Motorola Q 9m Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Mark Brezinski Published on December 31, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (23.81)
The plugin on the main screen of the Q 9m was able to get a song playing in about 0.84 seconds, which is very, very fast. The first time you're booting up the music, however, it might take another second to load. Even with this delay, the Q 9m's home screen puts you very close to the music. Of course, as you'll read below, the media plugin is far from perfect.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Motorola Q 9m | 0.84 | 23.81 |
| Palm Centro | 3.22 | 6.21 |
| Motorola Q | 8.1 | 2.47 |
| Pantech Duo | 3.39 | 5.90 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 7.62 | 2.62 |
| Nokia N95 with 3G | 11.82 | 1.69 |
Dedicated Music Controls (0.5)
Usually we award home screen plugins a point or two depending on how good they are. We really liked the home screen plugin for the most part, and would've awarded it a few points, but it does have a few limitations. First of all, while it offers a lot of functionality, it is much more limited than the actual media player. Normally this isn't an issue since the plugin is just an extension of the media player, but in this case the plugin and media player are separate.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.8)
The Q 9m has the great advantage of being gifted with two fully-functioning media players. One is the always-impressive Windows Media Player, and the other is a great home screen plugin. The problem stems from their schitzophrenic relationship. Though they're both media players, they're separate in virtually every way. This means you can't alter WMP's playback with the controls on the home screen and vice versa. You can actually get a song playing on both at the same time. Though this is an interesting trick, we doubt it was intentional.
Online Song Downloading (5.0)
As a Verizon phone, the Q 9m supports V CAST Music. If you like paying too much for music and bright, cornea-scarring red backgrounds, you'll love this service.
Streaming (2.0)
As a Windows Mobile device, you can stream WMA files.
Podcast Support (0.0)
There is not podcast client built in to the Q 9m.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
Music synchronization is done via Windows Media Player on a PC, although the phone comes with a Verizon Music Manager software CD. We'd recommend you leave it in the case, however, and stick with what works.
Music Formats and DRM (3.0)
You can play both regular WMA files and DRM-protected ones. You can also play Mp3 files. You'll need to convert any AAC or Real files with Windows Media Player before importing them to the phone.
Music Interruption (10.0)
The Q 9m handles music interruption just as it should. When you receive a call while music is playing, the music will automatically pause. When the conversation ends, music will automatically begin to replay. We wish there was an option for a fade-in, however, for those of us who like loud, abrasive music.
Video
Video Software Access (2.39)
It took us 8.38 seconds to get a video playing, which isn't good. You can't use the home screen plugin to get videos running. Instead, you have to browse to Windows Media Player, and wait a half second between each click. The video did load relatively quickly, however, but the navigation necessary to get to that point was very slow.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Motorola Q 9m | 8.38 | 2.39 |
| Palm Centro | 3.16 | 6.33 |
| Motorola Q | 8.6 | 2.33 |
| Pantech Duo | 5.8 | 3.45 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 8.08 | 2.48 |
| Nokia N95 with 3G | 10.22 | 1.96 |
Video Controls (5.0)
Windows Media Player is also used for video playback, so the controls are virtually identical. Forward/reverse skip is done with left and right, up and down alter volume, and select is play/pause. You can bring up the Now Playing list with the left soft key and the menu with the right one.
Video Software & Organization (4.0)
As is often the case, the video software is inferior to the music software. In this case, however, it's a bit odd since they're both extensions of the same program. The first difference is the limited search options: you can only sort by title or genre. This is disappointing because videos retain their full tags, which are viewable; you just can't sort by any of this additional information.
Video Sync with PC (7.0)
Video synchronization should be done with Windows Media Player for maximum ease.
Video Formats (3.0)
Windows Media Player will play back 3GPP, MP4, and Windows Media files. Other files, such as Flash and Real, are out of luck.
Video DRM (5.0)
As with music files, the only supported DRM-protected files are Windows Media files. Other common DRM-encoded files, such as iTunes songs, won't play correctly.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
We were able to play back videos with bitrates up to 768 kbps. This means your videos shouldn't freeze or skip.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
There currently isn't any phone that supports online video downloading, not even the iPhone, which already comes with iTunes. Call this category wishful thinking.
Video Streaming unscored
We don't score streaming video because there's currently no standard we could judge it against. We were only able to get Windows Media files to stream off windowsmedia.com. Sites like YouTube and Zoovision wouldn't play back correctly on the device.
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