The original populist smartphone, the Moto Q, gets a musical update with a media-focused menu screen and V Cast access. Is it the sequel we've been waiting for all summer?
Review summary of the Motorola Q9m (Verizon Wireless):
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_it00.jpg) Though Windows Mobile 6 was an improvement, and we definitely liked DocumentsToGo, the multimedia improvements that Verizon Wireless has made to the Motorola Q9m have only made things more complicated. Besides which, the device was still slow. The interface was slow, programs opened slowly and Internet Explorer, while competent in layout and imaging, was a bit sluggish. Some options, like the excellent calling features or the strong stereo Bluetooth reception, were undeniably good, but overall, we think the sequel to the smartphone that brought smartphones to the masses should have been better. Release: September 2007. Price: $130.
Pros: Great calling options. Nice, sticky keys. Productivity has improved since the last generation.
Cons: No instant messaging. Lousy multimedia options, with 'improvements' that seemed to make things more complicated, slower. Buggy software for the PC.
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Full Motorola Q9m (Verizon Wireless) Review:
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Design - Good
The Q9 is a nice, incremental update to the Moto Q, but the differences are fairly subtle. The keys on the Moto Q9 are jammed into contiguous rows, and though we like the grippy feel of the new keys over the slick plastic of the older Q, we preferred the discrete keys on the older phone's keyboard layout. Otherwise, the two phones are nearly identical, save some rounding around the corners. Buttons are exactly the same, and placed in the same spots. The clickwheel seems more flush on the new Q9, and harder to use for scrolling, but not by much. The Q9 is a hair wider than the older Q, but the size differences feel negligible.
Verizon Wireless has laid their own media-centric control window on top of the Windows Mobile 6 interface, and it is a mess. Basically a small display window surrounded by two arcs of buttons, the interface makes none of the multimedia features easier to use, in fact, it hardly seems to do anything at all. The buttons are enigmatic, with no textual help, and except for the tiny video player, many simply seem to open another application. Verizon Wireless has included a hard button at the bottom of the Q9's keyboard to toggle this menu on and off, though even this button at times was unresponsive.
The new media interface also called more attention to the lagging processor performance of this phone. Switching between menus took a couple seconds, and opening programs was a lagging experience. Opening programs, or accessing files on the device ground the experience to a slowdown. Perhaps the device needs more than 128MB of RAM, or perhaps a faster processor to keep up with the new graphical layouts. Whatever it may be, the Q9m retains the sluggish feeling of its predecessor, as if the phone is a half-step behind you at all times.
Calling - Excellent
If there is one thing you can say about Windows Mobile phones, it is that they don't disappoint when it comes to calling features. Happily, the Verizon Wireless Q9m also features very good call quality. Voices weren't perfect (we still heard some digital artifacting on the high end of the spectrum) and a general hollow sound prevailed, but overall calls sounded very clear. Reception wasn't great, as we usually got only a bar or two in lower Manhattan, but this never seemed to affect calls. The phone also features an extra-loud speakerphone, Bluetooth and intuitive 3-way calling. Voice dialing worked perfectly in our tests. We also like the profiles feature Windows Mobile uses for alerts so much that we wish this were standard on all business phones. But of all the calling features, the most convenient is definitely live searching. From the standby screen (either Verizon's media screen or the Windows Mobile 6 standby screen) you can simply start typing a name or number, and the phone will search the address book for matches. The feature works quickly and easily, and it is our favorite address book search technique by far.
Messaging - Good
We like the e-mail setup on the Verizon Wireless Q9m. We didn't bother to use the included Verizon Wireless Sync program, because ActiveSync and the POP3 e-mail app worked fine for our needs. The e-mail setup assistant found the right settings for our Gmail account without our intervention, and ActiveSync 4.5 worked as soon as we plugged in the phone, with no drivers or pre-installation needed. We were surprised by the omission of instant messaging, even finding Microsoft's own MSN Messenger to be strangely absent, a glaring omission on a smartphone that seems aimed at a younger, multimedia-friendly audience. Still, Windows Mobile 6 brought some nice additions to the Q's messaging, including improved shortcuts in the e-mail app and the ability to view HTML e-mails. These looked flawless, exactly as they do on our desktop.
