Now’s your chance. You’d better snap up smashmymotoq.com before someone else does.

the phone likes to reboot all by itself and there are numerous quirks that make me want to pummel it with some rebar

My Treo 650 makes me feel that way some days as well. And as for Cingular, ever since they “integrated” their network with AT&T’s in DC, data connectivity been suck-tacular.

Thanks for the heads up….

I was jsut gonna go out and buy me one tomorrow. Now that’s a few hundred I can keep in my pocket….

Well you could always complain. If you do it enough, Verizon should let you switch phones. Just threaten to leave, because there is always a way out of the early termination fee, especially if your brand new equipment isn’t working right.

Remember, you’re in California, we have laws to let you get out of anything…I mean we’re a pro-customer/consumer state. :)

just to add on to AJ:

you can also send it in for repairs until they get it right, OR they can offer you a replacement phone altogether, at which point you can choose something that actually works. i am not quite sure if it works that same way there, but some companies do do that for sets that appears to be pretty dysfunctional here in Australia.

That sucks man, I thought the Q was the Treo killer, I’m sorry to hear that it isn’t. I hate verizon personally, I decided to hate them when my family was moving back from Germany and we looked at their internet services on their web page (or what they call a web page). Their UI was terrible and I had to look for everything and accomplished nothing, I know this is a little reason to hate a company, but they’ve had some bad experiences in my area.

Anyway I just got a T-Mobile SDA and love it…switch to T-mobile!?!?

Drop the “smart”phone and go back to the PFP (Plain Phone). As soon as these phones can pull their headphones out of their USB port and provide a halfway descent user experience, they might have a chance.

The reality of the fact is that products like the iPod are popular because they play music really, really well and provide a great user experience. In other words, they do what they are expected to do. Arguably well styled PFPs (Razr, Chocolate) are getting more and more traction because people are realizing that more connectivity should not usurp usability and style.

Do people REALLY think the Q is a sexy device?

James Bond would be ashamed! ;)

Well. That tells me that my next phone will be a freakin’ Razr or Slivr… My Treo is the same way and simply awful. At some point I JUST NEED TO MAKE A FREAKIN’ PHONE CALL. Maybe Moto is on to something with their forthcoming “Simply a Phone” device.

As for Cingular in ATL. I agree with John, since the AT&T buyout; they suck ass. But then again, we don’t have any other choices do we?

That’s really crappy to hear, Paul. It did seem a bit too cool to be true and naturally it seems like it was. Hopefully it doesn’t degrade any more over the next month!

Get a plain phone off ebay, swap the sim and sell the Q. Next question? =-)

Paul, that’s crappy that you hate your Q. I also was an early adopter, but I haven’t had alot of problems with mine. Only thing that happens every once in awhile is that my phone will freeze, and I’ll have to restart it, like my damn PC….go figure.

I have managed to keep the batter running well, and I don’t know if you found this, but if you go into your start menu, and then to system tools, and then the task manager, you can kill some of the processes that still run after you “close” them. That has been useful, becase these batteries die fast.

Go to the verizion store with the broken phone, and stay there til you get a replacement (there is the chance it’s just your phone). When the next phone has the same problems, do the same thing. After about 4 phone swaps, mention you would like a different phone - be sure to get something in the same price range as your phone and don’t let them charge you a thing for it. If they won’t do that, just keep swapping phones. At some point they’ll give you a new model phone because they will grow tired of dealing with warrenty trade-ins. If enough people do this, the message will get back to motorola from verizion - people don’t like to pay retail to beta test your products.

This makes me glad I’ve got a Treo 650. Despite its large size, the mobile Windows platforms are just horrible.

I really wanted a Q (although was already stuck with my Treo for my 2 year contract) but after playing with one at Best Buy; I think the Treo was a great choice.

You should definitely be able to swap your phone, you haven’t had it very long and if you complain enough you’ll get out of it.

Otherwise, I believe it was on Digg a while back. find a spot where you would be roaming and make a call and run up minutes. If you’re lucky you might get a phone call from Verizon saying they don’t want your service anymore and will give you the option to opt out of your plan to move to another service provider where you might get service.

This is the thing about these sexy PDA phones… most of them are so feature-filled, we think they’re value for money right?

Wrong.

What most people don’t realize is the terrible user experience you get with them. The more complex it is, the higher chances of failure (e.g. sudden reboots). That’s why Apple grows a device slowly to make sure it just plain works. That’s also why I sticking with my Danger Sidekick… ex-Apple engineers working on this thing did the right thing by starting with a basic internet-enabled B/W phone and more recently turning it into a multimedia PDA phone called the Sidekick 3.

I’ve had every generation except the Sidekick 3, which I think is currently overpriced. BAH!

I’m going to have to stick up for verizon here. In my experience their service is unmatched. I was with cingular for about eight years until i switched to verizon 3 years ago. With Cingular, i never got service at home, work or school, so what good was it to me! Verizon’s network is solid, and I know that when I need to make a call, I’ll get a connection.

NOW….everything else about the company sucks hardcore. Their “unified verizon software” that they put on all non PDA phones is the worst crap ever coded. You think the Q has a shitty UI, try any other VZW handset! In addition, Vcast is such a joke, as are any of verizon’s other optional services, not to mention the fact that bluetooth to them = only for headsets.

I know Verizon has exclusive rights for the Q for a few more monthhs, but when that time comes it might be worth it to pay the early termination fee and switch to another carrier with the Q if you still like the hardware. If not, when does that MOTOFONE come out again? Back to basics….

