The Motorola Milestone is supposed to be the best phones to run on Android. Android devices are available in many forms but the Milestone is a heavy package running Android. Released in late 2009, Motorola seems to be happy releasing another phone to the market. The first things that you would notice is the slim and light weight design and the build quality which is better than other plastic type bodies of other phones. The side slider phone also contains a full QWERTY keyboard.

Specifications and Design:

The technical specifications of Milestone include:

• Measures 115.8x60x13.7mm (HWD) and weighs 165g.
• Quad-band GSM and.
• 3.7 inch capacitive multi-touch touchscreen with 480x 854 pixel resolution.
• Android OS version v2.0 with pinch zooming and kinetic scrolling.
• Slimmest side slider with full QWERTY keyboard.
• The camera is a 5 MP auto-focus camera with dual-LED flash and Video support with 720 x 480 pixels resolution at 24fps.
• For data connectivity WiFi 802.11b/g, GPRS, EDGE, 3G support i.e. HSDPA and HSUPA, support and GPS with A-GPS.
• The memory is 133MB internal storage and a micro SD slot is provided.
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack for headphones support.
• A micro-USB port and Bluetooth are also provided for connectivity.
• The battery is a standard Lithium Ion battery.

The Motorola Milestone is the slimmest side sliding phone available in the market now. The metallic finish adds some weight to the phone. The side slider reveals the full QWERTY keyboard. The rear is coated with soft matte which stops the possibility of slipping when you hold in hand or keep on a table. The screen is 3.7 inch touchscreen and it is supposed to be the best screen among all the other Android phones. The screen attracts fingerprints very easily and the reading was difficult in different lighting conditions. A light sensor is present at the top of the screen which automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen.

The base of the screen holds four touch-sensitive buttons for home, search, back and menu options. Since it is touch sensitive and very close to the touchscreen, it can be accidentally pressed while using the on screen QWERTY keypad. It would have been better if the touch-sensitive buttons were real. A micro-USB port is available for the connection to the computer or charging. The camera launch button and the volume control button are available on the sides of the phone. The 3.5mm audio headset jack is also provided.

The physical QWERTY keypad is comforting with large keys for pretty quick typing. A D pad and menu option is provided which can be used for operating the device without the use of touchscreen. The inconvenience in using the 4-rowed keypad is that you have to use the same key for two characters and the characters can be used using the alt keys. This phone features a 5.0MP camera with dual LED flash along with video capture at a considerably high resolution. The connectivity options are also pretty attractive with the latest technologies such as 3G, EDGE, GPRS and WiFi 802.11b/g.

Performance:

The Milestone is loaded with the latest version of Android 2.0 which is known to have Google’s new navigation technology called Google Navigation included in it. But, surprisingly this feature is not here in Milestone. Instead MotoNav is present for navigation. The notifications are located on the top of the screen and swiping these will display the new message or USB connection or the missed calls or any other notification. The normal functions of Android can be seen on Milestone as well. But, the pleasure of using Android is very well demonstrated by Milestone.

The processing speed is also commendable with the ARM cortex processor working very well. The working of this processor at such a speed is very impressive compared to other devices which do not work this much even with double the speed. It has a very well equipped phonebook that lets you store lot of information and also create labels for each entry. The multimedia allows you to play various formats such as MP3, AAC, AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI, and Windows Media Audio 9 formats with the traditional player features. It is indeed very disappointing that there is no sync software to transfer music to you phone from your PC. You can download songs from the MP3 store and through WiFi and 3g networks. The audio quality is pretty decent with sounds of all kinds.

The Webkit based browser allows the user to browse through the web pages quickly and easily. The widgets are constantly updated with the texts which allow you to browse quickly. This is pretty common with the Android phones, but is better in Milestone. The pages get hung in a few instances while using 3G network. You can search through the net using any search engine. But the default search engine is the Google search engine. Heavily sized pages loaded very quickly and could be navigated very easily. The absence of flash player was a bit disappointing. There are various applications such as beebPlayer, Layar, LightRacer, Super Mario sounds and there are also various games preloaded and which can be added on to the phone. The battery backup is comparatively better than other Android phones.

Pros and Cons:

The main advantages of Milestone are the sleek design and sturdy body built apart from attractive display, faster browsing with a multi touch browser and faster processing, and messaging and contact management options. The call quality is excellent and the talk time is longer compared to other phones.

The main drawbacks are the touch sensitive keys create a problem while using the touchscreen. The keyboard layout is not properly designed. The battery life is as usual low with all the Android phones.

Conclusion:

The Milestone seems to be the exact phone the makers needed. Even the Google’s Nexus One is unlikely to beat this phone. The dual QWERTY keyboard and the multi-touch screen is an added advantage. Keeping aside the minor design issues and the slight bugs while using the phone, the Milestone is a powerful Android phone that all set to hit the Smartphone market and can be a pretty good contestant to other Smartphones. The sleek design, strong body design along with the physical QWERTY keypad makes the Milestone a decent phone. All in all, keeping the pros of the Motorola Milestone in mind, this phone seems to be a fair choice to be made.

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