Finally, it took long enough for Europeans, but finally we will get our hands getting the hands on MOTO Q's as well and not only one but two - the MOTO q9 UMTS & HSDPA-enabled Windows Mobile smartphone and the MOTO q gsm.
HSDPA connectivity makes listening to music, watching videos or sharing pictures lightning fast and Windows Mobile "PlaysForSure" enables compatibility with music and video stores worldwide. A convenient side-load removable microSD card compliments MOTO Q q9's 256 MB of onboard memory to ensure users have plenty of room to store what's most important.
With battery design that has been optimized for superior performance, the MOTO q9 is featuring a a redesigned keyboard, compared to the original MOTO Q. Nevertheless, the new keyboard design makes typing a pleasure. A little bit unusual for a European UMTS device is the missing front camera for video telephony:

The MOTO q9 will be released late Q1 in Europe first. Carrier partnerships aren't announced today but I expect we will see it released from the majors anyway.

Cheers ~ Arne

[Share with a Friend] [Add to Digg.com]

Do you know what the speed of the CPU is inside the Moto q9 and Q GSM?

Is the Q1 release date confirmed, because everywhere else it's saying "somewhere in Q2"?

@Steph: No, unfortunately I don't know but I will try to get more information.
@El_Barto: That's what I got said from several employees. the q9 comes late March, 2 or 3 months before the q gsm is released.

What's that small circle at the top, right of the Q9.  Usually the speaker is around the Motorola emblem, so could that not be the front facing camera?

No, that's a kind of light sensor which controls the backlight (in darker environment you don't need the full backlight capacity which saves battery). Previous Windows Mobile devices (like the first Compaq iPAQs as well as the Motorola MPx220 had similar light sensors).

Then it is strange that there's no front facing camera, unless that's a proto of the US version.  Cingular stripped the front camera out of the V3xx, so no doubt they would do the same on the Q9.

No, it's not a special U.S. version - the one we saw in Barcelona is the one and only one.
And it's not that unusual - keep in mind that also HTC MTeoR got the front cam removed.