Personally, I’m waiting for the “iPhone” as i’m sure many others are. Apple would be smart to manufacter and sell the device themselves, and partner with carriers to provide service. I just hope Verizon doesn’t throw their own OS ontop of it.

before you run off and buy a RAZR, I have a Moto RAZR v3x, it freezes, crashes, and sometimes the phonebook becomes corrupt and wont open untill I sync it with my computer (by sometimes, I mean once a week, and by Sync, I mean erase every entry and copy them from my PC again)

COME ON MOTO! you made some DAMN sexy phones, now fix the damn OS, or give the rains to Apple :-P

(PS, I’m a PC guy, and generally hate MAC’s, but Apple make good “Appliance” kind of stuff that just “works” which I think is what we all really need in a phone, I wonder if Apple is researching into an iPhone?

The last REALLY cool phone I had was the NGAGE, the operating system was smooth and refined, and it did EVERYTHING, but it was crippled by its own hidiousness if I could get the NGAGE’s operating system, (Symbian S60) onto the Moto v3x, that would be heaven

You haven’t even been in Atlanta yet with the verizon service. I’ve been using verizon in Atlanta (and all over the US) for several years now and I have never had a problem with their service. As for the smartphone… I don’t have one. But you could try loading other operating systems on it. I’m sure it wont be long until there are some linux options available.

awesome! i would kill for one of these….
heh, i was thinking: will this be the blackberry killer?
but i dont think so…
neg

Dude, you can turn your Motorola Q into a Mac!

Hey.. here’s a novel concept… did you ever think that maybe you did something to cause the problems with your Q? Did you experience those problems when you took the phone straight out of the box, before you started messing with it? Do a master reset and I’ll bet your problems would go away….

In the words of an old Monty Python sketch… “You were Lucky” I used to have an O2 XDA. Talk about unstable good lord. Reboots, deafening screeching instead of the dial tone. Can’t answer calls. Unresponsive touch screen. The not gonna ring just smugly inform you that you’ve missed calls. Took a 5 page letter but O2 did give me a new one… an Ericsson K800i, great phone. See my review on my site.

ps Nice use of the word pummel. Not enough pummeling in the world.

moto q as compared to the bb 7250 (verizon): about as stable and reliable. ie. in first two months of using had to replace my bb and have had to replace the moto q. the q crashes about once every three weeks. the bb used to crash weekly (it did not like 3rd party apps :)

i run several apps on the q, but don’t try to run anything too ambitious.

other than the mediocre keyboard, i have no regrets about switching from the bb. the q is a very good (not great) phone with decent email viewing, and calendar/task wireless synching. the bb was a great email creating device, calendaring/task, but an awful phone.

battery life for the bb was even worse than the moto q. i used hi capacity batteries for both.

Dude, I feel your pain. I had a so called “smart phone” from Samsung awhile back, this phone did everything for me; web, text, email the works. It worked great for like 2 weeks and then it got quirky. It rebooted, it rang when no one was calling, the backlighting failed. I hated it. I learned from this experience though, and purchased a very simple phone that only made phone calls; no pictures, no PDA, nothing - just calls - it works like a champ..I love it. No more funky phones for me.

“Nope, reset did nothing. It’s just the way the phone way made. =/”

Really.. that’s funny.. and I’ll bet it took you more than their 15 day allowance of returning the phone to realize that it was made that way. Such a shame that people have to waste so much time sorting through stuff like this while they are googling for all of the cool things that people ARE doing with their Q. I’ll bet whoever made your PC probably sucks too because of all of those adware programs that are popping up. Ya, I feel your pain too.

Honestly though, there are millions of these phones out there working properly.. if yours isn’t working right, call Verizon and get it fixed or replaced. It’s a known fact of the industry that Verizon’s customers don’t do the “beta testing” like other carriers do. Don’t go off the handle trying to be the first one to complain that your phone sucks, and go get yourself a working one and have fun.

Any questions? You’ll find me at Qusers.com

the phone does not work well with the network. the phone appears to work even though the connection is lost. you will randomly receive text messages and voicemails from hours ago. the only way to be sure the phone is working is to turn it off, take out the battery, put the battery back in, turn it on and call 411 or another number every hour to make sure it has a connection. as soon as it doesn’t, which seems to be random, you need to repeat the process of rebooting and pulling the battery. every time you travel more than 30-60 minutes chances are good it will loose the connection.

i just read the “reset the phone message above becuase you messed with it” and not only does it not work, but verizon has already given me a second phone and the same problems occured on the second phone.

maybe this person works for verizon.

I’ve had similar experiences. This garbage should’ve never seen the light of day. I can’t count how many calls I missed and even after rebooting with the battery removal technique, I still wouldn’t get a voice mail indicator. I had to continually poll my voice mail to keep in touch with people. I gave up after 10 days and returned to my trusty 3 year old LG 3100.

I got the Q the day it came out. I returned it 14 days later. I REALLY wanted to like this phone. I have a Treo700w, and I wanted the smaller form factor. The only thing the Q did, was make me miss my Treo more and more everyday.

I hated the Q. Horrible buttons, very cheap feel to it, slow slow SLOW UI, constantly having to restart, and I also had the problem of it not alerting me that I have a call, just telling me I missed it afterwards. I missed more phone calls in that two weeks, then in the entire time I’ve had my Treo. I couldn’t wait to switch back. The second weekend I had the phone, I was out of town, and I might as well have had nothing with me. I would have had better communications with a solo cup and a string.

Oddly enough, the Q’s form factor was only a big plus when it was in my pocket. When in hand, and using the two phones, the Treo feels less bulky and way more comfortable. Granted, the pocket is the more important issue, but I was surprised how uncomfortable the Q was to use.

I’m not sure if Nic works for Verizon, or if he’s just one of those people that constantly has to justify their own purchase by defending the product no matter what people say about it.

The solo cup and the string is awesome!

