Mark Evans

The "Q" is Cool

Kevin Restivo, my editor, Ian Karleff, and I just got a sneak-peek at the Motorola "Q", which will be available in the U.S. this week through Verizon, and, hopefully, for sale in Canada within the next few weeks. In a word, it's extremely cool. Okay, that's two words but the "Q" is the closest thing to the all-in-one device that I've seen. The quality of the screen for video is impressive, the MP3 player sounds great, the Web browser is real a Web browser (as opposed to the Blackberry's continued so-so efforts), and it's super-thin. One of the few downsides is the "Q" has pull e-mail, which means you have to fetch e-mail rather than having it automatically delivered but that's not a deal breaker. All in all, the "Q" has few negatives so I expect it will resonate with many consumers who have found the Blackberry too expensive, too geeky or unnecessary. Whether the "Q" can meet Motorola's aggressive sales targets (750,000 units in the first 90 days, 1.5 million in the next 90 days and three million in the three months after that) depends on how it is priced by carriers,  the cost of data plans and whether any bugs emerge such as inferior telephone service/quality. So will the "Q" be the next Blackberry-killer? I doubt it because there will be power users that want the reliability of the Blackberry's mobile e-mail and have no need for the frills of the "Q". But I do think the "Q" will do very well because it appears to be very user-friendly - kind of like a Blackberry for the rest of us. For an extensive review on the "Q", check out Geek.com. My column in the National Post about the "Q" can be found here. Update: Here's the Verizon ad for the "Q".