Customer Reviews

Motorola Q Music 9m Phone (Verizon Wireless, Phone Only, No Service)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just bought this phone to replace my original Motorola Q, which in turn replaced a Treo 750W. Let me be begin by saying that I was a longtime Blackberry user until my firm switched to the Windows Mobile platform. I'm on Verizon now, and no Windows Mobile phone offered by Verizon equals the Blackberry platform in my opinion. I feel that the Blackberry phones offer superior speed and performance, an interface that's much easier to navigate than Windows Mobile, and VASTLY superior ergonomics, especially the keyboards.

I hated the Treo: washed-out display, horrible keyboard, slow and prone to crashing, heavy with a clumsy form factor.

I bought the Q to get its better display, thinner form factor, and marginally better keyboard.

The Q9 improves on the original Q in only one area - its the same phone internally in all practical respects - and that's the keyboard. If you are primarily a business user, you'll find the Q9 to be much faster to use and much better for accurate typing - in fact, it rivals the best Blackberries. The cosmetics are slightly different from the original Q - it resembles the black Q to some extent in that it has some rubberized gripping surfaces. Other than the minor cosmetic differences and the vastly improved keyboard (and it's music capabilities which are irrelevant to me - I prefer my iPod Nano), it's the same phone.

But if you need a good keyboard on a Widows Mobile phone and you're using Verizon, this is the phone for you.

I've wanted to upgrade my phone to a SmartPhone for quite a while and I love what the Q9m does when it is working. Nice usage of WM6, nice phone body, nice form factor, nice price. Good stuff when it is working. (Except the battery life is rather lame.)

However, in 6 weeks of use, I'm on my 2nd replacement phone. The first phone had one of the two external speaker die so the volume was half of what it should be after about 2 weeks. The second phone was also broken as a media player. This time, both speakers still worked, but the volume on both the external speakers or the headset were suddenly limited to only a quarter the volume it could do when it was new.

In addition to the big issues, I've had the phones lock up and need the battery pulled 4-6 times. Not in any way a model of stability.

I've never had a phone die on me before (except me dropping them or leaving one in the rain) in a decade of cell phone ownership. Having two of the same model die within 6 weeks is horrible. I hope this replacement doesn't have the same behaviors, because I do like the phone (when it works). Sadly, I'm already beginning to notice this volume dropping behavior with the current phone. And this third phone has a nasty fit and finish issue where the screen cover has a noticeable gap on its right side as it attaches to the edge of the phone.

I think that Motorola rushed this phone out for the holiday buying season without doing what they needed to do to make a reliable phone. What good is the "Most Reliable Network" if the phone itself is shoddy and unreliable?

A lot of information has been written on this phone. So, I am not going to repeat it. But, I would like to add just a few things concerning the battery.

In my opinion:
with the way phones are so very multi-functional, it's best to just get an extra battery when you originally order your phone. Keep it charged and throw it in your pocket or purse when you go somewhere. I have done this for years and have never been left with a dead cell phone when I've been away from home. Batteries are small and not hard to carry.

Reason for Review:
That being said, buy the desktop charger for this phone. It is available from Motorola's website store. It is really worth it. You can sync to your computer. It charges your phone very quickly. But, *most importantly*, it has a slot in the back of it to charge an extra battery. And this slot fits either a standard battery or an extended battery. The battery charges without being inside your phone. You can charge the battery alone in the charger. Or you can be charging your phone and still have an extra battery charging in the slot in the back. To me, this extra slot for the battery alone is worth the $25 price tag of the desktop charger.

Finally,
I've had this phone 3 weeks. I'm not a road warrior. I'm a secretary for a non-profit organization and need to carry excel, word and pdf documents with me and be able to edit them on the fly. When not using it for this purpose, I have the unlimited data plan from verizon and use the music, email, internet and texting capabilities constantly. I haven't had any problems with it. I really like it. I especially like that I can copy and paste any piece of music I own into the ringtones or sounds folder to use them, without the need for special software. I keep a 4GB card in the phone and keep everything on that. While this is my first smartphone, I did used to carry a pda with me and have used both palms and iPAQs. This phone does so much that I feel that there's nothing I have to do without. Had I chosen another smartphone that verizon offers, there were features that some of those smartphones did not have, that I really liked. (By the way, I upgraded to this phone from the LG VX-9800 'The V'.)

I couldn't be happier.
But, everyone's needs are different. My reason for writing this was to let you know about the desktop charger and it's very useful battery slot.

I LOVE my Motorola Q9m! I have had the phone for a few months now and have been very content with it. The only issue I have had is replacing it once. The phone would freeze up, and I couldn't use it while it was in its freeze up modes. It was really easy to replace though, I just ran by teh Verizon store and asked them to replace it; once i told them my problems they gave me a new one. All i had to do was sign something and wait a few minutes for them to transfer my contacts and photos. The only problem I had with getting a new phone, is the loss of my calender. If you use a memory card (I use the 8GB for music and files) you don't have to worry about losing files or music.

All in all I recommend this phone to anyone. Even though I've had to replace it, it is a great phone for media and anything else a smartphone can do. If I had to replace it again I would still be happy with my purchase, because Verizon had good service and makes the replacement fast and easy.

Basics:
Great keyboard- the softer keys make it different than other phones. It is very easy to use.

Speakers:
Speakers work awesome. They make a lot of noise for such a small device.

