We show that both super-Poissonian and sub-Poissonian photon statistic
s may be modeled by the use of the recently introduced M-type q-deform
ed coherent states, while P-type q-deformed coherent states exhibit no
nclassical sub-Poissonian photon statistics. Applications to the chara
cterization of the photon statistics of laser outputs reasonably close
to threshold, single-atom resonance fluorescence the micromaser field
, and absorption by two-level atoms are considered.