The Motorola Q comes with Microsoft’s light version of Voice Command. I missed the full version that was on my old Treo 700w, so I ponied up the $40 and purchased Microsoft’s Voice Command 1.6 for Smartphone. Here’s my review…

My initial reaction is that the computerized voice volume was far too loud through the Q’s speakers. My profile is on Normal, ring volume at the default 4. I tried setting the ring volume to 1. That didn’t solve the problem. I tried changing the profile from Normal to Silent. That didn’t stop it either. It’s so loud through the speakers (Bluetooth volume is fine) that it almost sounds like its blowing out the Q’s poor little speakers!

The next problem is that the VC responses were spoken a tad too quickly. Thanks to a user at qusers.com, the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Speech\Voices registry hack (changing DefaultTTSRate value from 5 to 2) worked perfectly!

The computerized voice with VC 1.6 on the Q seem worse than VC on my old Treo 700w. It is similar but worse over Bluetooth. The computerized voice is harder to understand, and the voice recognition for contacts is not as good, either. I didn’t have any problems with the standard “what time is it”, “what are my appointments”, “what is my battery level”, “start solitaire”, etc. but when I told it to “Dial First Last on Mobile” it just brought up the contact information for First Last and asked me which one to call.

I tested the text message announcement, where I’d send my phone a text message and it would read it (in its entirety) out loud upon receipt (without any prompting). The problem is the text-to-speech reading is also too loud. Plus I don’t want others to hear my (possibly) personal text messages read out loud, so I turned this feature off.

The caller announcements worked as expected, so I left that turned on. It plays the ringtone, but every ~2 seconds it lowers the ringtone volume a tad and announces “Call from First Last”. Very nice.

Speaking “Dial one eight hundred…” also worked great. With the standard VC software that comes with the Q you have to use digits, i.e. “Dial one eight zero zero”. Just a nice shortcut, as I am used to reading 800 numbers as eight-hundred, not “eight zero zero”!

Overall, the full version of Microsoft Voice Command for the Smartphone is a worthwhile upgrade over the lighter version that comes with the Q, but it does have problems. The biggest problem is the volume level of the VC prompts through the speakers (again, the volume level through Bluetooth is fine). The second is the quality of the VC prompts (the female computer voice) sounds like Microsoft used technology from 10+ years ago. There’s better software out there for text-to-speech, Microsoft. Go find it! It’s hard to understand what this person is saying half the time…

The ability to view, edit and create Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, view Adobe PDF files as well as unzip files on your smartphone is coming… but not from Microsoft. Check out DataViz’ DocumentsToGo. It is currently available in preview, and seems to work as advertised on the Motorola Q.

I found a direct link to NFL Mobile, for those of you who want to get at Sprint’s offering:

http://nfl.mspot.com/NFL4/html/home.php

That link doesn’t work from a PC, so don’t bother clicking.

I went there from my Verizon Motorola Q and it works great.

It’s been a few weeks now since I switched from the Treo 700w to the Motorola Q and I’ve made it official by sending in the $50 rebate form and selling the Treo 700w on eBay for more than I paid for it a year ago. For my full review of the Q vs. Treo 700w, click here.

I’ve purchased a few new Bluetooth headsets to play with, including a Y-adapter for my car so I can charge both the phone and the BT headset at the same time. While it seems completely unnecessary with this phone, I also purchased an extended battery from Seidio (doubles the battery life of the Q) and the extended battery door from VZW (since Seidio only has silver). I figure I’ll use it for long days, skiing, theme parks, etc. when I might need it. With that being said, a recent trip to Disneyland allowed me to use my Q throughout the day, checking email and surfing the web while waiting in long lines. At one point I fired up the Disney movie “Cars” on my phone so my daughter and I could watch it while waiting to get on a ride. Even after posting a long message in a forum post on the drive home, I still had plenty of battery life (with the stock battery). It truly is impressive how thin this phone is and how much battery life you get. I’ve never seen that kind of performance. It is the complete opposite of the Treo 700w battery hog!

So, after some good real-life use, a few things bug me about this phone, but they are real minor. First, I really miss the slide switch on the top of the Treo 700w that allows you to turn on and off all sound. To do this on the Q you have to navigate menus, and the jog wheel on the right side will work, but it’s not easy to adjust volume this way. Speaking of sound, if you have the phone on silent, this only applies to the ringer. If you fire up a movie or a game, it does not apply. So there’s no chance to play Space Invaders in church (not that I would do that).

The other thing the Treo 700w had was the ability to lock the keyboard after a few seconds of inactivity. This is great for those of us who holster our phones in a side pouch or drop it into your pocket. With the Q, again, you have to navigate menus to lock the keyboard and to unlock you have to press two buttons (as opposed to just one on the Treo 700w). What a PITA.

With the success I had with the InvisibleSHIELD on my Treo 700w (after a year’s use, it had no scratches on the body or screen), I scooped up the InvisibleSHIELD screen protector for my Q phone. I didn’t opt for the entire body wrap since I didn’t think it would look good on the black Q’s new rubberized skin. Hopefully the protection from Motorola will suffice.

And finally, one other difference that I’ve noticed with the Q vs. the Treo 700w that I do miss. When a call came in on the Treo, it spoke who was calling “Call from John Doe”. The voice command software on the Q appears to be a light version of what’s on the Treo 700w (it has less commands) and it does not appear to offer this call announce feature.

Like I said, all these things are really minor but worth noting for those who care.

And most importantly… my Q has not locked up once since I got it. I haven’t had a problem viewing any websites, downloading/reading mail, etc. It is a SOLID product. Initially I was cycling my Treo almost hourly due to problems, but after they patched it I still had to do it reset it every day or two. The Q’s call volume is awesome, the speakerphone is great, battery life is amazing, size/weight is unheard of, the screen rocks, Bluetooth support rules… clearly I far too many good things to say enough about this phone so I’ll shut up now.