I just got my Q to replace my 815 the first thing I was told was to buy the extended life battery and I did. I am going to kill my internet access, since the main reason I got it was to be able to sync my address and appointments for business. I come from the school that says if you don’t need it don’t buy it. The extended range battery causes the phone to not fit in the standard holster, so I bought the metal aftermarket case for $35.00.
A big question I do have. Is how can you tell if the Q is charging when it’s powered up? I get picture of the big battery charging when it’s powered down, but the battery indicator doesn’t even blink when it’s powered up. Last night I left mine powered up and plugged in; when I got up this morning it did not read, charge complete, so I powered it down and it is still charging.

I bought my Motorola Q the 2nd week of July from an “Authorized” Verizon agent. I did not even know the difference between an “Authorized” agent and an actual Verizon store until my Q starting turning off on me and I took it to my local Verizon store and they WOULD NOT exchange it. I had to go back to the Authorized agent who told they would reluctantly exchange it…but never again. So 5 days later when my 2nd Q started to turn off on it’s own again (sometimes up to 8 hours) I knew I was in for a bit of a hastle. I contacted Verizon who wanted to give me a “refurbished” phone & Motorola who insisted that Verizon had to exchange it or they would send me a replacement within 4-6 weeks. Finally after pleading with the manager at the Authorized shop she said NO EXCHANGE…but luckily had a change of heart and exchanged it again for #3…I know…why would I even want a 3rd version of the phone. Well this goes back to the Authorized Agent part of the Transacation…I CAN’T EVEN SWITCH PHONES…Now don’t get me started on the fact that their included software “Active Sync” won’t even recognize my phone. Surprisingly my 3rd Q has been Awesome…I know go figure. I still have hated my experience…hence the novel.

There is always a way around it. Go out and get a Blackberry. I’m saying this as an Exchange admin who loves Blackberry, and wishes that ActiveSync/Wireless Sync would go the way of audio DAT tapes.

I have had more problems with seven smartphones than with an installed base of 2,300+ crackberries. The technology just isn’t stable enough yet. Thanks to smartphones, I have had to restore the same seven mailboxes 39 times total. These SAME users did not have any issues with crackberries.

Windows Mobile devices do happen to suck rocks.

I have had many, many phones, and switched a month ago from the 700w to the Q. I have to say… the Q is the my favorite phone so far for ease of use and flexibility. The sound is great and I haven’t had any problems with it. I bought the extended battery which greatly extended the talk time.
2 keys for me:
A. I use an exchange server so the email integration is awesome. It’s almost true push (it uses sms to trigger a receive, but the patch for real push is almost here). I realize this is tangential to the hardware, but it’s dang nice to have the evdo and good email.
B. I bought the motorola Ht820 wireless stereo headphones. They are insane. You can listen to music, and when a call comes in, tap a button on the headset and switch to the call. Hang up and you switch right back to the music. the Q has A2DP bluteooth protocol which allows the headset to control the phone. It’s awesome.

The phone isn’t perfect but I definitely don’t miss the stylus that I’ve been misplacing for the last 3 years with my other phones.

Hmm… Looks like my absolute frustration with this device is shared by a few other folks.

I talked to Verizon yesterday about getting a replacement, since my device decides to alert me to incoming calls and voice mail intermittently. Since I use this thing to keep in touch with my coworkers and family while I am on the road, this is simply unacceptable performance.

At first, Verizon customer service told me that they couldn’t troubleshoot my problem because I had just rebooted. Fortunately, the thing freezes up so often that I just waited until it froze up again and asked the Verizon CSR to call my phone.

End result, they’re sending me another device. This will be my second, as the first completely bombed with Verizon’s equivalent of a blue screen of death within two days of buying the device. Verizon has a “lemon” policy that I didn’t know about, so if this third Q stinks it up (judging from the posts I’ve read it will), they’ll replace it with a different device. I’m sure I’ll get screwed on that deal somehow.

Although deceived to read the deception of Q’s users i am not surprised. I just tried the Q at the local Best Buy. At first, it felt very light and pleasant to hold. Then i tried to use it and it felt cumbersome to use. This is really so bad that Motorola chosed Microsoft as OS.
I invite you to read the following article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/technology/08pogue.html?ex=1307419200&en=35f6d4c2d02ea3a0&ei=5088

~Marc~

I work for VZW. The Q has been a nightmare- the most returned PDA device ever. This device does a few documented things-
-won’t boot up past the “verizon wireless” screen. The device has no rest button, so the device is toast.
-Does not ring sometimes and nobody really knows why
-can freeze daily if you don’t apply the “fake server exchange activesync schedule change” (google it without the quotes). That’s Microsoft’s fault.
Those are the big 3. If you ever get the device replaced with another evdo device, make sure the morons at retail take the battery OUT of BOTH devices before changing the ESN. If not, the data (DMU Key) will stay on the old device and no one will know why.
Avoid this phone like the plague. Get a 700p.

Early on, you said you can’t set the Q to vibrate and then ring. I was playing with my settings and it is there. I dropped my first Q the 3rd day I had it and I now have my insurance replacement. Signal strentgh is worse than my 815 was, but it synks well and most other features seam to be fine. I do usually *228 then #2 for updates at least once a week. Verizon has always recommended that. I hope I just got a good one or maybe the updates will help yours, but I think the day is coming thatwe’ll all be happy if we just have a phone that works instead of one that is supposed to doeverything and can’t do any of it well.

Paul, you probably already know this, but there’s a software/firmware update available for the Q that fixes some of the problems you’ve mentioned.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/smartphones/updating-the-motorola-q-smooth-sailing-better-performance-197934.php

HO HO HO. It must be Christmas everyones throwing money at Verizon.

I fell for the hype as well. Then when i got the fone it lasted less than a week and locked up totally dead…. a software bug…. Hmmm Microsoft….

A replacement was supplied and this one hasn’t locked up but I wish i had taken the hint and dumped the fone immediately.

Stupid things like the ringer carries on after you answer a call try hearing someone talk while the speakers are blasting away. It makes calls on its own. The Battery lasts 8-10 hours absolute tops. You have to pay 15-20 bucks to get a notepad equivalent.

