The Motorola Milestone - A New Contender?

Jul 12
07:16

2010

Mike Bailey

Mike Bailey

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The initial impression made when you open the box of the Motorola Milestone may not be one of 'behold a thing of beauty'. The new breed of smartphones has left most of us with an expectation that functionality now comes with an eye pleasing quality of design and good looks.

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The initial impression made when you open the box of the Motorola Milestone may not be one of 'behold a thing of beauty'. The new breed of smartphones has left most of us with an expectation that functionality now comes with an eye pleasing quality of design and good looks.So in this Motorola Milestone review please note that when I viewed this phone for the first time I felt there was a lack of coherent good looks and chic design elements. That is not to say,The Motorola Milestone - A New Contender? Articles however, that it is ugly just that, perhaps, we have all grown used to a certain 'look' that this phone has not achieved.Whether it be the out-dated angles or the bronze accentuations or even that strange little lip at the bottom, it just seems to be coming from an era that has passed, but not yet passed into retro nostalgia. Mercifully the internal functioning and features are not out-dated or nostalgic.This phone utilises Google's Android operating system which makes it customisable by downloading apps from Android market. It has internet connectivity via 3G or Wi-Fi both seem to be reasonably fast and reliable. The screen is a 3.7 inch touchscreen and watching video or live streaming TV proved to be no problem and the clarity of the display is good. The touchscreen itself has the ability to perceive two fingers at the same time allowing the, now classic, pinching movement used with the iphone, to zoom in and out. Its touchscreen keypad works in both screen orientations, possibly it seems a little squished when held vertically but as the keys vibrate when touched, the positive feedback loop created makes typing easy enough and mistakes can be picked up as you type rather than laboriously editing after typing. There is a slide out qwerty keyboard but as the keys are flat there is no positive feedback when typing and as such the on screen keypad, once you are used to it, is a much faster and more pleasing option for typing.The phone comes with two very useful pre-loaded apps. One is the Phone Portal; this uses Wi-Fi to connect to your computer, allowing the complete contents of the phone to be instantly accessible from the PC. From images and battery life to your call history, although it seemed that dragging and dropping music wasn't possible using this connection. This was achieved by connecting the docking station to my PC. The other app is called My Sign and although simple in idea, actually very intuitive and useful. This allows you to open functions by drawing with your finger the first letter of the function title, F for Facebook and W for web browser etc.The 5 megapixel camera is adequate enough and there is a dual LED flash for shooting in dark conditions. The camera also has a few pre-sets for various conditions like 'beach and snow' making its functionality more like a digital camera than a phone camera.The dock doubles up as a connection to your computer and a charging station, and as a nice little touch, when charging it turns the phone screen into an alarm clock and displays local weather conditions.