The last time Sprint came late to the Q party, they put out our favorite version of the original slim smartphone. Were we as impressed this time around?
Review summary of the Motorola Q9c:
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 Much like its predecessor, Sprint's Q9c makes improvements to their version of a device released earlier by its competitors. If you're a seasoned Windows Mobile Standard user (read: no touchscreen), then there is a very good chance you will be pleased with the Q9c; it has improved upon many of the things that were wrong with the original Q as well as the first incarnations of the Q9. While we dislike what the extended battery does to its profile, almost as much as we detest the horribly outdated scrollwheel, The Q9c is a solid smartphone that does many things right. And if you're a heavy phone-as-tethered modem user, look no further. Release: November 2007. Price: $250.
Pros: Simple tethered modem access, excellent e-mail client, great call quality
Cons: Only comes with extended battery, outdated scroll wheel, no dedicated camera button
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Full review of the Motorola Q9c:
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Design - Good
Just like on their first incarnation of the Motorola Q, Sprint opts for the soft-touch finish on the Q9c's surface and buttons, which give it a nice feel and provide good grip. Unlike its Verizon-branded cousin, the Motorola Q9m, Sprint's version lacks a circular wheel, opting instead for a four-way D-button.
Sporting the standard Windows Mobile 6 OS, the Q9c lacks a touchscreen, so navigation is limited to buttons, the scroll wheel, and a second dedicated back button. There was some slight lag when switching programs and navigating through the WM6 interface, but not much; it was considerably less than our original Sprint Q or our HTC Tilt.
We really liked the keyboard, which showed marked improvement over its predecessor, whose discrete keys had too much space in-between and needed pressure from directly above to be depressed. The raised curvature design of these keys keeps the keys close, but easy to depress.
However, we didn't like the bump from the extended battery, and wish that Sprint had given us both a regular and extended battery, so we would have the choice. A big part of the Q's appeal is its slim profile, which it loses when equipped with the extended battery.
Calling - Very Good
Voice quality was good; the person on the receiving end of our calls only thought it sounded like a wireless phone after we had mentioned it. Only minimal fuzz or background noise was detectable. Voice Command was eerily accurate, but the program itself was extremely buggy, and when listening to music with plugged in headphones, we were constantly interrupted by Voice Command's prompts to speak a command. We experienced no such issues when listening with our Bluetooth headset, so this could have been a connection problem. Setting up the Bluetooth 2.0 headset was no problem, but the reception was mediocre for music and outright garbled for phone reception.
We loved the live searching feature -- we could start dialing a phone number or spelling a name from the Home screen, and our contacts folder immediately pop up. From there, we can make a phone call, send an e-mail or SMS/MMS message to our contact. It was easily the most convenient feature of the phone.
Messaging - Very Good
Setting up Gmail was a breeze; if you want to use POP3 the Q9c will even automatically locate the proper settings for you. Those who prefer IMAP4 will need to enter in the settings manually, but once they're in, it works perfectly, sending and syncing with our folders without a problem. We also were easily able to sync our Microsoft Exchange contacts, calendar and e-mails using ActiveSync. It took only a few seconds to download all of our contacts and about two weeks worth of e-mails.
We're not a fan of Windows Mobile's SMS implementation, though we did like that text messages were an option on the today screen whether or not we had any messages waiting. But with so many SMS exchanges serving as conversations, it seems silly to still be viewing text messages in folders marked inbox, outbox and sent. Even Palm's rusty OS manages to thread messages in conversations, something we would like to see on WM6 phones.
Instant Messaging is given top billing on Sprint's Q9c, with the default Today screen sporting a link to an Instant Messenger program for Windows Messenger, AIM and Yahoo! Messenger accounts. All three can be accessed individually and simultaneously.
The excellent keyboard was ideal for messaging, even if we hate Motorola's design choice to put a return key where a backspace should probably go, and having the back button (both of them) completely separate from the keyboard.
Productivity - Very Good
Using the included Documents To Go application, we were able to open and edit Microsoft Word documents, PDF files and Excel documents on the Q9c, and while the Excel files looked strange on the small screen, navigation wasn't terrible and the experience was rather pleasant, overall. However, the Q9c's settings menu is a disaster. Every time something needs to be changed, multiple menus -- some contextual -- bogged us down, forcing us to use as many as 10 button clicks just to access Vision or Phone settings.
Camera - Good
We were actually pleasantly surprised by the camera on the Q9c; we expected the pictures to be horrific, but they came out only mostly mediocre. The flash was the best part, as it lit up a completely dark room and took relatively clear photos. We don't really expect anything out of a camera phone, and while we aren't exactly going to throw away our DSLR, we might actually use this camera ... if there was a dedicated camera button. We don't see the point of including a camera at all if it's not easy to use, or at least easy to access. The Q9c's camera is buried in submenus, with the side button that could act as a shutter being wasted as a redundant back button.
Music - Poor
Being a Windows Mobile 6 phone, naturally the Q9c uses Windows Media Player to play all of the media files on your device. The mobile version is actually very similar to the PC version; this would have helped a lot more if we actually liked the PC version. Playback options are limited, but let us decide between elapsed and remaining time markers. Leave it up to us to decide if we want to resume playback after a call was taken in addition to the standard shuffle/repeat options.
We liked how we could scrub tracks with the d-pad, although this would be much easier with some sort of wheel, like on Verizon's model. Songs could be played from either the device or from the miniSD card slot, a format that few phones use. We would have liked to see either microSD or the ubiquitous SD format, but we guess Motorola wanted to stay consistent, as their last Q had a miniSD slot as well. Even more embarrassing was the lack of any sort of stereo headset for music, which would have been forgivable had it come with a 3.5mm headphone jack. It doesn't, and we weren't pleased.
There was also no access to Sprint's over-the-air music download service, which was extremely disappointing; more on this later.
Web Browsing - Good
We're not crazy about Internet Explorer on non-touchscreen devices. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to select a link that gets passed over using the d-pad or the scroll wheel. It's times like those when a touchscreen makes it "just work." That being said, Google loaded in less than 3 seconds, and our graphics-rich homepage loaded in about 15-20 seconds on Sprint's EV-DO data service. On the "Desktop" view mode we noticed no jumbled paragraphs or misaligned photos, but had trouble navigating with the wheel and d-pad. We prefer the fit to screen option, but while the browser may be capable, the lack of touch buries this phone's web experience.
Laptop Sidekick - Excellent
Tethered modem support was quite possibly the easiest we've ever seen ... if you know where to look. Our last Motorola Q buried the tethered modem option in the accessories folder, and while this new device puts it one menu up, under "Internet Sharing" in the start menu, we still would have liked it to be a bit clearer as to what exactly it did.
That being said, once we set the PC connection to USB and the Network Connection to Sprint Network, we plugged the phone into our laptop's USB port and we were good to go. No downloading programs or finding drivers or anything remotely complicated; just two selections and plugging the device in. We got speeds varying from 400 kb/s (mediocre) to 950 kb/s (much better). If you use your phone as a modem more often than to make calls, this is your new phone.
Odds and ends
The lack of the over-the-air Sprint Music store makes no sense; we're not sure why Sprint chose to omit it. If you're not going to put it on your one of your most full-featured phones, what's the point? Also, the SprintTV app never worked properly, giving us an error saying that it could not be installed because the certificate could not be verified, then gave us an error saying it was unable to authorize user.
Price and availability
The Motorola Q9c is available from Sprint for $250 with a contract. A mail-in rebate of $100 is available, when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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