I am an Avid Verizon fan, theres is IMHO the best network, I tried Sprint and and they didnt even work in the location I purchased it in. T Mobile were great but didnt offer the services i needed.

Take HEED I think the Q is Quite Quaint and Quietly Querulous. It will Quiesce shortly, to be another innovation castrated by piss poor microsoft product Quality and counter intuitive Quirks

Don’t use the Motorola firmware update for the Q. My trusty Q locked up during the firmware update and had to power off the phone and restart to get it to continue. In the process, it lost all my network settings and my phone number. Now I have a dead device. To make a phone call it requests a credit card for a billing of $2.99 to connect and $1.99 a minute. This all to cure my battery woes. Oh well. Another Saturday spent at the Verizon store. Just wish I could bill them $1.99 a minute for my time.

I did my update yesterday, which store are you going to, we can hang out, if I’m not on the phone with Verizon I’m at the repair store. I think everybody should get a Q. Just think of all the peace in the world if we were all busy trying to get a phone to work, no bad phone calls, no arguing on the phone. I think Motorola and Verizon might be on to something here.

Yep went to the verizon in Southfield, they told me I have an insurance replacement and they can’t help. I then explained that I was told to go to the store by their reps. The store manager was very pleasant and let me know that they get stuck with the cost of the new phone when she replaces it, but she would do it since it was their error. She did her best and gave me a new phone (my 4th) it is no better than #2 or #3. The phone still shows home service, like I’m roaming and I never get more than 2 bars of signal, the manager at the store explained she was going to have a nervous breakdown and it is the beginning of a holidy weekend so I said the heck with the whole situation and left. Verizon had better learn that they were always known for a strong signal and customer care, but I think they have gone Cingular on us.

Well well. I guess I joined the Q queue.

My wife bought me one for my birthday. I had it activated at the Verizon store two and half weeks ago.

Things started out okay. Voice quality great. Keyboard wierd but ‘get withable’. E mail sync up pretty easy.

I was feeling reasonably happy - which is good for me. And then one morning all the Q would do is show the Verizon logo. I tried everything I could think of to wake it from its slumber. But it has no reset. At the store they told me it died. Sad really. That all those great minds could come together from M and M and produce such a neurotic device.

Will say that the woman from data support from Verizion was very pleasant I will have a new Q is 24 hours.

Then I will have the pleasure of self-activation. I do hope this will not continue to be as depressing as some the posts indicate.

I had hoped the Q would provide 90% of the TREO functions in a smaller form factor. Unfortunately the basic phone functions simply don’t work consistently. 1 out of 4 calls will hang, requiring a hard reboot of the phone. After 48 hours of moderate use I’ve had to pull the battery 12 times to complete a hard reboot …

Well there you go. My upgrade locked up once due windows not recognizing one of the several devices. After rebooting my PC and phone it continued fine. I followed the instructions pretty closely.

Apart from that reboot the upgrade went well. My battery now lasts about twice as long. Phone isnt much differerent.

I lost all of my saved ring tones but that isnt an issue they are on my PC.

All in all apart from still got no notepad or other useful apps on the phone its a whole lot better.

Cheers
Steve C

just updated the firmware on my week-old Q…now i’m stuck in roaming hell and will probably have to visit my friendly neighborhood verizon shop tomorrow. i hate that place.

this Q has to be the greatest hoax perpetrated upon man. oh, wait…i take that back. the greatest hoax is actually the Missing Sync software that’s *supposed* to allow Mac users to sync up all the same conduits as ActiveSync. the dudes that wrote that shite oughtta be broken down like a three-piece chicken dinner.

mo.

I loved the RAZR, once hacked, it did everything. Q is the same. I have had it for about 3 weeks and it needs a little work, but beats Treo and Blackberry hands down. Super functional, much better operating system, Verizon service has been impeccable.

Nokia e61 = pure heaven

It’s like a Ferrari against the Q’s saturn.

I seem to have had all the problems described above - random call making, random non call receiving, a joystick button that is stuck down, 12 hours of standby time at best, a half a bar when I can virtually see the tower from my house and now a new one - I called 911 a few days ago to report a seriously drink driver. The dispatcher asked me if I had an old cell phone because they were not getting any GPS data from my phone.

Blew the better part of the morning at the Verizon store. The best thing they could do was give me an 800 number to call. (They did admit that battery life stunk and they were fixing that with a deal on an extended life battery.) I tried the number and got a recording that said the number was only for use by Verizon tech. employees. Back to the store to get another number. After half an hour on the phone, I am getting a replacement which, if what I read above is true will be no great deal. Meantime, I am using my Moto L2 that I got for no money down from Cingular. It is quad band and I can use it in Europe. I am thinking of swallowing hard and dumping VZW.

Maybe I am just really lucky with electronics but my Q has had NONE of these issues (purchased September 2006). I can think of a a few ways to improve the OS but they are mostly nit picky. The battery life will greatly improve if you turn down the frequency of activesync events. I have mine set to 15 min on peak and 2 hours off peak (maybe that’s not acceptable for some users?) and I get 24 hours with the standard battery and 48 with the extended. Motos website has a great deal right now where for $69 you get the extended battery and the docking station.
I have set up several treo 700w and Q’s to work with our corporate exchange server and have had no issues with any of our Q’s and a few minor issues with Treos. I think in general windows mobile needs some work but I can’t complain at all about the Q. I actually get better reception than I have ever had with any other phone.

