Motorola Q9m Review - Introduction & Design

Introduction & Design

I first glimpsed the successor to the MOTO Q back at CTIA Orlando in April of this year. A Motorola executive seated next to me at a Smartphone Summit panel discussion pulled a pre-production Q9 from his packet and used it to check his email while I tried to sneak a look. Eventually he noticed, and after I introduced myself he let me check the device out. I remember being impressed by the new Q's QWERTY thumbboard - the layout and individual buttons felt much more comfortable and responsive than the keys on the original Q. Beyond that, I remember thinking the Q9 looked sorta cool - well, sorta cool for a smartphone anyway - but that was about it.

After some time with the Verizon Wireless version of the Q9m, I've more or less come back to that first impression of the new Q. The Q9m - the consumer-targeted, music-oriented sibling of the all business Q9h - is a slightly faster, slightly more capable upgrade to the original Q. That new QWERTY board is, in fact, better than the original, and the Q9 also ships with Windows Mobile 6 and VCast multimedia capabilities. But it's bigger and heavier than the original, and not as powerful or versatile as the competition it faces in today's smartphone marketplace. Is the Q9m worth a look if you're considering smartphone power with media-friendly features? Yes, but serious business users will probably want to look elsewhere for their next handset.

The original MOTO Q was a breakthrough in smartphone design. Q's tall, wide, and thin candybar form factor made the idea of a stylish, business ready device a reality - as a result, Motorola sold tons of the things to fashion-conscious executives, first time smartphone owners, and a fair number of young, geeky hipsters. Even though Q's performance and battery issues turned me off, its form factor really made me rethink the idea of a smartphone that would fit comfortably into the front pocket of my jeans. And it spawned a legion of similarly designed smartphones from HTC, Samsung, and others.

This new Q is a little bigger all around as compared to the original. At 117 x 65 x 11.9mm and 135g, the Q9m isn't exactly chunky, but it's noticeably thicker and heavier than the Q. Verizon's Q9m is finished in a sporty black and red color scheme, and features nice, big, clearly marked buttons and a large, silver-finish D-Pad in the middle of its navigational array.

A 2.5" TFT display - the same size as the original's screen - takes up the top third or so of the front panel, bordered by a silver Motorola logo on top and a navigational array on the bottom. Navigational controls include Call and Cancel/Power keys on the far left and right and two softkeys and Home and Back buttons bracketing a five-way D-Pad in the center of the horizontal layout. The D-Pad is raised up and the four sides of the rectangular pad slope gently towards a select key in the center. The ridged plastic of the D-Pad makes for easy one-handed use, and even though the other controls are flush-mounted with the surface of the handset, I also found them quite comfortable to use.

The QWERTY keyboard located on the bottom third of the handset is excellent. I much prefer the Q9m's rectangular buttons as compared to the Q's bubbled, oval-shaped keys - they actually remind me of the QWERY boards on RIM's BlackBerry 8800 series handsets. Even though there's no spacing between the buttons in the Q9m's QWERTY, they're big enough that it doesn't matter - the keys textured, provide good tactile feedback, and I didn't have any problems accidentally slipping from the key I wanted to an adjacent button during typing. Twelve keys on the left side of the QWERTY layout double as the phone's dialing layout, and are labeled with red letters as well as the standard white numbers and symbols found on the other keys in the thumbboard.

On the left side of the phone there's a mini USB port and covered slot for miniSD memory cards. The right side features a customizable shortcut key and a scroll wheel that can be pushed to select on screen items. The wheel itself works well, but a plastic ridge similar to ones found on Sony Ericsson smartphones made it kind of hard to click the wheel in - I'm not entirely sure what purpose the ridge serves, actually.

The top edge of the Q9m houses a 2.5mm headphone jack, while the back of the phone features the camera lens and flash assist light along with dual stereo speakers. Removing the lower portion of the back panel gives access to the phone's battery slot.

This Q is bigger than competitors like the Samsung Blackjack, and a little blockier looking than the HTC Dash. It's still small enough to fit into a suit jacket or jeans pocket, and while not exactly cool, the red trim definitely works to give the handset a bit more mainstream flash than buttoned down all grey look of its predecessor.

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