BlackBerry 8800
By Skuzz | March 29, 2007
The BlackBerry 8800 is the second in a new generation of RIM PDA phones. RIM is attempting to compete in a market they pretty much pioneered, and this is leading to some pretty funny results.
Signal
The BlackBerry 8800, like its former brethren, fairs well at signal acquisition. However, I can’t really say it’s any better, and in fact, seems to be a bit worse overall when compared to such signal beasts as the 8700c/g/etc. it’s meant to replace at HOLDING signal. RIM decided to mount the antenna in the bottom of the device, like so many manufacturers are doing these days, which continues to aid to consumer confusion. Most knowing anything about antennas always assume the antenna is at the top of the device. When there is no visible antenna, it’s up to the user to guess…
Overall the signal on this device isn’t horrible, it’s just not as good as previous BlackBerries. Sad really, because one generally assumes future generations of devices to be better than the previous ones.
Like the BlackBerry 8700 series, the status display will tell you if you’re using GSM, GPRS, or EDGE, as well as signal, and what network you are using if the handset knows. It will keep the text lowercase before attaching to a certain kind of network, and once it is attached, the letters go to uppercase to indicate this.
Display
The display is only 16-bit color, and of an inferior quality to previous series’. The color is off, just like the Pearl’s color is off. They must be using the same display manufacturer for both devices, and I have to say it’s an odd situation. The new display is brighter compared to the 8700 series, but dithering is worse and color balance is also worse, resulting in inaccurate color, and it being clearly apparent to the end-user that it’s only 16-bit when looking at web images and photos and the like.
There is an ambient light sensor that smoothly brightens and dims the display backlight based on the light around the device. This is a very cool feature and works pretty much flawless.
There also seems to be a quality-control manufacturing flaw on these devices displays. I have purchased two of them now, the first returned due to a display defect, the second had nine times the number of defects in the display! Tiny pits in the lens (the cover that goes over the LCD display below) act as image magnifiers at their given points. Around these blemishes, the color of the pixels underneath gets magnified and enhanced, making a shimmering sparkle around these points that ends up looking like pixels are stuck on or burnt out. Frankly, this is unacceptable given that cheap penny phones don’t even have this issue.
Finally, they removed the “List” themes, which were one-dimensional hierarchical lists of menu options, text-only, with a text-only task-switcher menu. This frankly sucks, because the graphical interface does tend to run a bit slower than the text interface. There was absolutely no reason to remove these themes, and it seems like a step backwards more than anything.
Audio
Like the 8700 series, the 8800 keeps the great earpiece volume, Bluetooth volume still works great, and stays loud. Speakerphone volume has been made slightly quieter. Interestingly enough, the speakerphone assembly on the 8800 now uses 2 speakers instead of just 1. I am not sure why this route was chosen, but overall it works fine. Makes me wonder about power consumption though.
There is no ticking, no backlight buzzing or other audio defects in this device, just like its predecessor, so at least RIM kept consistency here. The audio on this device is definitely no slouch!
Input
The QWERTY keyboard on this device, like all devices with QWERTY is small, but RIM managed to space the letters far enough apart to make it very easy to use and even with large hands accidental keypresses rarely happen. The buttons are a bit more squishy than previous BlackBerries and some tactility is lost. The ridged curves on the buttons however, do make it easier for one to tell which particular keys are being pushed without having to look at the keyboard.
The BlackBerry trackwheel has been replaced with a trackball. I still am not sure if this is an improvement. I’m a left-handed person and I grew quite adept at the right-hand-oriented trackwheel of the 8700. The whole interface on the 8800 seems to be made more complicated, because clicking in the trackball is now a stripped-down menu of common-used items. This makes it more efficient, unless your definition of common used items is different from RIM’s. At this point, you are most certainly boned, and forced to click the BlackBerry button next to the trackball, that replaces what the trackwheel previously did. This is definitely one case where it seems adding more features reduced functionality in a bad way.
