Motorola’s latest assault on the smartphone market – the Milestone – landed in the UK back in mid-December, and has seen a generally good reception. Here at T3 towers we’ve been taking a long-term look at Moto’s potential saviour to pick up the bugs that others might have missed…
The ‘milestone’ represented is two-fold – it’s the first Android 2.0 device to hit these shores, and it’s the best stab at a phone Moto has made since the halcyon days of the RAZR.
– Motorola Milestone picture gallery
– Motorola Milestone hands-on video
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– Motorola Backflip hands-on review
– All the smartphone news from CES 2010
The hardware
First thing you notice is the build quality (read weight), and it’s impressive. Coming in at 165g , a robust metal frame and backplate clearly account for much of the bulk, while the 480 x 854 pixels capacitive mutli-touch touchscreen dominates the front. The gold motifs are relatively subtle in use, but may dissuade many on principle.
Call quality is sound, and Moto’s Crystal Talk allows different settings, including ‘clear’ ‘crisp’ and ‘bright’, which make little impact on the real-life audio quality. Reception is also good, even in traditional network flatspots.
The keyboard has polarised opinion, dangerously considering it is one of the key differentiators from the award-winning HTC Hero. Many have pointed out that the ‘lip’ – thought to contain the radio antennas – obstructs right-handed typing, which is definitely a minus point, but surprisingly easily avoided in practice. The real fail is the cramped, flush nature of the keys, which results in regular typos. However, good touches still exist – dedicated @ and ? keys speed things along, and the inclusion of a d-pad means that useful browsing on the bus is possible. Virtual keyboards are a mixed bag – landscape excellent, portrait relatively dire, often making it quicker to slide out the board than continue to backtrack.
The onboard 5MP camera has seen it’s fair share of online abuse, with a widely-anticipated autofocus fix (Android 2.01) failing to make it across the pond as yet. As it stands, images are well below par, with significant noise and static in even optimal lighting conditions. A back-to-back trial with an elderly 2MP Nokia left the Milestone embarrassed, for example.
Battery life is relatively short, requiring a overnight charge as standard, and sometimes more frequently with heavy use. On several occasions the handset discharged very rapidly indeed, munching a full charge in less than an hour and heating up in the process. Some suggest this is due to boosting 3G transmission strength in low-reception areas, but this hasn’t affected any other phones tested to date.
In the box, Moto has kindly bundled a 8GB microSD, a mains charger with a rather short USB cable, as well as some budget-grade headphones that’ll likely stay unused. Docking stations for home and car are available, as is a free app – ‘dockrunner’ that spoofs the former for free – try before you buy.
Software
Android 2.0 is a piece of, ahem, cake to use. Android 2.0 – codenamed Eclair – sings along nicely, providing the seamless contacts/calendar/gmail integration that we’ve come to expect, which makes setup out of the box a 5-minute task. You can add multiple email accounts – Exchange as well as Gmail – and if you tap a picture of a contact, it’ll give you the option of phoning, emailing, texting or IMing them. Unsurprisingly, search both on and off the device is excellent, intuitive and powerful.
The standard browser supports Flash and iPhone-like multitouch, which results in a tactile, visually familiar online experience, along with pinch-to-zoom, which doesn’t always function as expected. ‘My Sign’ inclusion means you can swipe pre-defined symbols with your finger for common navigation tasks, like refresh, bookmark, etc.
Unfortunately, Google maps turn-by-turn hasn’t made it to the UK due to licensing issues, so we have to make do with MotoNav, a competent but basic satnav. Voice direction often lags annoyingly at roundabouts and junctions, but visual directions are clear. Speed camera warnings are not yet available – a big minus – and license costs after the free 60-day trial are not yet known, as the activation site isn’t live.
The media player gets the job done, although sound is relatively flat, and a standard 3.5mm audio jack ensures that the choice of cans is up to you. However, a lack of dedicated media keys can result in fumbling around. An integrated YouTube app works seamlessly except in high-demand areas (like the pub) when it inevitably times out…
Support is still clearly an issue for Android as a whole, and Google’s own Nexus One has been slammed for the same syndrome also. While Moto has built the hardware, all software glitches are firmly Google’s problem, often leaving owners in the middle. An example of this are ‘protected apps’ available on the Android market. Unbranded phones like the Milestone need to be manually added to a whitelist by Google to allow access, but the process can take some time, leaving users shut out. In addition, Motorola’s support is still playing catchup, and without a network pushing for progress, improvement seems slow.
Link: Motorola
