average. I’ve been playing with it almost non-stop since I received it and it lasts about 2 days before needing a charge. The official specs from Motorola are 4 hours of talk time and 212 hours of standby which appears to be fairly accurate. The voice quality seems to be good, I live and work in areas with very low signal so it’s not uncommon to have fuzziness and static in the phone calls, I notice this more with Sprint then Nextel. But that’s just a coverage issue.

Getting back to the software, as expected the Windows Mobile based device syncs flawlessly with Microsoft Office. I was afraid that there would be a software compatibility issue with Vista and the new Outlook and sure enough there was. ActiveSync is not compatible with Windows Vista so I had to go to Microsoft’s website and download the new Windows Mobile Device Center for Windows Vista. But once I got that installed it worked great. Again, I didn’t have a chance to take a look at the other software that came with the Q, I believe there may have been some other apps or trials on the CD, there is supposed to be a Gmail applet somewhere which I still want to check out.

I think I’ve gone over everything I wanted to in this review although there is so much more. Overall, the Motorola Q is an amazing little phone. The device is small and light yet durable enough to where it should last me more than a few months. The phone is packed with a great set of features that combine nicely with the simplicity of the navigation that I know will save me the frustration I have experienced with other Smartphones. It’s most definitely the best designed Smartphone I have owned to date and best of all its affordable.

6 Comments »

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  1. I THINK MY Q HAS SOME DEFECTS–NEED PRO TO REVIEW–TECBARRY RICHTERHNICALLY WHERE IS BEST TO SEND.

    Comment by BARRY RICHTER — July 25, 2007 #

  2. I DONT KNOW MANG. I would refer to your mobile provider or Motorola support.

    Comment by Markus Langenfeld — July 25, 2007 #

  3. [...] Gadgets - Where would a geek be without his gadgets?! My best friend for day-to-day business is my Motorola MOTO Q Smartphone. The phone has all of the basic PDA functions I need, it syncs with my Outlook which is important [...]

    Pingback by What kind of gear am I rockin’? » Markus Langenfeld — April 15, 2008 #

  4. [...] of them have their own review on this blog including my Samsung SPH i500, Hitachi G1000, and now my Motorola Q. I was satisfied with the Q but it lacked some of the features I need for daily use and to be [...]

    Pingback by Expecting Daddy of a baby BlackBerry. » Markus Langenfeld — June 26, 2008 #

  5. Hello!,

    Comment by name — August 31, 2008 #

  6. Good day!,

    Comment by name — September 1, 2008 #

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