Motorola Milestone Review (part one)

Motorola Milestone Review (part one)

Available from www.clove.co.uk for £398.33

Highlights-

Integrated sliding QWERTY keyboard
3.7 inch WVGA Display
Fast Internet access with rich content availability
5 Mega Pixel with 4 x digital zoom and image stabilization
AGPS with Motonavfind-products/phones/5530xpressmusicgamesedition

The Motorola Droid was proclaimed by many websites to be an iPhone killer when it was released in the US and seen as a return to form for Motorola who had not had any real successes since the RAZR mobile phone many, many years ago.  For us in the UK the Milestone represents our chance to get in on the action and see for ourselves just how good this ‘wonder phone’ really is.

Hardware

Initial impressions are close to what I expected, but it is important not always judge a book by its cover. The problem here is that the cover is in my opinion opposed to what we expect a smartphone to look like in 2010. With the Nexus One, iPhone and Acer Liquid being examples of how full screen smartphones should look in 2010, the Milestone is verging on industrial in its design. It has sharp edges and a look that screams function more than anything else. I have no issue with phones that focus on function because that is of course most important, but there is no excuse not to lend some time to styling a device as well. I wouldn’t go as far as to call the Milestone ugly, but it isn’t far off and it reminds of the dark days of Fujitsu-Siemens and i-mate when their design departments seemed to be having holidays.

The Milestone is actually quite slim for a slide-out keyboarded unit and makes good use of the hardware features within. The 3.7” screen is delightful and compliments the Android interface well with just the lip of the keyboard sticking out at the bottom. I don’t understand why the back has to be longer than the front because the screen may as well have been made longer or the buttons below the screen larger- if anything it lacks uniformity especially when the keyboard is open. Below the screen are four flush buttons for return, menu, home and search and the obligatory camera and volume keys are well placed on the right-hand side. The on/off button on the top is awkward to use at best and its positioning right next to the 3.5mm audio jack could be better. The microUSB charging port is high up on the left which is a pet hate of mine- these things should be on the bottom edge.

Sliding out the keyboard reveals a setup which somehow managed to rival the Nokia N97 in its stupidity. The keys are tiny and flush with the casing and do not use the space afforded to them properly. Throw in the large navigation key to the right and you end up with a hardware keyboard that so far has proved very difficult for me to use. The positioning of the keys on the left, however, makes lots of sense and feels quite natural, but I will need more time with the phone before I conclude my keyboard thoughts.

Specifications

You can’t knock the specifications on this phone- HSDPA, AGPS, Wi-Fi, 5Mp camera with DVD quality video capture and a whole heap more means that you are getting a smartphone more than capable of coping with the relatively efficient Android OS. MOTONAV gives you turn-by-turn navigation out of the box and the rest of the software will take some time to cover, but that is far from a bad thing.

First impressions were not good, but second impressions suggest to me that the Milestone could be something special. There are aspects of this phone which I have not seen on any phone before and some of the features put every other smartphone on the market to shame. Come back tomorrow for part two which will explore these features in more depth.