I agree that these phone SHOULD WORK IN EUROPE!!!!! I switched to Verizon last year from Cingular because my company is all Verizon. My domestic service is better with Verizon but the fact that I have to pay to “rent” a phone from VZW and transfer all my contacts when I go oversees is outrageous. They should provide us with GSM phones for free and apologize profusely for adopting a different system then is used in the rest of the free world. When in Europe with my cingular phone, the one I carried everyday in the US, reception was unbelievably good (in fact much better than in my home area). I NEVER had less than full service, even on the trains between major cities and crossing over from country to country….it never lost a bar. The roaming was very reasonable and my phone rang every time someone from the states called, more reliably than if I were in town.
This is one thing that really erks me with Verizon and they make no appologies for it when you call to inquire about travel abroad. The guy I talked to said “yeah I don’t know why the Europeans decided to go GSM.” Maybe so, and I know there are advantages and disadvantages to different types of service, but the Europeans adopted a global standard so that all users and providers could benefit from a common platform, whereas we will let the providers duke it out for decades in the name of capitalizm while the consumers suffer from incompatibilities and overall poor service, when compared to EVERY other developed county, and even some developing countries, in the world.

-End Rant-

After doing the Motorola update and restarting your phone, simply dial *228 and then select option #1 to reprogram your phone number- this is all done automatically so no further information is needed from you. This will save you a trip to the Verizon store where the sales clerks will discreetly do the exact same thing.

However… I’ll add I’m no fan of my Q. The hardware is nice but the software is horrible and the update does little to change that. The only bright-spot I have with this phone is connecting to it via PDANET and easily using it as an EVDO modem - that part is great. I just wish it was usable as a phone

–John

I don’t mean to nit pick your complaints because you seem to have gotten a bad phone. The OS is borderline because this is a smart phone, not a PDA,(which have there own problems) and doesn’t require a lot of bells and whistles. Boot up time is slow, but most people only turn it on once a day, and I could care less how long it takes to shut down. My phone has never had the spontaneous reboot problem you mention. I did have the problem of the screen not lighting sometimes on an incoming call, but installed an aftermarket photo ID caller program and that seems to have cured that. You can have both a ringer and vibrate mode assigned to any profile you want. Just go to settings/profile/select profile/menu/edit/ringer and select ring & Vibrate. As for Verizon coverage, I am in the west and ride all over the country on my M/C, and generally have better coverage than most of my friends. All phones are a compromise of some sort, it would be nice to find the perfect one but it does not exist. The Q performs pretty well for a smart phone, does it have bug’s, sure, name one that doesnt.

i had to exchange my q after a few weeks, because the phone would randomly reset itself; completely erasing all settings and my addressbook! 3 months later and it has just happened again on the new phone. has anyone else had this problem? also, i am a mac user and i’m unable to use bluetooth at all - surely bluetooth should be compatible with both pc/mac?

I don’t know.. there seems to be a lot of complainers on this list, I have to put in my two cents.

I’ve been using the Q for about 4 months now for evualation on a company wide roll-out. There were some buggy issues with it early on but with the release of AUK 2.0 update for the device most of those issues have gone away. There is some quirks with the device but now where near what all of you guys are saying. Every device has quirks and after a slight learning curve you get past them… but the software is not buggy. I have rolled out the devices to a 100 person organization and removed Blackberry devices from the mix all together. I have had a few buggy (BROKEN) devices that once replaced were fine. My end users are happy with the device as well, I get very limited complaints (if anything battery life is an issue - but an extended battery solves that problem). The push email works great - I never miss calls on my device either. That would be a huge issue in my organization if that was the case, I have not heard any mention of that.

I am in NYC so maybe it all comes down to network service. I never have a problem with service (full signal all the time). Also, if you are using the device in any other mode then mobile active sync with Exchange 2003 SP2 then your wasting your time. All of the benefits come from that configuation.

One other FYI: if you install 50,000 applications on the device it’s not going to function properly. I see the need for a few apps but I’ve also come across the folks who think they can download and install any app on it without affecting the devices integrity. Keep APP install to a minimum!!! Besides the default apps I have a remote admin tool and sling box mobile on my device and as I said already, it runs just fine.

You guys are really bashing a device that I know from lots of experience - just works!

I despise this phone. I’ve had it since June, and now in October, I’m about to be on my 4th replacement. The phone function (yeah, I actually do want to make a friggin’ call) is ridiculous. The phone locks up all the time and after pushing SEND, it usually takes the phone a minimum of 10 seconds to start ringing, often times longer. I miss calls that never rang in. Battery life does suck, but that’s to be expected with a slim phone. Just make sure you have a charger with you everywhere. On the bright side, the email function does work fairly well, although viewing attachments is near-impossible. Also, attempting to get online and do even basic functions is a joke. The lack of a touch screen makes navigating on line extremely frustrating. Often times you’re unable to “tab” to the next box. The people at the Verizon store are rude every time I go in. They’re accused me of lying about the problems with the phone. They say they’ve “never” had any complaints about the Q. Very different story when you get online and look at the reviews of this piece. No one at the Verizon store knows how to work on the phones…they can’t even update the software for you. Why do they make their customers beta-test their products? Don’t sell a product until, 1. you know it works, 2. your people can support the product.

I don’t know why everyone is having problems with it. Where is everyone located? Did you get the phone preinstalled with the latest update? or did you install yourself? Do you use Exchange for email? If not make sure to put the fake exchange active sync settings in there. If your using anything other then exchange to get email this fix will solve a lot of problems with the phone freezing up.

I’m curious to see where everyone who is having problems is located. As I said earlier I am in NY and have zero problem with service.

The internet is one of the best functions of the device. Are you trying to pull up full websites or are you going to mobile specific sites. For news: http://msnbc.msn.com pulls up very nice on the device…

It’s so dam easy and functional. This is the only place that I found were people are bashing it.

I agree, it is one of the most innovative, easy to use, reliable phone, PDA, whatever. Everybody needs to hate something. If it helps, I hate the Blackberry.

