Motorola Q, Amp'd Edition

Overview
Positives: The Motorola Q boasts a sexy, ultrathin design and features a sharp display, a full QWERTY keyboard, and multimedia functionality. The Amp'd Edition also includes access to the carrier's TV and music services, and it features a revamped, hipper interface. This Windows Mobile 5 smart phone has integrated Bluetooth, a speakerphone, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and solid call quality. Negatives: Video playback on the Moto Q, Amp'd Edition was a bit choppy, and it was sluggish when accessing and downloading multimedia content. Facts: The Motorola Q, Amp'd Edition brings a fresh look and content to the Windows Mobile smart phone that will appeal to the provider's younger audience. Note: This product is part of the Motorola Q series. .

Full Review

Make no mistake, this ain't your daddy's Motorola Q. Amp'd Mobile, an MVNO that targets the young-and-urban demographic, introduced its own, semirevamped version of the sleek Moto Q for all its young, future corporate-climbing subscribers. Since the hardware and core applications of the Amp'd Q are similar to the other models, we will concentrate on the different, carrier-specific content and the performance of the Amp'd Edition for this review. For more information on the design and basic features, please read our review of the Motorola Q. The Motorola Q, Amp'd Edition is available for $199. Hipper interface The Motorola Q, Amp'd Edition features an updated Flash interface that makes it a little less business-like and a little more hip and edgy. By default, the sleek Amp'd home screen is set as the background image, and the carrier's entertainment portal is placed prominently at the top of the screen (rather than recently used apps, which are now on the bottom of the screen) for easy access. Of course, you can customize the Q to your liking and change the layout, the display image, the color scheme, and the backlight time. If the preloaded images don't float your boat, you can purchase a wide range of graphics and wallpapers from Amp'd Live. The Amp'd version of the Q sports the newer, black casing and ships with an AC adapter, a 256MB mini SD card and an adapter, and reference material. To find more accessories, wallpapers, and ringtones for the Motorola Q, please check out our cell phone accessories page. Entertainment to go, albeit a little slow Amp'd Mobile provides a lot of content to keep users informed and entertained through its Amp'd Live TV and music offerings. Amp'd TV gives you access to channels such as Fox News, NBA TV, MTV, Comedy Central, A&E, Discovery Mobile, and much more. The carrier also produces original programming with titles including Lil' Hollywood, which captures the trials and tribulations of celebrities in animated episodes, and a fashion show called Fashion Sense. For music fans, you can listen to streaming audio via Amp'd Radio or purchase songs for 99 cents. In addition, the smart phone has integrated Bluetooth with support for the A2DP profile, so you can pair the phone with stereo Bluetooth headsets. Amp'd also does a nice thing by providing you quick links to topics--Sports, Entertainment, News, and Lifestyle--where you can find relevant Web site links, multimedia content, and more. Other goodies include games, tips, upgrades, and a search function for the Amp'd Live app. Be aware that most of the Amp'd Live material comes at a cost. While we loved the variety of content, accessing it required a bit of patience. Downloading songs and TV shows took 5 minutes or longer, and we were often greeted with messages like "Your request cannot be processed at this time" or "Cannot connect to the server." It was all a bit frustrating and certainly time consuming. Multimedia performance was mixed. Music playback was great. There was plenty of volume through the Moto Q's dual speakers, and sound was impressive for a cell phone with good bass and balance. The video experience was less reliable. Sometimes playback was smooth, with synchronized audio and video; other times the picture was quite choppy. Loud and clear We tested the dual-band (CDMA 800/1900; EV-DO) Motorola Q, Amp'd Edition in San Francisco, and call quality was excellent. The audio quality was really clear on both ends, and sound didn't diminish when we activated the speakerphone. In fact, we were quite impressed at how loud and clear calls sounded with the speakerphone. We also had no problems pairing the Moto Q with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset. The Q is rated for 4 hours of talk time and up to 8 days of standby time. In our battery tests, we got 5 hours, 40 minutes of talk time on a single charge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Moto Q has a digital SAR rating of 1.14 watts per kilogram.

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Motorola Q, Amp'd Edition

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