Many years ago, I used to be a big Palm fan, spending hours trying to shoehorn my life into a little electronic device.  More recently, I’ve moved to more of a paper-based approach to managing my life.  However, I still like to have access to a few things while I’m out and about: a digital camera, my phone book, my calendar, e-mail, and the web.

Lured by the Q

I started looking around for another phone, deciding to branch out beyond T-Mobile and see what had changed in the market in the past couple of years.  After going to a few stores and spending endless hours (just ask my wife) reading reviews on the web, I decided to get the Motorola Q.  The biggest issue: I was going to have to pay more than double for a plan that was roughly equivalent to my existing T-Mobile plan.

So I went to my local Verizon-owned mall kiosk and signed up for a new Q  I got a temporary number so I could make sure I liked the phone before committing completely, as it makes it a lot easier to return the new one if you don’t like it.  And that worked wonders for me in this situation, because I returned it shortly thereafter.

The good

One thing really stood out about this phone: web browsing was fast as hell.  I mean, super-duper, how-in-the-heck-does-this-little-slice-of-electronics-do-that fast.

The bad

But everything else quickly added up to a return.  Here are a few of those things:

First one they sold me was defective, second had a bad “T”

No way to enter non-US characters on the keyboard

Windows Mobile UI is awful, especially compared to Sidekick

Bundled/embedded apps from Motorola didn’t help much

While thin, felt very large in my (long-fingered) hands

Absolutely awful, taking grainy, impressionistic pictures

Couldn’t use it as a modem with my laptop

The biggest kicker?  I’m still trying to get the rest of my money back, because the kiosk jockeys screwed up my purchase and it’s in the system wrong and doesn’t allow returns ...

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