Verizon getting exclusive on Moto Q

We've been hearing for some time now that the Motorola Q would be coming to Verizon and Sprint first, with versions for other carriers out later in the year. Now, it looks like Verizon may have scored a coup, and shut Sprint out of that initial launch. According to a teaser that's now up on Verizon's site, the long-awaited smartphone will be available "exclusively from Verizon Wireless." We don't know how long that exclusive is going to last; we still expect Sprint to roll out a version pretty quickly. In the meantime, though, if you absolutely must get your Q next week, it looks like you now know where to go.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Jim @ May 18th 2006 10:24AM]

Ohhh...pretty. Gotta love those flash demo's

[Korey @ May 18th 2006 10:56AM]

Im suprised Cingular had i repeat had the RAZR owns the SLVR the L2 and L6 but not the Q interestingi wonder where cingulars head was at

[Ben @ May 18th 2006 11:01AM]

Any ideas on pricing of this bad boy? I'm sure it's gonna be ridiculous.

[Intrepid @ May 18th 2006 11:04AM]

A MOTO running Windows? Apple must be happy about this...

[James Rice @ May 18th 2006 11:21AM]

Damn it, thats another $500 or so out of my wallet :)

[Ketan @ May 18th 2006 11:31AM]

Has anyone gotten their hands on this to test? I wanted to know how hard it is to type on it. I hate the Treo 700 for it's keyboard...love the RIM blackberry keys. Which one is this more like?

[xbit @ May 18th 2006 11:33AM]

A Verizon exclusive makes sense.

With all the problems with the Microsoft-based MPx220 and MPx smartphones, I guess Motorola wanted to test the waters with this phone before launching it to a mass market (i.e. multiple GSM carriers worldwide).

Let's hope that Motorola/Microsoft have learnt from their past mistakes.

[Ted @ May 18th 2006 11:36AM]

Look like no push email (exchange activesync) out of the box in Ver 1.0 however. Verizon is pushing their "dektop sync solution" instead. Hopefully a firmware update will fix that like they did with the 700w. And hopefully Good will support this right off the bat...so at least you can get push that way

[Bunkalicious @ May 18th 2006 11:49AM]

Its no surprise that sprint missed out again!

[IWantTouchScreen @ May 18th 2006 11:49AM]

That's ok James, you'll get it back once you return it 10 days later. When has Motorola+SmartphoneOS+SlimnessMeansCrappyBatteryLife ever sounded like a good idea to anyone?

[Jeremy @ May 18th 2006 12:11PM]

Does anyone know if the Q is made of similar materials as the RAZR?

[John Stracke @ May 18th 2006 12:23PM]

"Exclusive" could just mean that nobody else has the custom version that Verizon will be selling—say, one with Bluetooth crippled.

[Ben Freedman @ May 18th 2006 12:24PM]

I think the 'desktop sync' solution for push email is an additional $15/month, unless they come out with a new package just for this phone...

Any ideas on the price point yet?

[duerra @ May 18th 2006 12:31PM]

Does it support WiFi?

[mark @ May 18th 2006 1:06PM]

does ne1 know whether vzw will be offering this in that HOT HOT HOT black color?

-m

[doubtful @ May 18th 2006 1:39PM]

Nothing says Blackberry killer quite like 'exclusive to Verizon.'

[Matt @ May 18th 2006 1:52PM]

This thing is crap, if you want a keyboard to type stuff in thats fine. But if you want a real PDA Phone look elsewhere. Examples of some very sweet phones can be found overseas from manufacturers such as ETEN (The ETEN M600 which I have), and I-Mate/O2/Orange.

The US will always be 1-2 years behind the overseas market because of the split between GSM and CDMA carriers. Another fine example of competting technologies hurting the consumer.

[Brad @ May 18th 2006 2:08PM]

Can anyone tell me if i will be able to sync this with my macbook pro without having to instal boot camp?

[Ted @ May 18th 2006 3:07PM]

Matt said:

>>This thing is crap, if you want a keyboard to type
>>stuff in thats fine. But if you want a real PDA Phone
>>look elsewhere. Examples of some very sweet phones can
>>be found overseas from manufacturers such as ETEN (The
>>ETEN M600 which I have), and I-Mate/O2/Orange

Matt, that's all fine and good expect the ETEN doesn't have a builtin keyboard. That's HUGE to most people who want true usability with these devices. Additionally, the GPRS speed is crap! EVDO is super fast and it makes a tremendous difference on these devices being useful or not. Wi-Fi is practically not necessary for the most part.

