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So I picks me up a new Q, the Motorola Q9m earlier this month… And so far, I like it. Here’s why:

New things that make this phone a joy to use:

1. Faster*. Definitely faster*. The old Q was slow. If you wanted to view text messages or email, the little loading wheel would come up for a while. Navigating between screens is definitely faster. So what’s the * for? Well, Qs do this thing where they never ever make you get rid of text messages. I did a software upgrade / system reset on the old Q in January of this year. Assume I receive 20msgs a day and send 20msgs a day: 40msgs/day * 30days/month * 8months = approx 9600 messages on the Q by the end of August. I would assume this is why it was slow loading the text message list, but I still don’t know if it slows down the entire system. I wasn’t running out of space as everything else was stored on my 1gig SD memory card.
2. Text/Email Searching – Thank you, thank you, thank you… I don’t know how many times I wanted to be able to search the aforementioned 9600 text messages for critical information such as a txt’d phone number, password, house address, pin number, etc… all you have to do is navigate to a message list (any email account or your text message list) and start typing. The list will shorten as per your search and the string you’re typing will be highlighted. Wicked handy…
3. New Keyboard - The only thing new about the physical hardware, aside from the black/red colors, is the new style keyboard. Instead of little, separated capsule-shaped keys, the keyboard is flatter and the keys are all touching. It’s much easier to type on and the phone is no bigger in size.
4. Better Battery Life / Light Sensor - On the old Q, which I used the crap out of, I had the standard battery and 2 extended-life batteries, as well as the dock to charge everything. An extended life battery, which I used probably 95% of the time over the standard one, lasted about a day of use. I would have to charge it while I slept and probably while I was at my desk throughout the day. The new Q is much different. First off, I currently only have the standard battery for it. I am in the habit of charging while I sleep, and usually I go to bed with 2 out of 3 bars of battery left. In the top right corner of the phone there is a little light sensor that helps with the battery problem. In bright light, the screen is as bright as can be, but the keyboard back-light is off. In a dark room, the screen is dim but still perfectly visible and the keyboard back-light is on. I know they stole this from the Apple MacBook Pro, but I don’t care. It makes my phone last longer and I love it.

New things that don’t affect me or I don’t care about, but I’m not complaining:

1. Documents to Go - The ability to view AND edit office documents on the phone is a great feature. The old Q would actually take the .doc file, send it to a web service, and show you a pdf, which you could not modify. Now you can create documents from scratch (although I would probably kill myself if I had to edit docs on the phone). The tools are PDF To Go, Sheet To Go, Slideshow To Go, Word to Go and Zip To Go.
2. Windows Mobile 6 - The new os is like any other new Micro$oft OS. It just is. There’s nothing to scream about. I still don’t know if it’s new hardware or the new OS that’s making my phone usage faster, or a combination of the two (or the text message thing mentioned above) but I like it either way. I like WM6 better than a blackberry. While I’ve never owned a Blackberry, I’ve used many, the interface on this is just much more intuitive.
3. VCast - The major push by Verizon on this phone is that it is VCast capable. Apparently you can download ringtones, videos, mp3s, etc… Frankly, I can download an MP3, use my SD card to move it from my laptop to my phone, and use that as a ringtone. So I never use it.

Not many, but a few complaints:

1. Where the F is the Camera Key - There is no camera key on the keyboard. Believe me, I’ve looked… It’s been replaced by the VCast Homepage button. This button, when hit, takes you to the circular VCast page where you can access your MP3s and crap. Yes, you can get to your camera here, but it takes about 5 seconds to load that homepage. So whatever I saw while I was at the bar that I wanted to snap a picture of is already gone. Why did you get rid of the camera key, Motorola/Verizon? Why?
2. Internet Explorer - I hate IE. I absolutely hate it as a browser on a desktop machine both as a common desktop user and a website developer. My hate is no different for the phone version. This hate became more fierce after using an iPhone. I’m not a big fan of the iPhone, but the safari browser on that thing is so cool… You can view a web page, with forms, css, images. That brings me to the next problem…
3. No JVM - this is a complaint now, but it may be resolved later. Initially, I wanted to install the opera browser (because I hate IE, see above). Opera is not WM6 ready yet, but hopefully that will be fixed soon. The only way to get Opera installed on a phone like mine is to install a Java Virtual Machine. But there is no JVM for my phone either. So I’m screwed from both sides… Please, Opera, build your browser for my phone and make it better than IE (not hard to do).

So the tally is 4 things that make my life so much better, but 3 strikes against it. BUT, the old Q had the same IE problem and the same JVM problem, so there’s really only 1 complaint: the camera button. If you’re looking to upgrade to a PDA, the Q9m is awesome. If you have a current Q, don’t pay to upgrade, but use your “new every 2″ when you can. I love it and I wouldn’t change it for any other PDA available from Verizon right now.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Technical Jargon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.