JT… just a small point, but the Chocolate is hardly a PFP… it is specifically marketed as a Phone cum MP3 Player. A device that combine a PFP with some basic mobile communications and music/video playback is what people are needing… this can still be done elegantly and with minimal problems if they aren’t trying to make it a PDA or handheld PC. The Q is the closest thing to it right now… and WIRED magazine agrees. They’ve chosen it as the #1 cell phone this year.

Mark Anthony, you are 100% correct on the Chocolate….re-reading my post I am not sure why I would have deemed chocolate as a PFP.

The majority of my ire towards “smartphones” is that I have yet to come across one that truely does work out of the box. I am amazed at the tolerance level of users of cell phones. From everything I have read Q fits this bill….upgrades required, missing calls, spontaneous rebooting….and it still gets phone of the year? There seems to be a significant disconnect there. You even mention “with minimal problems”.

How is it that an industry with a solid 10 years of consumer acceptance, billions of units sold, companies with deep pockets (like Motorola), and with no end in site to the sales curve, still produces a product that “has minimal problems”?

I HATE this phone as well. Verizon swapped my first one for a new one, but both units freeze up once PER HOUR! Just horrible…

One more thing I should have mentioned — I have six people in my company using the Q, and their experience is the same as mine…

I have 100 of them in my office. Every issue with them is a user issue not a device issue. I have had to replace a few of them but they were clearly mailfunctioning. The ones that work if manged/used properly work. They do require an occasional reboot (once every week or 2) but everything else can usally be traced back to a user issue ****that is as long as you are on an Exchange Server with it****

The biggest issue I find is with the battery/power life. 9 times out of ten the user has adjusted the backlight to something ridiculous like 1 minute on idle. That is going to suck your hi-res mobile device dry. I’ve also noticed that having blue tooth enabled 24×7 kills the battery. However, if you change the backlight timeout to 10 seconds which is totally adequate your battery will last and if you power off the blue tooth when you are not using it, the devices battery (extended version) will get you through a long hard down of power using.

I guess the Q is for the more tech savvy of us as you need to be aware of all the features and how it affects your device.

You guys who are bashing should go back to a V60 and a BB 7750 to get your jobs done and hold out for 3rd generation uni device, so you are not so fustrated.

The only problem I have had with the Q is the bluetooh connection to the H500 headset. It has and erratic time connecting. Also if you have the larger extended battery the phone needs to be placed in the holder with the buttons facing your waist. Other than that email, internet, and sending and receiving calls and notifications have been fine. Local Verizon stores are useless after working with this thing now for the last 3 weeks I probably no more than they would and thats no saying a whole lot. Tech support via phone is fair if you can understand what the are saying depending on which call center you get. On a scale of 1-10 I would give it a 6

Paul, I bought a cheap $3 silicone case for my Q and pressing the send/end keys became significantly easier. Give it a try.

What phone did you eventually move to?

My best friend who used to work for Verizon has had a Q for a few months now and hasn’t had any problems whatsoever with it. Are you sure it’s not just your phone? Lots of electronics however have a problem when they first come out. I’ve used the new BlackBerry 9300 with T-Mobile and it’s a POS from my experience. I support them for my company, however, most issues i’ve dealt with are user knowledge of the product. On the 9300 I have however, the antenna has started to turn off by itself all of a sudden and i’ve had it less time than my best friend has had his Q.

I thought I would like this phone. I want my Nokia back. This thing locks up at times. Many, many times when attempting to initiate a call, it just sits there “dialing”… and never connects. Of course, a 1-minute reboot fixes this for the moment. It s-ucks.

Have had many Cell phones (Mot, Nokia, LG, Samsung), PDAs, 3BBs, PCs, DeskTops, etc. The Q is no worse than any other new product. In my case, the benefits outweigh the short comings. Email is not as nice as BB but is acceptable. RT Sync works with exchange just like BBs work with BB mail server. Hold 2200 contacts without loss of data but the performance of the address book could be better. Do like the BB address book better. Does support cut and paste like the BB. Does not have a delete key but does support backspace. The wheel on the side of the phone could have more functionality. Using the phone as an internet connection works well but the fact that Verizon charges $15/month is not good. The calendar works well and syncs properly with Exchange through my exchange server. Address book also syncs properly with exchange server. The setup of the phone was more complex than expected but did work once I understood what was needed. All in all, the phone worked well enough for me to purchase a second for my spouce.

Correction: Q “does not” support cut and paste like BB. This is a short coming that is not acceptable.

FYI: Have not had the phone lock up.

Guys, I went back to the UK for a week or so in mid December and when I got there bought the cheapest throw away Nokia I could find (not even a camera). How nice to get back to basics. It lets you know how good the Q is if you need the features. But be aware we in the USA are at least 2 years behind the UK in phone technology.

Roll on the end of my 2 year contract. Its back to separate Phone (with SMS), Camera, PC and MP3 player for me. And the phone almost certainly will NOT be with Verizon. I’m getting sick of their avarice preventing D/L of ringtones on the other phones I bought except from their preferred providers. They may offer the best coverage but sorry they are plain greedy.

Festive Greetings to all
SC

Well… I’ve personally been through MANY $500 plus phones, BB, Treo, WM5, etc over the past six years for my I.T. company and the Q is by far the best phone I’ve ever come across! There is no reason to go into specifics since basically every review out there covers each fantastic highlight in ecstatic detail… and there ALWAYS trade-offs between manuf people! (Side note: the Pearl MAY end up being a nice swap since it’ll be the only/first BB to have multimedia - unacceptable units without, especially now with WM5 push capability) Basically, if you’re not keeping up on your firmware updates or simply not taking a possibly faulty Q in to a store for replacement, then there is no one to blame but yourself. Good luck!