Overall Performance and Speed
The BlackBerry 8800 runs on the Intel PXA901 312MHz “Hermon” processor. The processor is powerful and gives the handset great performance, although the base UI does lag a little bit at times. Given that the OS is all Java, it is amazing it runs as fast as it does. Stability is good, I’ve not had to reboot the phone once so far, which is expected from a RIM device.
This stability can cause some coincidental problems though, as certain poorly written applications suck the phone’s battery life faster than others, and with something so stable, users won’t often be rebooting. The easiest way to alleviate this issue is just to remember to always quit unused applications. So far, every app I’ve tried on the 8700 works on the 8800 except for BBWeather. I am not sure why that app doesn’t want to run yet.
Bluetooth
Due to security concerns, the BlackBerry 8800 only has the headset, hands free, tethering, and PDA sync profiles available. Bluetooth data tethering is a welcome addition and way past due. Oddly enough, Bluetooth stereo audio (A2DP/AVRCP) are not installed by default, even though the 8800 will recognize these profiles on a pair of Bluetooth stereo headphones. I can’t see much of a security risk in adding audio-streaming profiles, and given that RIM is trying to break into the consumer segment more, it seems logical that they would. However, you can NOT listen to music on the 8800 using stereo Bluetooth. Boo to that!
There is the VoiceSignal voice-dial program from the 8100 Pearl onboard, and it works correctly with Bluetooth headsets for voice-dial just like the Pearl. It’s about time!
The audio range is great, and audio quality is best-in-class for Bluetooth. Pairing is painless and the handset gives you visual cues as to if BT is running, connected, and the like. It will automatically transfer a call over to a Bluetooth headset if the headset is turned on while the call is going on and the devices are properly paired. Very handy.
Wrap-Up
There are many applications availble for this handset, including a streaming radio application. The E-Mail client can display plain text and the BlackBerry servers handle converting HTML to plain text. Attachment images, PDF, DOC, and a few other formats will open fine, even ZIP files, which are handled by the remote BlackBerry server.
Web browsing is fast too, as web requests are also funneled through the BlackBerry servers, although as a result, trying to go to sites like Google that base your locale on IP address will always display Google Canada, because RIM’s servers are based in Canada. Kinda funny/goofy.
My feelings on this device aren’t as positive as the 8700 though. If you already own an 8700, don’t bother upgrading to the 8800. There isn’t enough of a compelling addition of features to justify the expense. RIM made a good attempt, but I’m left feeling they changed things in the same way Microsoft changed features in Windows to make Vista seem new: needless revision rather than actual creative addition.
Pictures to follow shortly.
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Welcome!
By Skuzz | March 29, 2007
This is going to be the new format for my reviews page here at Skuzz.com.
Writing raw HTML code all the time can get downright frustrating and take a lot away from the actual content.
So hopefully this will mean more reviews! 
I’m going to be back-dating the old reviews so they will show up when they were originally written, which means some will probably happen before this does. Ah tim travel! 
–Skuzz
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T-Mobile Dash
By Skuzz | January 16, 2007
I recently decided to try the T-Mobile Dash / HTC Excalibur. It’s a small, battery-conscious (for Windows Mobile anyway) QWERTY SmartPhone running Windows Mobile 5 SmartPhone edition.
So far, it has actually been a nice experience. The device is very tiny! It has decent battery life given its size, it’s LiPolymer battery will last about a day of moderate phone calls, text, e-mail, some browsing, a little bit of WiFi, and some Bluetooth audio off the MicroSD card slot. I wish it would last a bit longer, but given all it does the battery life is understandable for the size.
Signal
It picks up WiFi networks very easy and holds signal well, I am actually impressed at how good it handles WiFi, much better than previous Windows Mobile devices of any type. It also holds good cellular signal and has great Bluetooth range. Finally, it also REACQUIRES signal VERY fast, this I very much enjoy, because too many devices take 5 to 10 minutes to finally reacquire signal after being in a “No Service” area.
