Everything Motorola Q

Overall rating		3.4
Phone		4.0
Usability		3.0
Features		4.0
Software Bundle		3.0
Value		3.0

I have had the new Q9m since Thursday and it's a mixed bag. Having been a Q user for a while I'm used to alot of the Q's issues. My thoughts on the 9m are that the new keyboard is vastly improved. Also improved seems to be battery life. I am upto 36 hours right now and still have 2 bars left of battery life on the standard battery. The 9m will accept your old Q's chargers except will not work with the Seidio stand charger as the 9m is too thick. It seems to work with the old batteries as well but I have not tried the battery for an extended time. The 9m also looks good and feels solid in hand, somewhat heavier than the orig Q. The front of the unit is very subject to smudges and finger prints but the new D pad and the larger start and end keys are an improvement.

Bluetooth works very well, pairing is the same. I had no problems pairing with my Moto H700 and calls were clear. Voice dialing seems to be slightly more accurate and faster than on the Orig Q.

On the software side WM6 is a mixed bag. It is "prettier" than WM5 but not much of an improvement to use. The Verizon home screen is a useless mess but the standard WM6 screens are functional if not revolutionary. The new Q does seem to suffer from lag. Sometimes programs take too long to load and it has frozen a few times. As with the old Q it is directly proportional to the amount of stuff you load onto it.

WM6 and Vista's mobile device center do not play well together. I had trouble getting it to sync at first and loading other software like pocket mirror and list pro was very tedious. I blame this solely on 2 bloated software solutions but not the phone.

Vcast music works but is nothing to write home about. At this time it only works for music not for ringtones or the other things it provides on other handsets.

The phone it self works well. Calls are clear and I have had no dropped calls to date. Which is why I use a Q to begin with.

Overall I'd rate the Q9m a B minus or 3.5 out of 5. It should have more memory and the OS needs improvement but overall not bad so far.