Jeez…I have had no problems with my phone. Are u the same people that live with road rage. Seriously, take your anti-depresant and go watch “The View.” When you want new tech. you sometimes have to deal with the price of being on the cutting edge. I realize some of the phones suck. The reality is you just got a bad phone. Get a new one and take your whining to your My Space Page where someone might, might, might give a crap…probably not.

Happy New Year

Congrats on being one of the lucky ones to get a non-defective Q. The people who post on here are merely trying to help others, they are not “whining” as you like to say. I personally had a Q and in a matter of 5 days, I had encountered many of the problems listed on this site. I am always very careful with any electronic I own, and treated my Q no differently than any other device in my possession. There is a reason as to why the Q is the most returned PDA/Smartphone that Verizon has experienced. I quickly returned the device to Verizon for the LG enV (which seems to be a much better phone so far). I previously owned the RAZR and it gave me no problems. If you don’t like the “whining” on this page, don’t read it, and instead go post your arrogance on your own MySpace page. When you pay almost $300 for a phone, you should NOT have to deal with so many issues. Thank you to all of the HELPFUL posts on here–you all made me realize that my decision to switch away from the Q was a smart one, and that I was not the only one experiencing these issues.

I’ve had most of the same issues as mentioned above, and I just returned from Verizon with my 2nd replacement Q. This time it wouldn’t boot up past the Verizon splashscreen, and the system reset wouldn’t work. Aside from the usual complaints (bad UI, sluggish performance, lack of features - cut and paste? really?) I have two others:
1. The Q uses the network to set its clock, but cannot set the correct timezone. This is the first phone I’ve ever had - and I’ve had some CHEAP mobile phones - that was unable to do this. I’m in PST, and by default it’s set to EST. This is a pain, esp. if you travel back east a lot (I do) and it’s not uncommon to have to reset your phone.
2. It crashes after taking photos maybe 10 - 20% of the time right after hitting the shutter. Also, it doesn’t actually *take* the photo until a second or so *after* you hear the simulated shutter (maybe that’s a feature and not a bug…)

Since I’m afraid I’m going to get stuck after my warranty expires, I am now going to call tech support each and every time *anything* goes wrong with this phone. Come june when my warranty is up, they are going to have a running tally of all the shortcomings of this (sorry, lucky Q users aside who seem to have no problems) *defective* device. I guess it’s more of a lemon, since it’s not just isolated devices. Your choice.

I looked for something about the Q after today’s problems, and find the issues here to really describe the vulnerablities of the hardware. i had my first Q replaced after one day because it wouldn’t charge. After that I was very satisfied (having low expectations maybe helps) but over the past 2 weeks I had to reboot a few times and was getting some error messages. Today, after no abuse or unusual events, the phone demanded a reset, A trip to the VERizon store revealed no alternative, so I did it, In the hours since then, despite many reboots and battery removals, the machine won’t do anything it is supposed to, and is throwing up random messages and crashing instantly. I am disappointed, and now fear this to be a trend. As written above, the complaints registered here are likely the product of real experiences with a device that isn’t ready to handle real life. A phone is too important to be waiting for replacements every month or so. FOr those that don’t believe the problems are real— either you are lucky or you are next in line.

i was so happy to finally get my hands on one of these. i noticed that it was a little slow but i figured it was nothing to complain about. but as time went on, it got slower and slower even though i put absolutely nothing on it. i then soon realized, wow this phone sucks! i’ve had it for a little over a week and then thing has already crashed, wont even turn on… luckily i got my free from a friend so i can’t be too mad. but wow, you think with the technology we have no days, verizon would be able to make a device like this that could at least function for more than a week!!!

Hello Everyone,

I have read every post here. I must tell you I am 55 years old and I am in the electronics business. (Custom electronics installations.) I was a Palm PDA user for years then went to iPaq’s for the last 5 years. My current carrier is Nextel and my phone is the i930, their only PDA Nextel has ever had. The i930 runs on the windows 2003. My Dell 51v PDA runs on windows mobile 5 so I know that OS well.

In my humble opinion, the problems that I have read about here are not the fault of Motorola, they are the fault of Microsoft, PERIOD.

If your phone is not charging it is a OS problem, not the fault of Moto. The charging circuit is controled by the software, it is not a hardware issue! I know this because the 2003 mobile platform made charging a software function and this is true for Mobile 5 also. How many times I have had to remove my battery, reinstall it while pressing the power switch on and off numerous times is unjustified!

The frequent reboots is strictly a freeze / lockup issue, afterall it is a MS OS !!!!! I sometimes have to reboot my PDA 5 times a day! These dropped calls, not ringing when calls come in, screens not lighting up correctly etc. etc. etc. are all OS problems.

You know, I have been dealing with computers since the C-64’s, sinclairs, PETS, etc. Even to this day when a product fails I think to myself that I am the only one who is having a problem. In fact my wife yells at me saying “You don’t know how to operate the dame thing”. I say BS, I know the phones and their features, the problems are almost all MS related. (BTW, I heard that the i930 with the MS Mobile 2003 software seldom crashes and this is correct. The 2003 platform on my Nextel is VERY stable unlike the MS Mobile 5 phones today. I think it has crashed 3 time total in 1 year at the most, BUT I HATE THE PHONE. I love sync’n Outlook to the unit but thats all. The unit is slow to respond. Fast number entry is almost impossible and it is all due to being a Windows Mobile device. I will replace my phone with Nextels new ic902 and aviod PDA phones because life is just to short.

Regards,

Homecinemaman
Jeff Morris

I’ve had my Q for two weeks and it will not power up. I haven’t payed verizon for the phone yet. maybe if I hold out, they will give me something else instead. Who knows. It was working great when it did, I left it sit there on a table and bam!, No more power. when life throws ya lemons with your PDA, I guess look for the one holding a tequila and a pda and make a party of it.

Hello Geoff,

Sorry to hear about this problem. Just for fun, remove your battery and slide it into the phone back and forth while pressing the power button. See if that works.

