Motorola's New Q Cell Phone

Less than two weeks after announcing its version of Motorola's new Razr 2, Verizon Wireless today followed up with the successor to another trend-setting Motorola handset, the Q PDA-cell phone hybrid.

The silvery Q, one of the first super-skinny Windows Mobile handsets with a QWERTY keyboard and a wide aspect-ratio screen, targeted business users, but the new version, called the Q music 9m, was created to entice a younger crowd that wants multimedia as well as messaging. It looks dramatically different, with a dark soft-touch surface with reddish accents, and a redesigned keyboard (no more Treo-esque elliptical keys). Here's a Motorola-supplied image:


And here's a close-up of the new keyboard, courtesy of PC World photographer Robert Cardin:

The Q-9m has two screen faces. A red keyboard button on the lower right toggles between the traditional Windows Mobile interface and a Motorola-designed multimedia player screen from which you can play music or run videos. Here's the Windows Mobile screen:

The Q-9m has two screen faces. A red keyboard button on the lower right toggles between the traditional Windows Mobile interface and a Motorola-designed multimedia player screen from which you can play music or run videos. Here's the Windows Mobile screen:And here's the multimedia interace (note that you can still get to your contacts and the start menu from bottom-screen entries activated by the handset's left and right touch keys):

Motorola says this is one of the first QWERTY-keyboarded devices that can access Verizon's VCast store for music downloads (which should go fairly swiftly as the device support's Verizon's fast EVDO data network). Another unusual feature: The SD card slot on the side can support large-capacity SD cards (4GB+); most handsets with SD support can only handle up to 2GB because of file-format issues.

And just in case you want to do real work as well as listen to music or watch videos with your handset, the handset comes with the Windows Mobile version of DataViz's Documents to Go productivity suite, a much more capable mobile productivity package than the Mobile Office apps that come with the OS.

The Q 9m is available online from Verizon starting today; it should appear in retail stores beginning next Monday. It goes for $350 with the usual two-year contract (a $50 mail-in rebate is available).

Take a Good Look at the Motorola Q9m

Motorola's got a number of new smartphones in the works to replace the aging Q. Once of these models, the Q9m, is a CDMA/EV-DO version of yet another one of these devices, an Americanized version of the GSM/UMTS/HSPDA Q9, which is already shipping in some European markets.

Although the Q9m hasn't been officially announced yet, some (of what appear to be) press shots featuring the smartphone recently leaked.

As you can from these pictures, the Q9m is destined for Verizon Wireless. (Sprint is rumored to be on deck.) It also sports an updated, more modern look than the original Q, as well as a new horseshoe-shaped home screen with a shortcuts to applications and features on two sides of the shoe.

Less is known about the Q9m than its GSM brethren, the U.S. version of the Q9, which is said to feature a 2 megapixel camera, a microSD slot, 256MB of RAM and support for stereo Bluetooth headsets. It isn't supposed to have Wi-Fi.

There's every reason to believe the Q9m will offer similar specifications.

We do know both models are to run on the Standard (formally known as Smartphone) version of Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft's latest mobile-device operating system. So, as with the first Q, there won't be a touch screen.

Earlier rumors placed both the Q9m and the Q9 becoming available in the U.S. before the end of August.

Next-Generation Motorola Q Could Debut this Month

The Motorola Q9m, the long-awaited replacement for the Motorola Q, might be released in the near future. This smartphone will supposedly get an updated look and a move to the latest version of Windows Mobile.

According to an unconfirmed report on Engadget, the Q9m will be released by Verizon Wireless at some point during this month. However, what this device will cost is not yet known.
Sprint is also expected to eventually begin offering this smartphone, though there is no word on when.

More About the Motorola Q9m
Even though Motorola has officially announced the GSM version of this device, this company has not formally unveiled the CDMA version for carriers like Verizon. That means that information on the Q9m is somewhat sketchy.

It is known that it will run Windows Mobile 6 Standard, which is the version of this operating system for smartphones without touchscreens.

The Q9m is expected to offer EV-DO and Bluetooth, but not Wi-Fi.

It will supposedly have a 1.3 megapixel camera and a slot for microSD cards.

Pictures of the device show that the upcoming model will generally resemble its predecessor, including a landscape-oriented QVGA screen and built-in keyboard. However, the exact shape has been changed a bit. And this shape will be different from the GSM version of this device.