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Unmaking Motorola's Q
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a breakdown of Motorola's Q Phone, looking at the cost of each of its components. From the article:
'It costs Motorola about $158 to build the phone. That includes components and assembly but excludes other expenses such as marketing, distribution, and licensing fees to Microsoft, which makes the phone's Windows Mobile operating system.' By comparaison, the BlackBerry 8700, only costs $123 according to the article. The difference between the two, the BlackBerry 'doesn't play video or music, and unlike the Q, it doesn't have a camera.'"
I'm always a little shocked when I see things like this.
It's quite difficult to gauge the true cost of a consumer device when you don't know:
- Component purchase volumes and associated discounts
- Overhead (R&D, administrative costs)
- IP licensing - both for the finished good and associated components (patent fees, etc.)
- Who manufactured certain key components (the LCD is mentioned)
- Locus of manufacture (which country?)
- Test and rework costs (what defect rates are expected of raw components and finished assemblies, what quality standard?)
Am I alone in not being attracted by all these bells and whistles phones have these days? I want a phone to be a phone - I already have a digital camera to take pictures, and a music player to play music. Why try to cram all these features into a mobile phone, which just complicates the user interface and adds cost?
And don't get me started on email on phones - several of our managers have Blackberries, and despite their bigger keypads, it is still painfully obvious a message was created on one. Plus they tend to be sent at 10:30pm...
We have a new joke going around the office - have you heard about the new crime wave of Blackberry muggings? Crazed people accost you, force their Blackberry on you, and scarper.
Do as you would be done to.
RIM Blackberry is the only phone available in the US that offers a fraction of the communications functionality Europeans take for granted. Even then, Blackberry is just a promise given the Reseller Plan's which throttle what little useful functionality is in the device to add-on services.
Camera, MP3, video objectify the space into lust-have consumerism which drives a cultish demand producing absolutely no redeeming downpayment on the future.
You know, that whole "free market" thingy...
It is a free market. But the customers are the carriers, not the consumers that end up using the phones. If the US had a mobile phone market where you could use the same handset with any provider perhaps you would start seeing phones offered to please the end-user. As it is, what they're selling and you're buying is a provider phone plan; the phone is just the necessary piece of gear to use the plan.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
...is that the Blackberry WORKS! Those Q's are nice to look at but terrible to use. We bought 6 at work when they first came out, 4 have been returned in favor of the Blackberry. The Blackberry does less, but it's reliable. Here's the mini-review I give to everyone at work who asks about them:
The Good:
-The screen is nice, bright, easy to read indoors, and a nice size in general.
-The general form factor. I like thin devices and the Q is that, it doesn't seem to have unneeded bulk.
-The network. Some like it, some hate it, but few will argue that Verizon's EVDO network is fast where you can get it. Allows for streaming a Slingbox nicely.
The Bad:
-Most of the problems can in some way be related back to Windows Mobile SMARTPHONE Edition. Had they gone with the full PocketPC software (and required touchscreen) the interface would be less awkward to move around in and you could do simple things like, oh I don't know, switch back to that task in the background?
-The keyboard...sucks. Most similar devices (mostly referring to Blackberries, Palm Treo's, and a couple others) have standardized portions of the key layout. For instance the backspace key is next to the L key so it's easy to get to since you typo a lot on small keyboards. On the Q it's a flat button, unlike the letters, up near the D-Pad and easy to miss (actually had someone ask me where it was after they had been using it for a week). The Enter key is where the backspace key should be (you can imagine what problems THAT causes), the only shift key is on the right side of the keyboard near the bottom (unlike the others). And in general the keyboard just doesn't have a good "feel" to it.
-The scroll-wheel, they should have left it off completely. The Smartphone interface wasn't designed for it. I believe they only put it on their to lure the Blackberry users, which is fine if it actually behaved like the Blackberry's, but it doesn't. You can't use it as the primary navigation tool like the Blackberry (you can only scroll vertically), and it is slow to respond to any input. Even the little bump they put around it to supposedly protect it from accidental activation hinders its usefulness.
-Stability, or lack there-of, may relate back to the Windows Smartphone OS, but we have other Smartphones that are MUCH, MUCH more stable. The Q will get hung up on the simplest tasks. If it's not freezing completely, it has dropped the network and won't reconnect until you reboot.
-No push-mail. They didn't ship the Q with the AKU2 service pack so it can't use Exchange Mobility push mail. That would be fine, because we have a Goodlink server, but Goodlink doesn't run well on the device due to the Smartphone interface. For one thing, we require a password, but on Smartphones Goodlink limits passwords to just numbers which require the use of the ALT key on the Q.
-It just seems slow. Nothing on the device seems to launch, run or close fast. In fact I often find myself setting it down while waiting for it to do something.
-Battery life...painful. My Blackberry will usually last about 4 days if only used for e-mail, 2-3 if using the cell phone. Motorola Q: 13 hours, which is coincidentally the exact amount of time one user's relationship with the device lasted.
-Charging. It has a mini-USB plug so you should be able to charge it anywhere, right? Wrong. If you want to charge it from a computer you have to have the POS ActiveSync software installed. If you want to charge it from the wall, you'd better have brought your Motorola USB charger because 70% of the mini-USB chargers I have tried won't work. Some will power the device but not charge the battery and some won't even register. It's not the amount of power either. I have one that provides up to 1100mA while the Motorola one provides 800mA, but it won't work. I haven't figured out why yet.
Cheap build quality. While we haven't damaged any, they just don't feel very durable. I've dropped, tossed, kicked and stepped on my Blackberry. I dare not set the Q down on a table hard, it feels l
I think it's interesting with all of the power of the web that some news sites, generally seems to be the sites of more traditional media, neglect to furnish a basic image of the device or subject in question. I'm interested in a photo just because I've never heard of or seen this thing.
Google Image Link
+10
Hardware cost of the mobile phone is nothing compared to all the licensed buzz-words: GSM, UMTS, TDMA, CDMA, etc. That all stuff has to be coded and tested of course: in both hardware and software. Licensing costs for such hardware/software easily run into numbers with 6 (six) and more zeros at the end.
And embedded OSs they use - like Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm OS - all can easily run into $30-200 per phone. Or you think they started thinking of Linux just for fun?
P.S. Reminds me why GSM won over technically superior CDMA in USA. The only "problem" with CDMA was stupid licensing and patent regime established by Qualcomm and Co (bunch of old companies afraid to be left aside of market.) 3GPP learned the lesson and UMTS had won again over US crowd - mostly due to friendly licensing. More or less all 3G wireless networks deployed around the world are derivatives of european UMTS. Licensing is no simple question to ignore.
P.P.S. Long time ago, one chinese CE manufacterer speculated that to produce $200 Palm PDA they need only about $40. So the numbers in article aren't really surprising.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Has anyone ever used this thing longer than it takes to write some shallow review?
I have. I do mobile device development. I think, and *all* of my coworkers will agree with me, the Q sucks.
First off, the buttons are too small if you have fingers larger than a four year old's. The BlackBerry 8700 is pretty good, and the Palm with it's raised bubbly buttons, provide great control and feedback.
Second, they just did *stupid* stuff to the interface. Stuff that makes me think the thing is under-powered. For example, if you have a long list of items, the Q will paginate the list instead of making one long list. That is obnoxious with a capital O. It just constantly breaks down elements into small chunks, adding unnecessary clicks and scrolls.
The core problem, IMHO, is that Windows Mobile is not designed to work without a touch screen. However, in their attempts to make a BlackBerry-like clone, they've forced the OS to operate without a point-and-click interface. And they failed miserably.