Sure, the Q has been making the rounds at plenty of trade shows, but this long-delayed smartphone still drew plenty of attention at this year’s CTIA (more, indeed, than Moto’s undercooked CTIA announcements, such as the music-infused RAZR V3i/m). We took it for another whirl and noticed some key improvements, particularly in performance.
Design
Obviously, the Q still has the same RAZR-like design we’ve been seeing for the past, oh, nine months; broad, thin and light (4.6 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches and 4 ounces), the Q fit nicely in the palm of our hand, and the flat navigational controls all worked with a satisfying click. The small, stubby QWERTY keypad is a little crowded and takes getting used to, although its no harder to use than a Treo. The change we did notice, however, is that the QVGA, 65,000-color display seems much richer and detailed than the one we saw at CES just two months ago, which looked washed-out and pixilated to our eyes.
Features
The Q’s feature set remains the same: EVDO support, Windows Mobile 5.0, a 1.3-megapixel camera for snapshots and video, IrDA and Bluetooth, dual stereo speakers, and the ability to play a potpourri of audio and video files (thanks to the mobile version of Windows Media Player). That said, we detected a marked improvement in performance compared to the unit we tried at CES. Back in January, the Q was painfully sluggish, with the spinning “wait” wheel popping up in almost every application. This time around, the handset seemed much more responsive; we launched apps, played tunes and fire up Mobile Office with the spinning ball rarely in sight. Very nice.
Pricing and availability
The Q was supposed to be on the streets by now, but Motorola reps promise that we’ll be seeing the delayed Q “soon”. We can only hope. Pricing details have yet to be released.
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