Intro
Today we revisit the The Motorola Milestone from Telus Canada which is basically the same as The Motorola Droid. This phone was released earlier in the year by Telus and even though there has been a flurry of new android phones released this year in Canada this is still one of the top android phones available. What has made this phone so popular is what we are going to revisit today and if you are in the market for a new android phone The Milestone is going to be one of the top phones to consider.
Looks
The Motorola Milestone is one of the nicest smartphone designs available today with beautiful black solid finish. It has a nice big screen that opens up to a full qwerty keyboard. The Phone has a very sharp layout with 4 buttons back, menu, home and a search button fitting nicely under the screen. It also has a power key on top and mini-usb on the side and as well camera button and your standard volume button. The phone is a little on the heavy side it weighs in at 165 grams. This phone feels solid in your hand and has the feel of a very well built phone that is tight and does not feel cheap like some smartphones. The slider feels solid and well built and not flimsy at all and is built to last with strong hinges. This phones looks and feels very durable that it could with stand the length of your contract and still be in very good shape.
Hardware
The phone is powered by a ARM Cortex A8 600MHz CPU and also has a PowerVR SGX530 GPU and 256MB of Ram and 133MB of internal Storage. It comes with 8GB microsd that is expandable to 32gb.The 3G is rated for HSDPA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 5.76Mbps with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth V2.1. The processor may not be the fastest on the market anymore but users will never notice the difference. The phone does not feel underpowered or laggy and can handle the most intensive apps that you can throw at it. The hardware allows this phone to run very smooth without any lag at all.
Screen
Motorola Milestone comes with a 3.7 inch / 480 x854 pixels TFT capacitive touch screen display. It has multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor. The colors on this screen are very vibrant and as good as it gets in terms of TFT technoligy. The screen is not overly sensitive but just right for scrolling through the different pages , playing games and navigating through applications. It has a very sharp image and very detailed picture. It has 7 screens that you can fully personalize with your choice of dynamic widgets and application.
Battery
It comes with a standard battery a Li-Ion 1400MAh which is rated for up to 350hrs of standby and 6 hours of talktime. The battery life is average for a phone of this nature and with all it’s features is very acceptable.
Operating System
The phone comes with a up to date OS of 2.1 that allows users to enjoy the full benefit of android features. While there is a new version of the Android OS froyo 2.2 it has not been released for most android handsets at the time of this review. The 2.2 update should be available for this phone in the fall. Users don’t have to worry about the latest OS as the 2.1 on this phone runs very well and blazing fast and has great features.
Software
It comes with a digital compass,mp3 player, video player that supports mp4,h.263,h.264,wmv9 formats. It also has standard document viewer, photo viewer and editor, organizer , voice memo/dial. adjustable audio affects. You can adjust the wireless networks, call settings, sound and display, location & security, privacy, sd card and phone storage, search, language & keyboards, accessibility, text to speech, date & time. All the standard software of android smartphones that are full customizable to your personal choices, there is not much more you could ask for. Saint email Microsoft exchange and you can also set up your personal e-mail as well as G male.
Applications
As far as go there’s an application called ‘Audio Effects’ of facts you can adjust a stereo headset and phones for optimizing audio format’s in both those. There is a Corporate directory & Calender, Facebook , Moto Car Home so you can easily navigate your phone while driving. There also is a feature called’ Motonav’ this is the same as google navigation maps is Motorola’s version of a GPS navigation. There’s also an application called ‘My Sign’ it allows you to make gestures on the screen that the phone will recognize as shortcuts for the applications you use frequent. There also is an application called ‘Phone Portal’ that you can hook up to your computer via USB or Wi-Fi that allows you to synchronize data between your phone and computer. It also comes with a Widget Application called ‘Live Wallpapers’ that has active moving wallpapers for your home screen ,which is a very nice feature and i suggest you try it out .It has the standard Android applications as well access to the Android Market and it’s 50,000+ applications.
Keyboard
Milestone comes with one of the nicest full qwerty keyboards on the market today with a 5-way key for easy navigation. The keyboard layout is very nice and it just fits well in your hand, once you get used to the keyboard you will typing like crazy, it is so easy on this phone. I do find the keys a little stiff and but at the same time no one wants a sensitive keyboard that will make mistakes. The keyboard is highly accurate and designed very well and durable.
Web Browsing Camera and Video
Motorola has outfitted this phone with a 5MP camera at 2592×1994 pixels with autofocus and daul-LED flash with geo-tagging. It takes good quality pictures and has decent quality video that is sized at 720x480pixels @24fps.I did find some of the pictures to be a little below grade in terms of focus compared to newer phones on the market. The flash on the phone is incredible you can use this as flashlight or reading light at night is amazing and is extremely good for taking pictures at night.
Call Quality
It provides excellent call quality but does lack noise cancellation features.
Pros
- · Excellent Screen quality
- · Hardware
- · Android 2.1
- · Durable design
- · Keyboard
Cons
- Stiff keys
- Camera
- Device storage
Conclusions and Final thoughts
The Motorola milestone came out in early 2010 from TELUS Canada and has been a best android phone available in Canada since then. To date there has not been the android phone as good as this released in Canada but that will be changing very soon as there are many new handsets coming to market. This will still be one of the top android handsets available in Canada, even with new phones schedules to come out soon. Performance and the functionality of this phone is what makes it so popular, this phone will last you many years and because of the android platform keep you very happy. The milestone is one of the best-selling phone’s in Canada and its sister phone and the United States called the Motorola Droid is one of the best-selling phones ever. This is a great phone for somebody new to android or even a hardcore android user. This is hands down one of the best android smartphones made to date, if you are looking for great phone look no farther than the Telus Motorola Milestone .
Phone is available via telus is a website or in store for $149.99 on a three year contract or can be bought an outright for $599.99.