Motorola Milestone Earlier this year, Motorola was doing a very good impression of a company that, if not quite dead in the water, was certainly looking increasingly like shark bait. But then came its Android-powered Dext, with some advanced social networking capabilities and a clutch of high-end features, and the US company suddenly seemed to be …
i've been playing with mine for almost a week now, and it is awfully good. basically everything you would expect to be good is, so i'll only add the negatives i can think of;
- lack of sat nav. i know it's got moto nav, but it's only a trial so that doesn't count. i hope the google one gets released soon.
- apostrophe on the keyboard. it's an alt key instead of a default one. petty, i know, but i use apostrophes a lot. it does auto add them to some words, but not to others where it's usages dependant... like its vs it's.
- the bundled power cable is reeeeally short. it barely reaches from my floor to my bedside table.
err... that's all i can think of. it's just a really good phone. 85% seems a tad low to me.
p.s.- you can sync your facebook contacts with an app.
My impression is that it's a good phone and very easy to use. This is my first Motorola and I have to say it is a well put together bit of kit. The keyboard is ok once you get used to it, and the OS as a whole is responsive and surprisingly intuitive.
I use mine for work mainly, the corporate email took seconds to configure. It has VPN support and VNC is available from the market place so remote support is an option (granted, only in emergencies) For $15 you can get Documents to Go giving you usable Word and Excel document editing along with Powerpoint and PDF viewing. (free version is available but only allows viewing of Word and Excel files)
I'd like it more if it could connect to Office Communicator like my Nokia could but I don't miss it enough to care...
I give it a thumbs up and recommend it to anyone looking for a usable business grade phone that wants something more than RIM and Nokia's offerings without going down the WinMo path.
This is the first time since 2000/2001 that i've had a phone that isn't a Sony/Sony Ericsson. I chose the Motorola Milestone over the N900 and HTC HD2, the only real competitive smart phones on the market right now, because of it's quirky looks and general praise from the other side of the atlantic.
Ok so i've had it for 2 days and i'm recharging it this morning but it feels wonderful in the hand, yes it might be heavy but the feeling of glass and metal puts my other phones, of a plastic nature, to shame.
It is a shame that you have to take the battery out to get at the SD card, but it seems alot of manufacturers are doing that. I still remember my W800 having the Sony Card slot on the side of the phone, that was a couple of years ago.
Yes the UI isn't as good looking as something HTC produces, but then that's probably a good thing as we won't be waiting for motorola to update their UI code when new Android releases are made (where's 2.0 for the Hero?).
Hopefully in more time i'll still love it.
I tried out one of the community builds on the Hero and couldn't see any real benefits to Android 2.0 over 1.5 with sense UI, apart from working with a couple of Google's more bleeding edge apps. I think HTC's main problem is working out how to either yank Android 2.0's wretched facebook integration and stop it clashing with their own vastly superior solution. There may be some improvements in the messaging app as well, but since it's still not going to be a patch on Handcent I didn't even look at it.
I mean it'll be nice to get it, but I'm not seeing any reason to fret about it not arriving for a month or two. The moto phones are a pretty good price/spec though - if they manage to produce something keyboard-free and less ugly in about a year I may well get one
I am supremely indifferent.
What I actually /want/ is a markup language style standard for address books that phones, email systems, etc. can all share, and then to serve it from a server somewhere.
Oh wait, that's LDAP isn't it? Cache it locally in the phone except when on wifi and my desires would be met.
I'm in the U.S. and bought the phone about 2 days after it came out. I switched from AT&T and an iPhone because of poor cell service and no 3G. Sure, I miss my iPhone, but, having great cell coverage and 3G is a must if you use your cellular for business.
I was looking forward to using a slide-out keyboard, however, if you have large thumbs or as I did put on a leather case one may as well just stick to the on-screen keyboard in landscape mode.
The other drawback is that you will need a third party application like The Missing Sync ($39 U.S.) in order to sync your music, files etc, with a Mac. The Missing Sync does a great job but at this time it doesn't sync with iCal.
"... capture easily blurs unless you hold it extremely still."
This is the dissapointment I faced with my Hero... it's the only disspointment I've had with the phone so far, unfortunately, it's also the one that people notice - we have a fairly new baby, and these days if we don't have our proper camera with us, the phone just doesn't cut it unless the sun is shining and we are in it!
Droid looks good though, I'm almost annoyed I didn't wait... but I get a Nexus upgrade next year now so I'm not that upset!! ;)
... the poor quality camera is a bit of a show stopper for me. I'm going to have to think long and hard between the Milestone or the Google Nexus (or whatever it eventually gets called).
I really did want an Android with a fold out keyboard now. When the G1 first came out I hated it and waited for the HTC Magic (Vodafone) which I enjoy - although it doesn't quite make the iPhone grade. Then I bought an second hand G1 to play around with and the damn thing grew on me like the clap. I now like it quit a lot (the G1, not the clap, that itches like crazy!). So, when the Droid/Milestone hit the headlines it was an immediate draw to me.
This day and age there is no excuse whatsoever for a poor quality camera in a smartphone. It just isn't on. Any manufacturer that manages to screw up the image quality from a 5mpxl camera deserves to suffer the consequences. And, regrettably, I rather think that the Motorola Milestone will not do as well as it could have if the camera were up to scratch. Maybe they can resolve the problem in software - but unless they do in 2.1 that is already out then the future doesn't look too bright - and no doubt there'll quite a few Droid/Milestones on eBay come January 2010.
Shame really ...
I think this is Moto's stab at a phone business users can use... Cameras really aren't that important. (in fact in some places I know phones with cameras are outright banned!)
Yes, the camera is the wrong side of poor, but I am sure there will be an app soon enough to help things along like there was with the G1 for those that deem it a 'show stopper'.
Damn you Jim Coleman. I was willing to overlook the lack of tasks - mainly as I don't use them - but I have since noticed it doesn't synch my notes from Outlook either - and I do use them!
I still think it is a cracking phone and I still think it is ideal for business users...
Motorola are back!
I've had one for a week and I'm really loving it. It's better than an iPhone and a Nokia N97 for my purposes, the keyboard is streets ahead of the N97 and easier to use than the iPhone's on screen affair. The phone is well made, stable and fast and because it's made of metal there are none of the cheap and nasty creaks and groans than many handsets suffer from.
This won't be a big success in the UK because no networks seem interested (too much iPhone navel gazing) and Moto has too little presence to sell it SIM free in large numbers.
The fact that the best Android phone to date is going to be one for the aficionados just makes it even better for me!
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