The blind brand allegiance to Apple still amazes me. When the iPhone first came out its UI really was light years ahead of everything else. But the competition really has stepped up their game on that front since then and they're still adding more features (and most of them already had more features than the iPhone to begin with.) Meanwhile its taken over 2 years for Apple to add things like copy/paste, video recording, background apps/multitasking, stereo bluetooth, etc. And even then, there's no guarantee you're going to have half those features this year. The UI's still pretty (albeit inefficient in a lot of ways) but it's no longer hard to find a pretty UI on smartphone's these days. But no doubt, people will camp out for the next gen phone just like they have every other. That 1984 commercial grows more ironic every day.
Gmail actually isn't anywhere NEAR as popular as most techies think. To be sure, it's one of the largest and fastest growing webmail platforms for sure. But it still trails more established email services like Yahoo/Live by a WIDE margin when it comes to user base.
But I do agree with your general point. For those looking for tighter integration with their existing phone it'll be a nice feature. It's always been frustrating to me to not have YahooGo-like platform for Google (although Android will obviously have much more in-depth integration.)
The music angle is simply marketing smartphones to the masses, beyond just techies and working professionals. There's nothing wrong with that really and it's more profitable for them if it gets people on their data plans. The phone doesn't have built-in wifi (although it now supports SDIO wifi cards) so most buyers will likely opt for the data plans.
And just to verify, it's miniSD, not microSD (so you can get a 4GB card for about $50.) It's not as slick as a lot of other smartphones, but I've always liked the Q's slim form factor and the ability to operate it with only one hand. The new keyboard has gotten strong praise in the early hands-on reviews.
Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
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