The Moto Q

Many devices have come out for several carriers that can give the users what they want. one of these such devices is the Motorola Moto Q. This device is a very nice looking windows mobile smartphone, with a really good QWERTY keyboard that has backlight keys. Motorola also offers this device through several big name carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and now AT&T A.K.A. Cingular. Verizon Wireless has also released a newer version of the device.

As said before, the Q has a very stylized feel to it, and has a small form factor for the palm of your hand. The QWERTY keyboard is good enough to write lengthy text messages to friends or family, and the screen is good enough to watch videos using windows media player. However, the screen size is very small, in fact, the text is very small for some people with god sight. Therefore, for those of us with poor vision will have to squint to read the device.

The phone does support TTY support, and also supports the installation of a screen reader. so this compensates for the small text on the device. The Q also has a very good speaker so you can hear your phone ring, or hear that new song you added with activesync. It also has a very clear microphone and ear speaker for you to make calls with great clarity. It is just to bad that at least on the Sprint PCS network signal problems seem to plague the device, and calls are not as clear as they could be.

Signal issues as said before, plague the device, but the biggest drawback to the device is its battery, or lack there of. The Q boasts and talk time of 4 hours, but if you are in a low signal area with you network, then you can cut that time in half and maybe even more than that. This also increases when you try to use EV-DO Internet with this device, because this takes up a lot of power. Bluetooth will also drain your battery, so if you use a headset with it, prepare to charge it a lot. It even seems that the memory expansion card you can add drains the battery even faster, which is not a good thing.

Another area that the Moto Q is mixed in is compatibility. To help those battery issues, the Q charges through USB, which means it can be plugged in to almost any computer, and the device can be charged. This device can also only sync with devices that support Pocket PC or windows Mobile. any windows PC will work with it, but that is it. you have to buy special software to make a successful sync with a macintosh computer, and do a lot of work to make it work with Linux.

Well, it is time for the ratings again.
Interface: 7/10
Design: 7/10
Accessibility: 9/10
Storage: 2/10
compatibility: 6/10
price: 6/10

So, how did it do? The Moto Q scored a 51.67% satisfactory rating. Some would argue about the price area, because te device is a lot cheaper with a new contract from a cell provider. however, this is not the true retail price of the device. the full retail price of the device is around $400.00. I also want to point out that if you are interested in this device and you have a visual problem, look in to pocket hal or mobile speak pocket. Both of these screen readers have proven to be great for this device.

Next week, I will discuss the Palm Treo, and in a few weeks, I will have my cell phone round up where we will see what and why which cell phone is the best that have appeared on this blog. Take care, and have a good week.