News

According to French website Mobinaute, Motorola has confirmed that the Motorola Q has been cancelled in Europe and the only model that will see the light of day is the CDMA version to be released in the US on the Verizon network.

Rough translation of the Mobinaute report:

Envisaged to be firstly available to the sale at the end of the year last then in the current of the first quarter 2006, it appears from now on that its exit is quite simply cancelled in Europe. Contacted by Mobinaute.com, Motorola France indeed specifies that Motorola Q will not leave to Europe, only a version marketed in the United States via various mobile operators of which Verizon Wirless being always of topicality.

Motorla has had all sorts of problem with their Smartphones. In April of last year they killed off the much anticipated but poorly designed MPx and the smaller MPx100. The Motorla Q has been hyped for half a year now; it was announced in July and appeared at several technology-related trade shows. We got hands on with the unit in September, and were impressed by the thin body. The Q was initially slated for a January 2006 release, but in late September Motorla CEO Ed Zander said the Q would be released early, hitting customer's hands before Christmas. Well, obviously that didn't happen, the Q wasn't released at the CES, where the Treo 700w was, and now there's this report of the GSM model being cancelled. Couple all of this with the fact that Verizon is selling the heck out of the Treo 700w, and already offers the XV6700 and Samsung i730 and things look a little dark for the Q. The Motorola Q addresses a slightly different market though and should be able to hold its own if it comes to market. The release has obviously been pushed back for whatever reason, hopefully Verizon isn't getting cold feet.