Display
The display is nice and sharp! It is about the exact same size as the BlackBerry 8700g display, same color depth too, 16-bit. As mentioned there, things tend to show that they are being rendered in 16-bit color on this device, Microsoft must use a very low-quality dithering routine.
It is also annoying that Microsoft doesn’t really seem to grasp how to utilize a small 320×240 resolution display efficiently. They add a thick statusbar at the top, a thick softkey bar at the bottom, a thick scrollbar on the right, (which I was able to registry hack from 6 px down to 2px) and then fonts in the middle that are either way too small, or way too big.
An example of this, the e-mail program’s fonts are way too big, and display is in two-line format, so you can only see 3 messages per screen, and this is not changable by the user. On the BlackBerry OS you can fit 10 messages per screen.
The Motorola Q managed to screw these up even worse though, so I guess it’s not the worst of the worst! The Dash at least fits 4 icons per row without modification to the registry.
The Dash also suffers from the usual Windows Mobile goofiness like slow display refresh, and a slow UI at times, probably suffering from similar issues as the Motorola Q since much of the UI is all XML files.
Audio
Reviews I have read have rated this phone’s audio rather mediocre. I don’t understand why. The earpiece volume is clear, not super-loud, but loud enough to hear in almost every environment. The speakerphone does tend to distort a little at high volumes, but is overall very acceptable. The ringtone volume is also fairly loud given the size of the device. The vibrating ringer also is one of the strongest I’ve ever felt in a handset.
Input
However, Windows Mobile has generally had a problem with keyboards. They must have a really crappy keyboard driver as it tends to drop keystrokes really easy. On top of that, this keyboard’s keys are rather close together even for a thumb-board.
The other input method irks I have are:
- They have some new “XT9″ input method based roughly off T9, basically as you’re typing it tries to guess your word. You can disable it, but it’s only disable-able on a per-inputfield basis, and often inputfields ignore the registry entries pertaining to disabling XT9. I found a program that will go disable it in almost every app, but rebooting the phone (power off, remove battery to get SIM card out) will reset all those settings. VERY annoying as it slows down typing horribly when you already know how to spell - pulling the list up is very cumbersome.
- SHORTCUTS! There are hardly NONE. When you start a new sentence it auto-capitalizes the first letter, that’s about it. On the BlackBerry I can type “its” and it changes it to “it’s” All I need to finish a sentence and start a new one is hit space twice, none of that hunting for the period key jazz, proper names are often auto-capitalized, you can add to the list if you want custom words like say, typing BB makes it autocorrect to BlackBerry if you wanted, etc. etc. I didn’t think these things were such a big deal to me, but now that I am stuck typing every punctuation symbol, space, period and capitalized letter, it slows me down almost as much as the typing glitch and tiny keyboard.
Overall Performance and Speed
I miss the BlackBerry holster magnet sensor that puts the phone in vibrate mode automatically when holstered. You’d think this would be standard PDA phone fare now, I am guessing this is probably patented by RIM so probably not much luck there.
The phone also comes with the HTC standard compliment of accessories, belt leather case with magnetic latch and all fuzzed to keep the phone from getting scratched, USB home charger, USB sync cable, earbuds for music, and Windows Mobile sync software with Outlook 2002.
Bluetooth
Integration with Bluetooth, especially with A2DP and AVRC and my Motorola HT-820 Bluetooth stereo headphones works good! A phone call will pause music so you can answer it automatically, then unpause when done. When you get a text or e-mail or reminder, it will turn the volume down to low on the music, play the alert, then bring the volume back up. It also supports voice dial via Bluetooth or on the device, however it only has the voice-tag matching method, not actual recognition without training.