[jeff @ May 18th 2006 4:16PM]

I talked to my Verizon business rep and tried to order the Q for the "may 22 release" he said, "we won't be getting them until June 2, or possibly June 9 at the earliest." So it looks like Moto/Verizon will miss ANOTHER "lunch" date.

[flamer's grill @ May 18th 2006 4:48PM]

Matt:

Those "sweet pda phones" you can find in europe and elsewhere are mostly all made by a single manufacturer that isn't i-mate/o2/orange.

[PizzaDood @ May 18th 2006 4:51PM]

June 2 and 9, huh? Those are Fridays.... not a typical day for release...

[Andrew @ May 18th 2006 5:00PM]

After the launch they will initially be available only to high volume business customers. I had not heard a general public launch date yet, but June could be a fair estimate.
The training materials have been distributed to VZW stores for a few weeks now, so unlike the previous rumors, this launch seems to be the real deal.

[paolo @ May 18th 2006 7:55PM]

so what did verizon cripple this time with the Q? is it going to be bluetooth??

[AA Mac Maven @ May 18th 2006 8:38PM]

I just got a Motorola e815 yesterday. The guy in the store swore that bluetooth was disabled and it would not pair with my Mac. I took it home. Scrolled to the Settings:Bluetooth menu and made it Findable. Then I turned bluetooth on on both my Powerbook G4 10.4.6 and my eMac 10.4.6. Made them Discoverable. Then looked for devices. Bluetooth Setup Assistant came up, paired seamlessly with the phone AND then asked me if I wanted to iSync with it. After saying "yes" it automatically pulled in all 547 entries in my Address Book. Wow! So I would expect that this new Moto phone would be able to do the same. God bless Apple.

[Mike @ May 18th 2006 9:57PM]

I got to play around with the Motorola Q recently, and I must say, it was quite fun. It's being billed as a blackberry killer not just because it's a new entry into the market, but because of the multimedia functions it supports. I was quite impressed with the video that was playing on it, even though it was an episode of Deserate Housewives. It was quite high quality, but did stutter frequently, but I was assured by the Motorola rep that this was because it was merely an old beta unit and it would obviously be fixed before launch. Despite this, I was told it had all the standard functions, EVDO, WiFi, Bluetooth. I didn't have a side-by-side comparison available, but it appeared to be roughly as thick as the SLVR, perhaps the RAZR (closed, of course). One slightly disappointing feature is that there is no touch screen, it uses a blackberry-styled scroll wheel on the side. However, the buttons were easy to use, more so than the Treo 650 since theyre a little bigger and not squeezed as tightly together. The other particular function I was told about was that it pulls your new email on command rather than syncing new e-mail the instant it's available. This might give a little more control back to those who want to use this for work but want to keep their free time to themselves.

All in all, I don't know about killing such a deeply entrenched device like the blackberry, but it's not a bad alternative at all. It's not designed exclusively for business use so perhaps it will be warmly embraced by people.

And I swear I don't work for Motorola. :)

[jai @ May 19th 2006 7:53AM]

Motorola A1000 is exceptionally handy with all the latest features intact smartly. The set is already there in the market and I do not know how it handles the pressure of customer-specific market.
Of course it is a PDA comes with excellent features of latest mobile jargon.
I found it very trendy and equipped.

[Korey @ May 19th 2006 9:38AM]

I think the US should Drop CDMA service and switch to gsm
So phones no longer are locked to one company and u can swap phones whenever the hell u want

[Orneta @ May 19th 2006 9:31PM]

Verizon sure has been getting the good exclusives lately.

[Samoo @ May 20th 2006 11:09AM]

I had chance to briefly play with this gorgious and sexy smartphone. All of the above were right except that it doesn't have WIFI which I don't need anyway as verizon is offering unlimited data package for some $40 or so. Video quality was unbeliable and felt quite similar to my HDTV (I couldn't beleive it can be that nice)with EVDO speed this thing will rock. If it $299.00 with 2 year contact then I will have one the day it will release. I also heart that it will be available with Cingular by the end of this year or early next year when UMTS will be fully (hopefully :) implemented. But one thing I can tell you for sure when hold this thing in your hand you feel that this will become the best of the best smartphone in the market. Way to Go Moto

[ZJL @ May 26th 2006 12:52AM]

I played with Q a little bit and liked the GUI much more than BlackBerry. It's not a mobile device, but a a Windows PC we are familiar with with camera and cellular phone capabilities, and a small enough device for you to carry in the pocket unlike others