Typing on the keys was not as easy as on the older Q. We like the texture of the keys, but found the layout a bit cramped. Also, the "FN" key, which activates symbols, and the "Caps" keys seemed a bit sticky. We would often press them for a comma or capital letter, then find the rest of our sentence capitalized, or, worse, symbol-ed. Also, Windows Mobile doesn't seem to auto-complete words nearly as well as other systems or programs. Good Mobile Messaging, even on Windows Mobile, knows to change "Im" to "I'm," and occasionally our cursor got stuck in the auto-complete option box that pops up, keeping us from typing the rest of our sentence.
Productivity - Very good
The new Q9m's new productivity apps are the phone's biggest improvement over the older Q. While we lamented the inability to edit Office documents on the Q (and most Smartphone Edition Windows Mobile 5 devices), on the Q9m we were able to view, edit and even create Word and Excel documents with no problem. Not with Windows Office Mobile, mind you, because that program won't let you create new documents on a Standard edition phone. Instead, Verizon Wireless has wisely chosen to include DataViz DocumentsToGo app, which is compatible with the Office suite. We also saw a slight tweak to the calendar and scheduling app which made it a bit easier to read at a glance. Perhaps it was just the striking red that Verizon Wireless loves to use.
Music - Mediocre
For a phone that has music in its name, the Motorola Q9m could still use some dramatic improvements in the audio department. The media center screen, which lays out audio and video options on top, was difficult to use and navigate and didn't add any significant options or ease to the multimedia experience. Options for media playback were few, and we found the media screen made scrubbing through tracks even more difficult, as it required scrolling to the fast-forward button, then selecting the option, instead of simply tying the controls to dedicated music keys. We were happy to find that stereo Bluetooth setup was easy, and reception was very good, among the strongest we've seen on any phone. Still, the overall experience could use an overhaul.
To start, Verizon Wireless needs to bring the V Cast store to maturity. Though the selection is as good as any over-the-air download service, pricing is high ($1.99 per track) and the inability to Queue downloads means you won't be filling your collection this way. You can create a download list, but you still have to manually select each to download and wait until it has finished. Then, once a song downloads, you can either store it to the phone's paltry 64MB of memory, or go out and buy a miniSD card, which you probably won't have unless you owned the last Q, since most phones these days are using the smaller microSD cards. Of course, as always, Verizon Wireless doesn't give you any multimedia accessories. No memory card, no headphones or handsfree device of any sort. We've never actually heard of a music player being sold without memory or headphones, but still Verizon Wireless insists on labeling their phones "music phones."
Web browsing - Good
Using the "Desktop" view in the Internet Explorer browser, we found the Web browsing experience to be pretty good, an accurate representation of what you'd find on the desktop. Some pieces wouldn't load correctly, like the piecemeal banners across the top of our site or Slashdot's page, but all the images we saw looked clean, and text was legible with proper layout. We'd like a better navigation option than the scrollwheel, but it works better than simple click-scrolling.
Laptop sidekick - Good
The Motorola Q9m can either be used as a tethered modem over a USB connection or for dial-up networking over a Bluetooth connection. Setup for tethered modem support and ActiveSync were both pretty buggy. ActiveSync continuously resynchronized our phone again and again, though at least the synchronization held when we finally freed the Q9m from its Sisyphean task. Verizon Wireless' tethered modem software, VZAcess, had trouble recognizing our Q9m until we performed a delicate and mysterious dance of restarts and stops, but then started to work properly. In our tests, with only two to three bars of reception, we achieved download speeds approaching 500kbps, and uploads around 100kbps. This isn't as fast as we've seen on our Palm Treo 700p on Sprint's EV-DO network, but is tolerable enough for Web browsing.
Odds and ends
A few things are missing from the Q9m. The device lacks GPS except for E911 calls. You can load your own videos, and as a Windows Mobile device the Q9m can accept video files from a Windows Media PC, but V Cast videos are not yet available. Obviously, the V Cast Mobile TV service is out of the question. We would have liked to see Verizon Wireless go whole hog on this phone, loading it with every Verizon V Cast branded service imaginable, as this would have surely set it apart from the burgeoning multimedia smartphone pack.
Price and availability
The Motorola Q9m is available now on Verizon Wireless for $130 with a two-year contract and an instant online discount of $100. A mail-in rebate of $50 is available, when signing up for a qualifying data and voice plan.
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