Home Screen:
Is great to use because you can set it to however you need. I use the Windows basic which shows sound profile, texts, and any current or upcoming events from my calender.

Menu:
From the menu everything is really easy to find.

Camera and Video:
The camera takes great pictures, but when the flash is on it stays on like a flashlight and doesn't flash for one photo. It is also harder to get to because you have to go through the start menu to get to it. (although you can use the right soft key for whatever you want- I set mine as windows media player.) The video feature is nothing special, it is similar to almost any phone video recorder.

Contacts:
You have lots and lots of options with contacts. There is space for each person to have 20 numbers. Also there is a place for birthdays and notes.

Speed Dial:
It is there but with this phone doesn't really matter. With my old phone all you had to do was type the number and hit send. When you press the number on this phone you merely scroll through all the phone numbers that begin with that number or letter. I just press the first letter of the persons name and it is quick and easy that way.

Microsoft Features:
These work great for what you would expect in a device this small. For starting new documents it probably isn;t the best thing for imortant documents, but when opening up previous files it does well. When opening up powerpoint presentations you can view the show, but it is slow. To make corrections it is best to use the outline view.

Battery Life:
I use my phone a lot, but I use all the power manegment tools possible. If you use the power manegement options the phone can last for a full day and even the next day (with average use).

Profiles:
These are really nice, you can set up sound profiles for whatever you'd like. I normally only use silent and normal, but you can make new ones- like making it vibrate when someone calls, but ring when someone texts. It is a great feature that is easy to change under the home menu.

Provide great tools on top of the solid phone, plays music and stores a lot of pictures. I bought this just couple of weeks back, and initially also bought the insurance since I wasnt sure if this is going to last long. Its a great phone actually, much better quality than earlier Qs and Windows Mobile adds a layer of simplicity.

Advantage:
+Great phone/screen, nice picture quality
+Bluetooth works without any problem
+Keyboard is well laid out, text messanging is easy
+Comes with a 128 MB mini SD card, good for some pictures and a couple of songs
+Word, Excel and PDFtogo works great, good for reading, not so great for creating new docs
+Battery life is decent
+Can send/receive picture message with ease
+Use tasks/memos very frequently
+Syncs with Windows xP without any problem. (I had to disable my Firewall in order to let phone communicate with the computer)

Disadvantage:
+Didnt realize that with full keyboard (QWERTY), I can't anymore make calls with numbers such as 1-800-2JOIN-IN, since those characters are no more printed on numbers
+A little slow operating system, but cant really count as a disadvantage

I suggest this phone to anybody who wants to upgrade their plain phone to a smart Phone full with great tools.

It's not a bad phone but it will had been better if the reception wasn't so weak.

Like
-size and design


Dislike
-response speed (slower than any other phone I ever use)
-you can not charge the Main Battery from Cigar and USB charger
-slow response speed
-No GPS
-2.5MM headset output
-Low camera quality
-Small internal memory space


I guess this phone is not for business use but good for first smart phone user and kids...

I don't really use this thing for business purposes. So keep that in mind. Also, it's quite possible that some of these comments/gripes are about Windows Mobile 6.1 and not necessarily about the phone -- but since they come together, they should be considered one product.

Here's what I like about the phone. The keyboard is great, with solid tactile feedback on the keys. The backlight on the keys is nice too. The screen is great, and overall the phone looks really slick. The camera is not as good as some, but probably as good or better than most. The speakerphone is probably the best of any phones I've ever had. The reception on this phone is on average, probably at least one bar better than my LG VX8600 when sitting in the same place with the same carrier. I use the email functionality all the time. It may be basic, but it works, and it's useful since I don't have access to my personal email account at work. I also like the quick Contacts feature, where you just type a letter and the phone takes you to Contacts and skips down to the letter. Being able to search for a contact using ANY substring (not just first name or last name, etc) is nice too.

Here are some of the problems that have been bothering me. I work in an area with pretty bad reception, so I get this tone pretty frequently that I assume means I have no signal. I've tried to turn it off, but I'm pretty sure the option doesn't exist (I have ALL alerts/warnings turned off in the settings already) unless I switch to Silent mode. Now, I can deal with that, but it is a problem that shouldn't exist. I also use my phone as my alarm clock in the morning. Sometimes, somehow, two instances of the alarm clock app get launched together and the phone tries to belt out two alarms simultaneously. Also not the end of the world, but come on.

The phone is slow to respond to input, and clicking "Start" routinely requires a 4 or 5 second wait before a response. Many apps don't have "Exit" built in to their menus, so if you want to quit (not just throw it into the background to slow you down even more) you have to launch the task manager and kill the app manually. That's REALLY bad coding practice, by the way. Every so often I just have to reboot the thing when it locks up, too.

I don't use any media functionality, or Docs to Go or anything like that.

I know that sounds like a lot of complaints, but I still gave it 4 stars because the phone itself is well built and has a lot of features. It's just that somebody (cough cough) dropped the ball when it came to the operating system.

This phone does not support the Jawbone bluetooth headset. Isn't Bluetooth a "Standard" ? C'mon M, how can you let the little things slip through the cracks on this one? Also, BB is FAR more user friendly, seems like q9M could have used more UI and UX testing prior to release.

I LOVE this phone. So much that I haven't switched to another one but continue to get new ones when they stop working. But this is my 5th one in less than a month. They are very unstable. They will get stuck on a screen and not come back on even after pulling the battery. Back to Verizon Wireless again...