I am working on Maui at this moment. I was checking to see if a new Verizon tower was up yet and stopped by the local Verizon owned Kiosk in Kahalui. When I mentioned I was reading on the web about numerous “Q” problems the reps reply was “We had tons of problems when the “Q” first came out, since Moto fixed their software problems we have not heard of any new problems. He was a nice young man, but I doubt that he customers actually come back to the salesman when problems arise.

Regards,

Jeff

I downloaded the latest firmware last week and since then my battery has lasted about three times as long, and my problems are non-existent other than one lock-up.

I think this is now my third message on this site. and the last two have been positive.

To be fair little Cuwy has worked reasonably well since my OS upgrade until a few of weeks ago. Then for some reason (Probably since the anniversary of the Gates’s first billion) Cuwy has gone from lasting nearly a week on a charge to nearly a day. It literally changed one day and has never been the same since. Its not like I travel a lot I work from home. The cell strength is still the same number of bars. The only thing i have changed recently was adding a half gig memory chip but that was months before the battery issue started. (Thinks to self remove chip check battery life again)

Any other ideas apart from insertion of said fone into one of gates’s orifices.

I shall never return to Windows on a PDA (Who else would create a calculator app where it takes 2 keystrokes to insert the decimal when theres a damned period on the KB). I’m likely to leave verizon as well based on their poor service and it must have been something you did attitude when I bought the fone originally and it died in under 48 hours.

Do they have a linux upgrade for it yet PLEEEESE.

I got one of these phones in early February of this year, and my only problem has been the phone freezes (which I understand is OS related more than likely.) I have it set to device lock (and sometimes I use the key lock function) and it seems 5+ times a day I have to open the back, pull the battery out, then replace it. I’m about to check for the latest firmware and hope that this fixes my problem.

Purchased Black Motorola Q yesterday. Charged it for a couple hours to pair it with the Bluetooth headset. Worked great for two hours then powered down. Apparently for good. Will not charge, turn on, or reset. Any comments, advice, etc., would be greatly appreciated.

Wow, lot’s of issues… I hate to say it but other than getting a unit that had some initial problems, they replaced it overnight…and I’ve been using it since last july with no real issues other than;

The occassional mystery reboot…maybe once in a blue moon… I would like this to have been the newer “rubberized” housing, black is always cool… and perhaps make the thing run faster than my old Sinclair Zx81… but it is a phone and it does a reasonable job of keeping my calendar and contacts list in sync with my office exchange server. Bluetooth could be a little kinder and gentler…but it does work 99% of the time for me.

I’ve not reset, i’ve installed 1/2 dozen apps (ok games!) with no ill effects…

So it’s sad to see so many folks with problems, I bought moto because of it’s reputation for good phone reception…I tried a Treo 700w, and the reception was terrible and that cigar tip sized antenna would catch on EVERYTHING… :)

Anyways, I’d say this phone is about 60% of the idea… the Iphone sounds interesting, but given the delicate nature of the nano screens and the horror stories there, I’d wait to see how the iphone fairs…

I worked for Microsoft for 15 years. Ive seen every generation of phone/PDA os that they put out. I started out loving my Q - -but now after 6 months - -like every other Microsoft OS - it has built up what I call OS plaque. It runs slowly at random times, it reboots for weird reasons - it freezes up - - my favorite is that I bought a new Audi Q7 that has blue tooth in it. When my sit in the car without the charger plugged in I can make and receive calls over the car’s bluetooth intercom. But if I plug in the charger - I can make calls and I can receive 1 phone call. When someone calls me a second time - - the phone locks up - - always freezes when the second phone. Ive had my wife call me two times (not simultaneously - -literally one call say hello, hang up, then dial me again) to duplicate the problem and it happens.

This is clasic wacky Microsoft OS stuff - -they probably have MAPI, ODBC, Java, VB, VM and every other OS abstraction layer possible inside the phone - -when what the really need is a single purpose OS for what is otherwise a great great form factor from Motorola.

I work for a company the uses 9 Motorola Qs. We have been having more problems than we should.

We have had to call Verizon and get 3 Qs replaced and 4 extended batteries replaced, all under warranty. We started using the Qs in December. The first Q was replaced because a couple of keys on the keyboard stopped work. The other 2 Q’s had to be replaced because they were locking up after a couple of minutes of use. We tried to do a hard reset on the phones but that did not help.

The 4 extended batters had to be replaced because they stopped excepting charge. We but good batteries in the phones to make sure it was the battery that was bad.

I am wondering of other people are having similar problems with their Qs.

I had the locking up and battery issues, even with an extended battery, which I also had replaced. But then a couple of weeks ago I downloaded the most recent firmware and now my batteries last like you would expect and I’ve had no lockups. Also, I downloaded the Live Search application which I love. I’m pretty happy with my Q at this point.

My Q is fine but I am in Kansas. I can talk 58 min straight with only a loss of one bar. I am having a ball with the Q. Maybe its your provider, theyre requirements are in the dumpster maybe. One very happy Q man.

looks like you havent explored your phone enough! dont say it cannot do thing! say u dont know how to make it do things!!!

“However, not to be outdone by itself the Q won’t let you have a ringer and vibration to notify you when you’re getting a call”

to do this go to start - settings - profiles then select normal click on menu - edit and set the ring type as ‘vibrate and ring’

I’ve had my moto q for the last one month and its been amazing!

Did you get an iphone yet? One of my best friends has the Q and loves it. I have a treo and would never get another phone! Altho, i’m not a big apple fan ;)

I bought a Q for Sprint, I really like the phone. The sound quality is awesome, and I can actually send text messages from spots that I could not with my Lg fusic. Besides, even if a phone has problems, no device is perfect,. If there were a perfect device, why would we continually buy new devices?

I’ve had three of these things, and each one has been a piece of junk.