Comments on: Study: Motorola Q positioned for success

New research by iSuppli suggests Motorola is keeping costs down on manufacturing its new smart phone.

[pete1118]

Needs cheaper data plan

The Q is nice but it won?t be a huge seller until Verzion Wireless comes up with a more reasonable data plan. The current requirement of a $40/mo data plan in addition to the basic calling plan is just too much for many consumers.

[Sparagi]

Pete's right

Pete's right. It's not that the data plans are too expensive. There's this technology that's called Wifi competing w/ mobile broadband. It's a lot cheaper. Motorola hasn't come out and said why the Q isn't Wifi enabled, but I have to believe that Verizon would not sell as many data plans.

I'm sure by the time they add Wifi the data plans will be half the cost. Grrr.

[Sparagi]

Pete's right

Pete's right. It's not that the data plans are too expensive. There's this technology that's called Wifi competing w/ mobile broadband. It's a lot cheaper. Motorola hasn't come out and said why the Q isn't Wifi enabled, but I have to believe that Verizon would not sell as many data plans.

I'm sure by the time they add Wifi the data plans will be half the cost and it won't matter anyway. Grrr.

[Carusk]

cheaper than blackberry?

with a 3 year plan i bought my blackberry for $149 CAN from bell.

[bruinsensei]

I disagree with Pete - sort of. But it's not really his fault.

This article is riddled with factual errors. CNet needs a lesson in fact checking & journalistic integrity. A simple visit to Motorola's web site could have cleared up half of this.

#1: "Motorola Q targets the consumer market."
The phone is clearly targeted at the business market - not the consumer market. Both it's design and marketing are completely focused on being a RIM Blackberry competitor which is again, a business device. It has lockdown features to allow companies to prevent the misconfiguration of the device. It has email sync with Exchange Servers & Verizon's own email... not Hotmail or GMail. If this was a "consumer" device like the Sidekick 3, or any of the Nokia/Samsung keyboard-enabled devices, it'd come in different colors... difference holsters... different "backgrounds"... none of which exist.

#2: "The new Motorola Q is a ... cross between a BlackBerry and a video iPod."
This is a stupid comment. The reviewer must have seen the video playback feature, understood what it was relative to everything else it provides that he/she didn't understand and decided to highlight it alone. The device has VERY LITTLE STORAGE for video. Even with miniSD, which maxes out at 1GB per card, you can't store much more than a single movie on the device. Yes, it's a Blackberry replacement as I said before, but it's much more. With EvDO networking support, the device provides 500kbps-700kbps wireless Internet access. I've hooked mine up to my laptop and I surf through the device with amazing ease.

#3: "It's Motorola's first foray into the smart-phone category."
How about the Motorola MPx200 & the MPx220? Resold by AT&T & Cingular as far back as 2 years ago, these phones were hotcakes when they released but poor testing by both carriers resulted in their eventual demise.

So if the device really was targeted at the consumer market, Pete might be right. Even though the data plan would provide EvDO networking and performance around 500kbps, $40 for a data plan is too high for the average consumer.

But it's not for the consumer. It's targetted at the business sector which can afford such fees.

But one last point: For corporate America, the data plan from Verizon is NEVER $40 a device. My company has the data plan discounted for our employees down to $20 a phone but we have 10s of 1000s of Verizon phones. I know smaller companies at the 500 phone level that get $30/data plan contracts. While this might not be cheap, it's not $40/mo as originally stated, and besides - you get what you pay for. No other network carrier provides these kind of speeds other than Sprint, which has sketchy reception. (The reason, our company chose not to use Sprint in the first place)

[yukster]

Not Motorola's first Smartphone

The Q was not Motorola's first smart phone. They released the Mpx200 (http://reviews.cnet.com/Motorola_MPx200/4505-6452_7-30586620.html) and the Mpx220 (http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=53), both which used the previous versions of Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS. They were available for a limited time on AT&T Wireless, and was a flip phone style.

[bruinsensei]

Why no WiFi

Because they already know the outcome: No one would use it.

Friend, the Samsung i730 and the Audiovox xv6700 were both "smartphones" from Verizon with built in WiFi, Bluetooth, and EvDO radio support. And no one used the WiFi. There's no need when the EvDo support is so fast.

Remember that WiFi doesn't work in your car, on the sidewalk, in shopping malls, etc. WiFi also doesn't work while you're moving. Even in "campus" environments like a university or a large corporate property, you can't hop from one access point to another and not get "disconnected'.

WiFi will never attain the broad adoption that you're inferring. It's range is simply too limited and too inconveninent for end users.

Now WiMAX on the other hand - that's another story entirely. WiMAX has the potential to overcome all these obstacles however it remains to be seen how quickly it can implemented and how much labor would be involved. WiMAX faces both technical & political challenges such as device deployment (getting users to buy yet another networking radio), subscription revenue infrastructures (who's going to pay for this/invest in this), city/county authorization permits for towers (this one's a doozy - just getting permits to put up a cell tower is often political hell)... all things that cellular carriers have already overcome.

[Montevale]

What else is there? This is it!!! ...today.

Everyone around me is bickering about the lack of WiFi, expensive data plans, small storage capacity...
Get real, this is not a laptop!
It is small it does email, sms, phone, mp3... and whole bunch of other stuff that can be used on a small screen comfortably.
What else is out there that is that small? Sure you can argue about some other different units with more of this or bigger that, but NONE OF THEM are as slim as Q.
It is an awesome design of useful features. Today.

[Montevale]

What else is there? This is it!!! ...today.

Everyone around me is bickering about the lack of WiFi, expensive data plans, small storage capacity...
Get real, this is not a laptop!
It is small it does email, sms, phone, mp3... and whole bunch of other stuff that can be used on a small screen comfortably.
What else is out there that is that small? Sure you can argue about some other different units with more of this or bigger that, but NONE OF THEM are as slim as Q.
It is an awesome design of useful features. Today.

[Montevale]

What else is there? This is it!!! ...today.

Everyone around me is bickering about the lack of WiFi, expensive data plans, small storage capacity...
Get real, this is not a laptop!
It is small it does email, sms, phone, mp3... and whole bunch of other stuff that can be used on a small screen comfortably.
What else is out there that is that small? Sure you can argue about some other different units with more of this or bigger that, but NONE OF THEM are as slim as Q.
It is an awesome design of useful features. Today.

[Montevale]

What else is there? This is it!!! ...today.

Everyone around me is bickering about the lack of WiFi, expensive data plans, small storage capacity...
Get real, this is not a laptop!
It is small it does email, sms, phone, mp3... and whole bunch of other stuff that can be used on a small screen comfortably.
What else is out there that is that small? Sure you can argue about some other different units with more of this or bigger that, but NONE OF THEM are as slim as Q.
It is an awesome design of useful features. Today.