My New Motorola Q Is Great (But Vista is Killing Me)

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Vista Launched today and I wrote a bunch of nice things about it on my ZDNet blog. I thought we were friends. Then I brought home my new cell phone, a Motorola Q and Vista and I had a falling out.

I love the phone. I’ve been hearing great things about the BlackJack, but I’m on Verizon and so I went with the Q. It’s slim, it feels pretty good in my hands and after a bit of playing with it I got the hang of the keyboard. I’m also addicted to having email on my phone and it’s only been 5 hours. I’m not sure what exactly that says about me, but I think it’s going to mean a lot more email.

Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to get to to do anything BUT email because I can’t sync it with my computer. Vista doesn’t support ActiveSync 4.2, which comes with my phone, but instead it’s using some stupid Windows Mobile Device Center which is only in Beta 3 despite the fact that Vista shipped today. But I would even be okay with running beta software if it actually worked with my phone. When I plug my phone into the USB port it just sits there and this fancy new Windows Mobile Device Center doesn’t realize it is supposed to talk to my phone. So that means no contacts, no calendar items and an unhappy Ryan. But I am enjoying mail, the phone is really cool, and it’s much easier to Twitter now.

[tags]Microsoft, Windows Vista, Vista, Motorola Q, Verizon[/tags]

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  • dave

    get a mac and you’ll have the original “vista” but it will actually work ;) ~

    When I bought my razr, the guy at verizon said there was no way in hell it would work or be recognized by a mac, so i went home opened up isync turned on my phone and walla, there it was and sync’d away.

    Just got done with reformatting a bunch of the families pcs last week & it was amazing how many things just didnt work and I’d have to spend hours upon hours finding drivers, hacks, etc…

    Yet I could plug anything into my mac and it “just works”, microsoft seriously needs to get a clue and also not release software before its ready.

    I know you love m$ but someday you will get sick of the problems and get a mac!

  • Joe Groner

    Install WMDC Beta 3. Go to Start->Settings->Connections->USB to PC. Uncheck the box next to “Enable advanced network functionality” and hit the left softkey (“Done”). Plug it in again. You may have to plug it in twice if the device is password protected.

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Dave,

    Hey, I’m getting a Mack Book Pro in the next couple of weeks. I’ll definitely be blogging about that, but my wife is going to mostly use it for grad school, so she’s the one I had to convince. One I got her to understand she could still use Windows, she was okay with it. I want to see how quickly she switches to all-Mac (the hold up is that our Adobe software is all PC, she can’t live without that).

    Joe – Thanks!!! You’re the man! That worked perfectly.

  • http://www.madfellas.com Justin Carter

    The Exchange syncronisation really is invaluable, as you say, even after 5 hours! I couldn’t live without my email, calendar and contacts all on my phone :P

    I love the fact that Vista now natively recognises Windows Mobile devices too and doesn’t require something extra to be installed (like ActiveSync on XP). The Windows Mobile Device Center is cool.

    My fav Windows Mobile apps: TCPMP (media player with awesome codec support), PocketSCUMM (an engine for the old LucasArts adventure games) and PocketMusic (good music player, supports Winamp skins). And MSN Messenger comes in really handy too (and is much cheaper than SMS/text messaging!)…

  • Joe Groner

    Just FYI…the final version of Windows Mobile Device Center is available…can’t wait to get home and see if I can get Bluetooth synchronization working with my Q.

    via techlog – http://www.techlog.nl/archive/2007/02/01/microsoft_windows_mobile_devic

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  • http://www.seriestube.com Series On the Tube

    nice read

  • http://tomjacksononline.blogspot.com/ Tom

    Urgh – looks ghastly plus I’ve had bad experiences of Motorola in the past in terms of longevity of their products. I’ll be sticking to Nokia I think!