Wrap-Up
Overall though, despite these input method deficiencies and a bit of sluggishness, it definitely is an impressive little device. Especially given that all of this comes in such a tiny package! The music integration is WONDERFUL! I’ve reached a new level of portable synergy!
Pictures to follow shortly.
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BlackBerry 8700g
By Skuzz | January 7, 2007
The BlackBerry 8700g is one of the best handsets I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with. There are actually several BlackBerry 8700 series devices, including Verizon’s bastardized BlackBerry 8703e (which will probably get its own review), but the core 8700 is amazing.
Signal
The BlackBerry 8700g (and the whole 8700 series) gets BRILLIANT reecption. Everywhere I tested it was able to hold service, even the weakest T-Mobile signal in areas where other phones will not pick up service. It actually pulls better signal than the Nokia E61, which was, until this phone the best RF phone I had ever used.
One of the most unique features of the 8700g is that, like all BlackBerries it tends to show a decent amount of network information on the status display.
The status display will tell you if you’re using GSM, GPRS, or EDGE, as well as signal, and what network you are using if the handset knows. It will keep the text lowercase before attaching to a certain kind of network, and once it is attached, the letters go to uppercase to indicate this. The only irk with the way it displays network names is that if it doesn’t know what network it is on, it displays nothing. You have to go to the status display to find the MCC-MNC.
Display
The display is only 16-bit color, oddly enough, the way they use color on this handset, it is not nearly as noticeable as on some devices such as the Motorola Q. There is an ambient light sensor that smoothly brightens and dims the display backlight based on the light around the device. This is a very cool feature and works pretty much flawless.
The display is designed so well you don’t even think about it, which is always a good sign things are done right. The 320×240 resolution format is great for viewing web pages, and size is physically big enough to make reading even the smallest text easy on the eyes.
Audio
There is no other way to say this: The 8700g is one of the best sounding phones ever created. The earpiece volume is loud and clear, the speakerphone volume is even louder and clear, ringtones are easy to hear, even mp3 tones, microphone picks up audio good, and Bluetooth audio is also nice and loud.
The biggest point, is that the 8700g has good QUALITY audio as well as loudness. Even at lower volume levels, it still sounds absolutely wonderful, I could only wish other handset manufacturers held themselves to this level of quality. No backlight inverter hum, (although I believe the display backlight is white LED so no inverter) no GSM ticking, no hissing or other noise, even with very weak signal when audio starts to drop out, the earpiece doesn’t do anything funky!
Simply amazing!
Input
The QWERTY keyboard on this device, like all devices with QWERTY is small, but RIM managed to space the letters far enough apart to make it very easy to use and even with large hands accidental keypresses rarely happen. The buttons all have good feedback and a solid click so you know what you pressed.
It is also wonderful that unlike previous BlackBerry devices, this has a dedicated SEND key and dedicated END key, so call handling is made much more simple and less like some odd PDA phone.
The BlackBerry trackwheel as always is wonderful for scrolling and selecting. It is amazing how much can be done with one thumb. However, horizontal scrolling is inconvenient, as one has to hold down the alt key and scroll to do horizontal scrolling. It’s also right-handed by nature, which stinks for us lefties, but I have personally accepted the dexteritism in this world so that I can cope with the right-hand operation fine. This is being solved in newer models that are going to a miniature trackball solution. Overall though it’s a minor irk, and doesn’t detract from the functionality of the phone too much, unless you use mapping programs heavily.
Overall Performance and Speed
The BlackBerry 8700g runs on the Intel PXA901 312MHz “Hermon” processor. The processor is powerful and gives the handset great performance, although the base UI does lag a little bit at times. Given that the OS is all Java, it is amazing it runs as fast as it does. Stability is wonderful. I’ve had the 8700g running for over a month and it never required a reboot. (Which is good because rebooting takes as long as Windows Mobile, if not longer.)
