Digital Meanderings
Meanderings of a coder

Is there a difference?

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Recently Verizon Wireless announced a sale on the Motorola Q - it was only $99 after all the rebates.

When the Q first arrived on the market I was unimpressed. The lack of a touchscreen turned me off and I have been a user of the Palm OS for about 8 years so moving to Windows Mobile wasn’t too appealing. But because of its sexy form factor and its small price tag I figured I would give it a shot.

The new phone lasted about a 1.5 days before I decided it wasn’t for me. First off, I couldn’t find any software that allowed me to sync directly with Microsoft Money. Even Microsoft didn’t have an application that was compatible with WM 5!

The next reason I didn’t keep the Q was because I kept missing calls. People would try my cell a few times and then call my apartment. The source of the problem, as I see it, was that I had some running process that was preventing my phone from ringing. Once I shut down those processes, the phone would ring. I don’t know which process it was or why it would cause such a problem, but it did. This issue could’ve been caused by my inexperience with Windows Mobile devices, but there was no way I was going to keep the phone if I had to worry about the applications I was running causing a problem with me receiving calls.

Another reason why I didn’t like the Q was the fact that it lacked a touch screen. I found myself time and again reaching for a stylus that wasn’t there. Again, I’m a heavy Palm user so I’m used to a touch screen. The scroll wheel was nice, even though its located on the right side of the device and I’m a lefty, but I wish it had a touch screen also.

Here are the things I like about the device:

• Crystal Clear Screen. The screen is beautiful and sharp.
• Small form factor. The phone didn’t weigh much at all and it was so thin.
• Sound. The sound quality was superb.
• Bluetooth. I’ve been using Bluetooth for about 2 years now and I love it. But this phone has great Bluetooth range. With my Treo 650 I can’t walk more than 10feet away before I hear static. Also, the Q supports audio! My ringtones would play over the headset and they sounded great!
• Voice Recognition. The Q comes installed with voice recognition software that worked pretty well. Even the name “Charing” (LYJC), which most VR applications mangle, was recognized by the VR software on the Q.

All things considered, the Q is a nice phone it just wasn’t for me. I’m hoping that Palm realizes the amazing draw the Q has and comes up with something similar. Until then I’ll stick with my faithful, although brick like, Treo 650.

Apple’s iPod documentation reveals that the touch-screen iPod is coming. You can verify it yourself.

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