Motorola Q comes to GSM carriers

[#Michael]

Motorola's popular Q smartphone that debuted last May on Verizon's CDMA network has finally received a GSM counterpart, which will enable the device to be sold by U.S. carriers AT&T and T-Mobile, as well as in Europe.

The phone will come in two SIM card-supporting models: the MOTO Q q9 and MOTO Q gsm. The q9 can be considered a successor to the original Q, sporting a slightly thicker form factor based on Motorola's SCPL platform and running Windows Mobile 6.

It will feature HSDPA 3G connectivity, a micro-SD memory card slot and 256MB of built-in memory. A new screen automatically adjusts based on available light in order to reduce battery usage. USB 2.0 support additionally means fast transfers to the device.

Full article : Betanews

[ahfunaki]

not a huge fan of the Q, but cool that they came out with a GSM version...

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

wow.. a motorola phone that doesn't have that ugly razr keypad..

but i dont like the look at the Q either

[mrp04]

This is a bit late. No one wants a new smartphone to be GSM, we want 3G!

[Pink Floyd Veteran]

well, Q is the best phone I can get with my cell phone provider. Damn Bell Canada is far behind competition :(

[sebaz]

If it came with Wi-fi as well I would consider it. Having said that, HTC is still making some of the best smartphones out there, design won't be as sharp, but the functionality sure beats Motorola offerings.

[KC]

This is a bit late. No one wants a new smartphone to be GSM, we want 3G!

so you only want it to do data? :rofl:

[mrp04]

3G is also voice, much clearer voice.

[KC]

3G is also voice, much clearer voice.

Did you read the article? The phone uses a quad band GSM radio for voice.

For data connectivity the phone also uses GPRS/EDGE and HSDPA data.

HSDPA stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access. Now I may not have all of this right so if anyone wants to correct me or expand upon my post please do so. HSDPA is an update to UTMS, which most commonly uses W-CDMA. HSDPA creates a new channel in the W-CDMA spectrum thus allowing for theoretical download speeds of around 7Mbits a second. I believe that HSDPA is the most common 3G standard in the world

This is a 3G phone. I personally have never heard of any cellphone or any network that uses any 3G technology for voice. Perhaps maybe in some Asian countries where voice usage is high, but I doubt it because a well laid out CDMA or GSM network should be perfectly capable.

HSDPA is built into the GSM standard, so in short you would find that if Motorola was to remove the GSM radio from this phone it wouldn't function for either data or voice.

Maybe someone else can explain this better then me.

[mrp04]

According to the Motorola site (I just skimmed it for 20 seconds using the pages linked to from the link above), the Q9 has 3G but only for data, which is weired as normally when there is a 3G radio they also use it for voice. The Q GSM which looks much nicer then the Q9 is GSM only.

3G is UMTS. UMTS is the next generation in the upgrade path for GSM carriers. It does voice AND data. The voice is much clearer and supports way more people on the same amount of spectrum. The data speeds are much faster then GPRS or EDGE. There is a software upgrade for UMTS called HSDPA which increases the downlink speed (like how EDGE was for GSM, it upgraded GPRS to a faster speed, yet it remained 2G). There is another software upgrade called HSUPA which increases uplink, but not very many phones or carriers have put that in yet.

HSDPA is built into the GSM standard, so in short you would find that if Motorola was to remove the GSM radio from this phone it wouldn't function for either data or voice.

HSDPA requires UMTS. It has both 2G and 3G radios, but it seems it is using the 3G radio ONLY for data.

[KC]

According to the Motorola site (I just skimmed it for 20 seconds using the pages linked to from the link above), the Q9 has 3G but only for data, which is weired as normally when there is a 3G radio they also use it for voice. The Q GSM which looks much nicer then the Q9 is GSM only.

3G is UMTS. UMTS is the next generation in the upgrade path for GSM carriers. It does voice AND data. The voice is much clearer and supports way more people on the same amount of spectrum. The data speeds are much faster then GPRS or EDGE. There is a software upgrade for UMTS called HSDPA which increases the downlink speed (like how EDGE was for GSM, it upgraded GPRS to a faster speed, yet it remained 2G). There is another software upgrade called HSUPA which increases uplink, but not very many phones or carriers have put that in yet.

HSDPA requires UMTS. It has both 2G and 3G radios, but it seems it is using the 3G radio ONLY for data.

UMTS uses W-CDMA as its interface (how the spectrum is allocated). The HSDPA and HSUPA protocols make a new channel in the spectrum to use for downlinking and uplinking.