This stability can cause some coincidental problems though, as certain poorly written applications suck the phone’s battery life faster than others, and with something so stable, users won’t often be rebooting. The easiest way to alleviate this issue is just to remember to always quit unused applications.
Bluetooth
Due to security concerns, the BlackBerry 8700g only has the headset, hands free, and PDA sync profiles available. Technically speaking, Bluetooth data tethering is available, but only when using the companion Windows sync software. There are alternative applications that allow Bluetooth DUN, one requires you have a BES server and account, the other requires you run a proxy server on a home computer to route the Internet through to the phone. Consequentially I don’t consider the 8700g to have true Bluetooth DUN, or USB DUN even, as RIM was nice enough to leave out drivers for Mac or Linux to be able to use this phone for DUN. This is lame of them, but their newer ‘Berries are more friendly to all computing platforms, if this is an issue for you, get a Pearl or wait for the 8800g.
There is no voice dial application on this handset, although I’ve attempted to get the VoiceSignal app from the 8100 Pearl running on the 8700g, I don’t have access to some system settings to make it run, so I’ve not been able to add it just yet. This makes Bluetooth dialing annoying as you have to always grab the handset unless you are redialing the last number dialed.
The audio range is great, and audio quality is best-in-class for Bluetooth. Pairing is painless and the handset gives you visual cues as to if BT is running, connected, and the like. It will automatically transfer a call over to a Bluetooth headset if the headset is turned on while the call is going on and the devices are properly paired. Very handy.
Wrap-Up
There are many applications availble for this handset, including a streaming radio application. The E-Mail client can display plain text and the BlackBerry servers handle converting HTML to plain text. Attachment images, PDF, DOC, and a few other formats will open fine, even ZIP files, which are handled by the remote BlackBerry server.
Web browsing is fast too, as web requests are also funneled through the BlackBerry servers, although as a result, trying to go to sites like Google that base your locale on IP address will always display Google Canada, because RIM’s servers are based in Canada. Kinda funny/goofy.
What else is there to say? This handset is wonderful, is fast, runs Java, is a blast to use. The only shortcomings are lack of voice dial, and lack of USB or Bluetooth modem ability without custom software. If either of these are deal-breakers, as mentioned go for the BlackBerry 8100 Pearl or wait for the 8800 series which should be coming out by February or March of 2007.
Pictures to follow shortly.
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Motorola Q
By Skuzz | July 22, 2006
The Motorola Q is one of the most advanced handsets to ever hit Verizon Wireless. With that in mind, also realize, this isn’t saying much at all. Verizon generally chooses poorly developed handsets with incomplete feature sets, only to require further tweaking to cripple the phones even more.
Amazingly, the Motorola Q is an exception to their standard barrage of crippling…for the most part.
(As usual on the site, click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
Signal
The first thing that should be covered is coverage, or rather, reception and signal strength. The reviews I have read all tout the Q’s antenna as the same great antenna from the RAZR. I have to say, I’ve never been impressed with the RAZR’s antenna, and I remain unimpressed with the Q’s antenna. CDMA hasn’t advanced enough yet as a wireless technology to support phones that do not have real antennas, period.
That said, the Q will get decent signal as long as it isn’t sitting on anything organic such as a human leg, or oriented horizontal when trying to make a call, such as sitting on your desk while attempting a Bluetooth headset voice dial call. In my reception tests, areas with decent Verizon signal (full strength on every tested handset when held upright) the phone would lose signal if sat horizontally while making a call. The meter would read the phone had 3 bars, or 4 bars (of 4) of signal strength, yet making a call would result in the call failing while dialing. Once a voice call was established, it held the signal fairly well.
