The recent releases of the Motorola Q9 and Q9m smartphones got me thinking
about last January's Consumer Electronics Show. Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola,
proclaimed in his keynote that users no longer needed to lug around a notebook
computer. Instead, Motorola's Q could serve as a suitable replacement - and fit into a shirt pocket, too. He also noted that the Q's
multimedia capabilities could be used for music,
photos, and videos. The Q wasn't the only hot
smartphone at the show; a billboard advertised the
merits of a similar device, the Samsung Blackjack.
But recently, BusinessWeek published a cover
story entitled "Zander May Be Running Out of Minutes,"
which stated, "The board of directors at troubled
Motorola Inc. has begun exploring options for
the succession of embattled Chief Executive Edward
J. Zander." Could the sales of the Q be responsible?
Motorola sold over 150,000 Qs in the first 30 days
after its June 2006 announcement. Not too shabby,
but the company expected to sell 10 million in the
first year. It seems unlikely that Motorola got anywhere
near those lofty goals. But Apple's announcement that
iPhone sales pushed past 1 million in its first 74 days, at more
than twice the price of the Q, indicates that the market is there
for multimedia phones.
Unlike earlier this year, I haven't seen any marketing efforts
for the Q9 and Q9m. Should these phones be scrapped altogether,
and should designers go back to the drawing board?
What a conundrum this must be for smartphone makers. After
all, smartphones are supposed to be all-purpose devices that
make calls, connect to the Internet, send and receive e-mail
and messages, view documents, play music and video, and
take and display photos. What more can anyone ask?
What's the Reality?
I own a Q and don't like it very
much. I may be nitpicking, but little things annoy me. For
instance, the designers of the Q decided to use a 2.5-mm
stereo audio jack, rather than switch to the 3.5-mm jack found
in most, if not all, stereo audio devices (e.g., Apple's iPod).
At first glance, the smaller jack seems to be a reasonable
design decision, since Motorola has been designing cell
phones for a long time and is accustomed to working with 2.5-
mm jacks. The problem for users like me is that the Q doesn't
come bundled with a stereo headset.
As a result, users are left to figure out how to use the ubiquitous
3.5-mm headset with a 2.5-mm jack. A 3.5-mm-to-2.5-mm
stereo adapter is a possibility, but doesn't work. Purchasing a
new headset is the other possibility. Unbelievably enough,
when I tried to purchase a headset at the Motorola site,
the link to it was down. Finally, tech support sent me
the headset for free, saving me about $28, but only
after causing a lot of frustration. My recommendation
to Motorola: Bundle a headset with the Q.
Another thing that annoys me concerns keeping
this smartphone charged up and ready to go.
The decision to use a mini USB port for charging
and connecting to a PC elated me at first, since
USB is a ubiquitous standard. The elation
evaporated, though, when I realized that
Motorola had somehow made the port proprietary.
You can charge the Q with Motorola's
charger, but not with most third-party chargers,
like those that connect to the cigarette
lighter in your car or portable chargers.
I have a Universal Mobile Charger from PLANon
(www.planon.com) for emergencies, but it doesn't work with
the Q. Recently, I saw a neat solar-powered charger from a company
called Solio (www.solio.com). A representative assured
me it would work with the Q, but I haven't tested it, so I'm skeptical.
My recommendation: Give third-party chargers a break.
Video Issues
Another annoyance for me is the Q's video
capabilities. The Q uses a 312-MHz Intel XScale-based PXA270
applications processor (see "What's New in the Q?" at ED
Online 13567). Although this processor does most jobs well,
playing video clips or streaming video is not among them. Most
of the videos I've tried have played more like slide shows, and
even the samples that come with the Q will stop and start.
Video streams encounter the same problems.
This pales in comparison to the video on Apple's Video iPods
and the iPhone. I haven't tried playing videos on the new Qs,
and am not likely to, but I hope they do a better job. And, truthfully,
I'm not even sure the processor is at fault. It may be the
video subsystem or the operating system/media player. My recommendation:
If you can't get the video to work better, then do
a better job of managing user expectations.
I'm sure Ed Zander had high hopes of cracking both the business
and consumer markets in a big way with the Q, as did other
makers of smartphones. Back in January, these devices
seemed compelling. Now, they seem dead in the water.