I have been doing some additional reading and I think I jumped the gun on you about the whole 3G for data only; please accept my apologies.

I am still foggy on this but I believe that the 2G radio is only used for telephony when there is not any UTMS coverage or at least that is the theory behind phones sporting 3G and 2G radios. However I have read around of a few people claiming that their carrier will not let them access UTMS while on a telephone call, so perhaps the inclusion of both radios is a work around for some carriers until they implement HSUPA??

I used to be really into to this stuff but living in Idaho kinda puts a damper on my interest because my carrier will probably be one of the last ones in the world to upgrade to 3G. Sometimes its best not to know about these things..........I can get a little envious of Europe and the big cities in the U.S.

I actually just bought my first bluetooth headset :blush: , Motorola HT820, to go with my HTC Herald that is supposed to come tomorrow.

[ludeboy12]

ya i think i'll stick with my treo750....

[mrp04]

UMTS uses W-CDMA as its interface (how the spectrum is allocated). The HSDPA and HSUPA protocols make a new channel in the spectrum to use for downlinking and uplinking.

I have been doing some additional reading and I think I jumped the gun on you about the whole 3G for data only; please accept my apologies.

I am still foggy on this but I believe that the 2G radio is only used for telephony when there is not any UTMS coverage or at least that is the theory behind phones sporting 3G and 2G radios. However I have read around of a few people claiming that their carrier will not let them access UTMS while on a telephone call, so perhaps the inclusion of both radios is a work around for some carriers until they implement HSUPA??

I used to be really into to this stuff but living in Idaho kinda puts a damper on my interest because my carrier will probably be one of the last ones in the world to upgrade to 3G. Sometimes its best not to know about these things..........I can get a little envious of Europe and the big cities in the U.S.

I actually just bought my first bluetooth headset :blush: , Motorola HT820, to go with my HTC Herald that is supposed to come tomorrow.

I have never bought a bluetooth headset!

With 3G, you can use both voice and data at the same time, but not with 2G. I do not know if this combination of 2 and 3G lets you, but there is no reason to not let you use voice on 3G. I do not know. All I know, is if I want a 3G Q styled phone, I would get the BlackJack.

I currently have a Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) and am sticking to that until Cingular 3G is up in Minneapolis/St.Paul area. I really like the new Toshiba G900, but it will probably cost an arm and a leg.

The HTC Herald is pretty cool, but it seems kind of outdated as with my Wizard. They have pretty much identicle specifications, other then the Herald is much thinner. I wouldn't buy a 2G phone anymore, even if 3G isn't expected for a while...

[KC]

I have never bought a bluetooth headset!

With 3G, you can use both voice and data at the same time, but not with 2G. I do not know if this combination of 2 and 3G lets you, but there is no reason to not let you use voice on 3G. I do not know. All I know, is if I want a 3G Q styled phone, I would get the BlackJack.

I currently have a Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) and am sticking to that until Cingular 3G is up in Minneapolis/St.Paul area. I really like the new Toshiba G900, but it will probably cost an arm and a leg.

The HTC Herald is pretty cool, but it seems kind of outdated as with my Wizard. They have pretty much identicle specifications, other then the Herald is much thinner. I wouldn't buy a 2G phone anymore, even if 3G isn't expected for a while...

I just got home from work and opened up the box. I was amazed by how small the device is, its almost too small!

I know its CPU is pretty weak but so far it seems snappy. I pretty much will only use it for productivity reasons so it doesn't need to be a record setter for my needs. I have put some songs on it and so far it seems fine. Gonna pair my HT820's now and see what happens.

[#Michael]

Anyone know a release date for this?

[mrp04]

Anyone know a release date for this?

Nothing has been said. Have you taken a look at the BlackJack or T-Mobile DASH? They have the same form factors. The BlackJack is pretty much the same as the Q but the DASH has no 3G but has WiFi.

[#Michael]

Nothing has been said. Have you taken a look at the BlackJack or T-Mobile DASH? They have the same form factors. The BlackJack is pretty much the same as the Q but the DASH has no 3G but has WiFi.

IMO t-mobile has terrible coverage. The blackjack is ok but I am not crazy about the button layout. Also the BJ has wm5 while the new Q will have wm6 as the os.

[mrp04]

There are rumors though that the BJ will get WM6. Even if it doesn't, WM6 is just the latest WM5 AKU with a couple enhancements, they make it better, but not by that much.