Display
The display isn’t that impressive. Overall the color is good, the backlight is strong. However, in direct sunlight it is harder to see. The color depth is a pathetic 65,000 colors in a time where many handsets are going to 18-bit or 24-bit color for “true color.” Dithering is often noticed on many images one views. Motorola also did no optimization of the interface, and Verizon chose to waste space on their Today screen layout. This results in the user having to constantly scroll up and down to read the entire today screen. The default home screen actually has the ring styles option listed only on the home screen as a “Profiles” option, not seen as it is at the bottom of the home screen. Most other Windows Mobile SmartPhones let you press the dedicated “Power” button to bring up a Nokia-esque menu to select ring profiles and radio on/off. More on this later however.
The display shows little information
The Start Menu only shows a 2×3 grid of icons.
In comparison, the Nokia E61 with the same
display resolution can show a 3×4 grid while
still showing signal/battery/Bluetooth/WiFi
and other info readably.
Audio
This is a doosey. Audio on the Q is garbage. Every other review I’ve found keeps blathering on how wonderful it is. Total rubbish! Contrary to the PhoneScoop review, the speakerphone volume never distorts. However, the earpiece ALWAYS distorts at any volume higher than 50%.
Per the usual, Motorola is continuing to use the same crap backlight inverter that they used in the RAZR, et. al., so anybody with halfway decent hearing will be delighted to have a symphony of “BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ” in their ear while talking on the handset directly. Setting a short backlight timeout will cause it to dim fast, and eliminate the buzzing, but any keystroke or button press brings it back again. Also doing a short backlight time out makes using the phone’s other functions annoying as one has to be constantly pushing a button to bring the backlight back on. *INHALE*
You thought I was done? NO WAY! Not only does the audio suck via handset, the audio gets even WORSE via Bluetooth! I use my standard Plantronics PLT 510v.D that has worked perfect on the last 10-15 phones I’ve owned. Pairing is as simple as it can get via Bluetooth, that went smooth and the Motorola-included Bluetooth management apps are simple and easy to use. Actually using the headset in a phonecall is no less than dizzifying. Every time a person is quiet for 500ms or longer (half a second), their voice ramps up when they start talking again rather than just TALKING. Example: so they stART TALKING LIKE THIS AND THEN THEY PAUSE….their voICE IS QUIET AND THEN GETS LOUD AGAIN BECAUSE THEY STOPPED FOR HALF A SECOND….it keepS GOING AND GOING. It’s an annoying aural rollercoaster I’ve not been able to disable. Upon calling Verizon about this issue, the rep had, “never heard of that problem before,” big surprise there…
The trip back to the store to return the handset resulted in both the sales reps on duty agreeing that the Q’s “aural rollercoaster” effect is very annoying and were surprised they didn’t have more refunds given how obviously stupid that is. (We even compared their store demo handset, as well as several bluetooth headsets to make sure it wasn’t an isolated incident.)
Seriously, how does quality control miss this?? At least Motorola put in some cool Motorola ringtones - maybe they should give up on the handset industry and just stick to ringtones.
Input
Where to start? How about the main keyboard. The buttons are too small. They are usable, but Motorola chose such a nonstandard layout, like putting / and \ right next to each other, that you’ll be guaranteed to always hit the wrong button just from the layout, let alone fat finger syndrome. Shift is on the wrong side of the keyboard for most people, return looks suspiciously like a backspace key (in reality one has to reach up to the function pad section and use the generic “back” button for backspace.)
My least favorite feature of the keyboard isn’t the keyboard as much as a consistent bug in Windows Mobile 5 for SmartPhone. Many assume the keyboard’s hard to press and that is where random keystrokes they type disappear to. In reality, WM5 for SmartPhone drops keystrokes constantly due to a horribly written keyboard buffer/driver. The only way around this bug is to type…very…slowly…so…the…p…h…o…n…e……doesn’t drop any keystrokes. I personally find this horribly unacceptable as the phone’s operating system hampers one’s typing speed, but for many who can’t type very fast on a phone, it won’t seem like much of a problem. Overall not the best keyboard, but also not the worst.
