Motorola name latest phone gadget after Q

Motorola's latest phone, out this week, shares its name with the iconic gadget guru of the James Bond movies: Q.

If Q, the person, had supplied 007 with a Moto Q phone, the conversation may have gone something like this (reports the Washington Post):

"So what does this thing do, Q?"

"E-mail, Bond. It's the new way to do business."

"I see. And this button, is that to detonate it or to activate a flame-thrower?"

"No, Bond. That's the built-in camera."

"Ah. No laser, no knockout gas?"

"No, Bond. E-mail."

That's right: the Q is Motorola Inc.'s attempt to take on Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Palm Inc.'s Treo as a way to get corporate e-mail on the go.



One way it gets its foot in the door is price: the Q costs just $199.99 with a two-year commitment to Verizon Wireless, the carrier that started selling it Wednesday. That's about $100 less than the cheapest Treos from Verizon, though T-Mobile has cheaper BlackBerries.

Keeping it running isn't cheap, though. The recommended Verizon plan, with unlimited data usage on the carrier's high-speed BroadbandAccess network, is $109.99 a month.

Physically, the Q has a lot going for it. It's thin and light enough to be only slightly uncomfortable carried in a shirt pocket, unlike the heavier Treo. At the same time, the Q is wider than a Treo (though not quite as wide as some BlackBerries), providing the space for a QWERTY keyboard with comfortably spaced keys.

It also has a Bluetooth chip for wireless connection to a headset and works as a speakerphone. Of course, Bond needs his hands free for other things.

The battery gives up to 4 hours of talk time and up to 9 days of standby, according to Motorola.

So far, so good, but if you're making a text-oriented cell-phone, why not make it a great one? This is where the Q runs into trouble: It's made for e-mail, but doesn't go the whole way.

The main issue is the choice of software.

The Q is the first U.S. phone to combine the smartphone version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile with an alphabetic keyboard _ the other phones with that operating system have number pads. Those phones, like the T-Mobile SDA, are "e-mail lite" _ they connect to corporate Exchange e-mail servers so users can get their Outlook e-mail, contacts and calendar on the go, but writing e-mail on them is an exasperating exercise because there's no keyboard.

The Q improves on that experience, but like the other smartphones, lacks a basic text-editing feature: cut and paste. It's a strange omission that for me severely limits the usefulness of the Q as an e-mail device. The BlackBerry, which has a similar button layout, does cut and paste.

The Treo 700w and some other phones use the slightly different Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile. That's a more full-fledged package designed for use with a touch-sensitive screen. It does cut and paste text, and the touch-screen helps a lot when Web browsing.

The 700w also recently got an upgrade from Microsoft that enables Direct Push e-mail, which means that mail shows up on the device as soon at it arrives on the company Exchange server. BlackBerries work that way, too.

The Q doesn't do Direct Push e-mail, at least not out of the box. Motorola said there is an upgrade in the works but hasn't said when it will be available. In the meantime, the easiest way to use the Q is to set it to check the Exchange server every 10 minutes or so. That may be fast enough for some people, but if you're doing a rapid back-and-forth exchange, it's not.

There are ways to get instant e-mail on the Q, but they're slightly clunky. If your company has a server running Good Technology Inc.'s GoodLink software or Verizon's Wireless Sync program, you can set the Q up to get push e-mail from one of those servers. That's similar to the BlackBerry model of distributing e-mail.

Alternatively, you can install software included with the Q on your desktop computer. It will forward e-mail as it arrives, but your computer has to be on for this to work.

Motorola has high hopes for the Q, expecting it to sell as well as the Razr, the superslim clamshell phone. That seems optimistic. If you're going to pay $110 a month for portable e-mail, there are better ways, unless slim and light are your main criteria.

"So, Bond, how did the new cell phone work out?"

"Fine, Q. It has excellent aerodynamic properties."

"I'm sorry?"

"I tossed it at a Russian agent, stunning her. Then I took her Treo."

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