CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Excellent
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 08/05/2009
- Released on: 06/28/2009
It seems that PCD isn't the only manufacturer making square messaging phones. Indeed, the Motorola Karma QA1 for AT&T looks a whole lot like PCD's Verizon Wireless Blitz and the more recent Cricket TXTM8. However, the Karma QA1 is a step above those two in both design and features. It has 3G speeds, a full HTML browser, and quick access to social networking applications, making it more than just a normal messaging phone. The Motorola Karma QA1 is available for $79.99 with a two-year agreement with AT&T.
Design
If you look at the Motorola Karma QA1 next to the Cricket TXTM8, you would think the two are almost identical. They're both square with rounded corners and both have a similar black and silver color scheme. However, the similarities end there. Measuring 3.42 inches long by 2.52 inches wide by 0.7 inch thick, the Karma QA1 is a tad smaller than the TXTM8. And while the TXTM8 seemed to us like a plastic toy, the Karma QA1 has a far more professional feel with its tempered glass display and soft touch textured back. Weighing 4.97 ounces, the Karma QA1 also feels sturdier than the TXTM8.
We're quite impressed by the 2.5-inch display on the front. It boasts 262,000 colors and 240x320-pixel resolution that results in crisp and vibrant images and text. The grid menu interface is really easy to use, thanks to the big icons and large font. You can adjust the wallpaper, the screensaver, the "skin," the greeting text, and the display theme, but not the backlight time or the brightness. Along the bottom row of the home screen is a launch bar that consists of four user-defined shortcut icons, which can lead to either applications on the phone or browser bookmarks. This is especially useful when you add a shortcut to a site like Facebook or MySpace, thus giving you one-touch access to your favorite social network. You can hide or show the launch bar by pressing the down or up direction key on the navigation toggle.
The navigation array underneath the display consists of two soft keys, a square toggle with a middle confirmation key, a dedicated messaging key, a Clear/Back key, and the Send and End/Power keys on either side. The center navigation keys felt a bit slippery and flat, and we didn't like that the Send and End/Power keys are skinny, but they were still very usable. On the left side of the Karma QA1 is a "smart key" that can be mapped to any phone function. On the right is the volume rocker, while the charger jack is on the bottom. A 3.5-millimeter headset jack sits on top of the phone, which is great if you want to use your own headphones. On the back of the phone is the camera lens and flash LED. There's also a microSD card slot but it's inconveniently located behind the battery cover.
Slide the phone open and you'll see a full QWERTY keyboard. Not only is it roomy and easy to use, but each key is also raised above the surface and has a nice rubberized no-slip texture that makes it easy to thumb-type and dial. The number keys are highlighted in blue. Aside from the typical Function and Backspace keys, you also get a dedicated Caps Lock or Shift key, a dedicated browser key, and a Symbols or punctuations key.
Features
The Motorola Karma QA1 has a generous 1,000-entry phone book with room in each entry for six numbers, three e-mail addresses, a Web URL, three postal addresses, a birthday, and notes. You can also assign callers to categories, and pair them with a photo for caller ID, and any of 25 polyphonic ringtones, eight alert tones, and five vibration patterns. Basic features include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging with threaded conversations, a calendar, an alarm clock, a world clock, a calculator, and a voice recorder. You can read the latest incoming texts and messages on the front screen while the phone is closed. You can also multitask with other applications during a call or while surfing the Web by selecting the "Swap" option in the Options menu.
More advanced users will like the full stereo Bluetooth, voice dialing, instant messaging (AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo), and A-GPS with support for AT&T's
A surprisingly nice feature of the Karma QA1 is that it has a full HTML browser, which goes hand-in-hand with the phone's support of 3G speeds. Because of the small screen size, though, we found that we had to do a lot more scrolling than usual, especially in large Web pages. Still, you can zoom in and out of pages, and fit the pages to screen. The browser even supports Flash Lite, so you can watch streaming videos from YouTube or CNET TV. You can access the browser's history, clear the cookies, reset the cache, toggle JavaScript and images on or off, and even save an entire Web page for later viewing.
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