The function section of this phone is atrocious. My first recieved phone call on this phone was a battle to the death to get the send key to work. I had to mash it hard and finally learned in that moment how absolutely cumbersome 6 buttons could become. The D-pad and select key are all fine. Pressing one of the function keys is hard to do without mashing send/home/back/end, and hitting one of those four buttons intentionally is just a nightmare. Since this phone does not contain a dedicated power button like most WM5 SmartPhones, one has to hold End to power down the handset. (This is also the reason the aforementioned “profiles” function was put on the Today Screen instead of just hidden under a convenient button or switch.) The force needed to hold end results in many accidental presses of the letter P as the handset’s case bends under the buttonpress of end and connects the P key with it’s traces on the keyboard.
The jog dial wheel works good itself. It’s disappointing that out-of-box it can’t select apps off the Today Screen and only goes up/down, but it is nice to have an alternate input device. The big downside, however, is where the back button on the jog dial is located. It is moved so far away from the jog dial, the user will often find themselves trying to press the metal frame behind the button, instead of the button, which severely hampers its usefulness.
Overall Performance and Speed
This is the category where I am most flabbergasted. I have used Windows Mobile SmartPhones from the now-ancient Samsung i600 to the Cingular 2125, and now the Q. The Cingular 2125 suffers the same keystroke-dropping bug, and is JUST AS SLOW as the Q. The Q runs on a 312MHz processor, but that extra 112MHz of compute cycles seems to do nothing for performance. Everything on the Q is just as slow as the 200MHz Cingular 2125. It is a wonder why they didn’t just leave it at 200MHz for some better battery life.
After peeking in the \WINDOWS directory some of the slowdown is more apparent. Most of the handset’s operating shell is XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML files. That’s right, your cellular experience on the Motorola Q is non-stop web browsing! (Example: the text message composition screen is just an HTML file in \WINDOWS…)
Speaking of random files left around where they shouldn’t be, Motorola left a “Built_info.txt” in \WINDOWS as well that shows some interesting information about the workstation at Motorola used to build the firmware image! (Some bits listed below.)
Build Machine Name: g16839-09
IP Address: 10.22.87.77
User ID: G16839
ISV Vob location: W:\: => F:\ss_views\g16839_01_07_05-08P\motopro_isv\isv
BSP View: F:\ss_views\g16839_01_07_05-08P\motopro_bsp\platform\DaVinci
******
Apparently the platform’s codename is DaVinci? Who knows! Talk about lazy setup!
Bluetooth
Amazingly, Verizon decided to be honest about Bluetooth for once and not lock many profiles. Of course they probably did this because the Q isn’t a BREW device, but it is nonetheless something refreshing to see. Even the OBEX profile, one of Verizon’s longest-tabooed profiles is on and running. It also supports the stereo Bluetooth headset profile, but as I don’t have a pair of stereo headphones to test with, I wasn’t able to try out the performance.
Wrap-Up
After extensive registry tweaking and thoroughly messing up the Q I was testing several times, (like rotating the screen 90 degrees sideways just for fun!) I’ve not been able to improve any of its shortcomings. With some tweaks on the key strobing delay I was able to make its ability to register keystrokes better, but not by much. The Bluetooth audio gain and backlight were both uncontrollable after many different attempts.
Given that the launch was delayed as long as it was, Motorola AND Verizon could have both done some more research into this device’s operation and function before releasing something so crummy. At least the power jack is a mini-USB port just like the RAZR, so charging is a breeze. You’ll be doing this a lot, so consider this feature a blessing.
Final Pictures
The left side, MiniSD and infrared ports -
at the bottom is the USB charging/data port.
(Q on right.)
(Motorola Q is on left.) This shows the dog dial
and poorly-placed back button.
(Motorola Q is on left.) This shows the bottom -
nothing to see here!
(Motorola Q is on right.) Here is the not-mentioned
and ho-hum camera and flash. (The flash does make
a good flashlight though!) Also visible
are the stereo speakers along the bottom.
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