Review: Motorola Hint QA30

So for the later part of this year I’ve been carrying the Motorola K1m KRZR up untill now…

When I discovered the new QA30 Hint from Motorola I had always wanted a phone that was a cross between a smartphone and an iPhone that worked without requiring a data plan so I could use it on my Alltel-U PrePaid Plan. This phone was a good balance for that because it had email, a QWERTY keyboard, music player and video/still camera. 

As for the build quality its solid construction, solid sliding keyboard, tactile keys (although weird at first), rubber coated back cover so it stays in your pocket. The basic phone functionality is great too, I get the usual good reception expected from Motorola and the call quality is great. I also enjoy the unique size of the this model. You can talk with the unit closed or open. The voice commands worked really well. When listening to music and a call comes in, the player will fade out to allow the call to be answered and when the call is ended, the player fades back in to resume playback. 

The music player has great sound even through the included earbuds, but this phone is not for people wanting to use it for podcasts since it doesn’t resume from where you left off if you quit the music player and then play the song again. The music player manages mp3s by their ID3 tags which is important if you want to listen to an album as it is arranged on the CD. On the other hand there isn’t a good program to manage music with this device. Winamp does an alright job but the sync capability isn’t that great. Nothing beats an iPod with iTunes for managing music and syncing podcasts imho. 

Email & messaging - Email seems to be compatible with most POP/IMAP servers. I use it with my Gmail account, but the problem with the email client is that it’s too basic. It would be nice to change more advanced IMAP settings such as how many emails to download from the inbox since I have 1000’s and it didn’t retrieve many of them in order, even after letting it check for new mail for 10-15 minutes! In the end, it’s great for sending email but not that great for receiving it. The QWERTY keyboard is great for txting. The messaging client has a conversations layout option much like instant messenger clients so you see the conversations back and forth rather than a list of all your messages by when they were received. 

Summary:

Pros: Solid construction, tactile QWERTY keyboard, beautiful and snappy user interface, great quality audio through phone and included headphones, memory expandable through microSDHC to 8gb, music player reads ID3 tags correctly, 2MP camera produces quality pics.

Cons: Bad for podcasts since music player doesn’t resume from where it left off if the music player is closed and opened again. Lowest volume setting is actually too loud through the included earbuds. Email client is too basic, no advanced server settings.