Motorola MILESTONE review: Hello Droid

Android devices come from all walks of life but rarely do they carry as much baggage as the MILESTONE. Motorola seem to be betting the farm with the MILESTONE and the warm reception it’s getting must leave them breathing a sigh of relief. Catching the Android wave may’ve seemed like the last available move but a device like the MILESTONE makes turning the tide much more likely.

Motorola MILESTONE official photos

So, Motorola are back with a bang and the MILESTONE is one of the best spec’d phones to ever run Android. The Google Nexus One is supposed to instill fear in nearly every touchscreen device out there but the Moto Droid must be positioned well enough by now to withstand the attack.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
• 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 3.7" 16M-color capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480x 854 pixel) resolution
• Android OS v2.0 with kinetic scrolling and pinch zooming
• Slimmest side slider with full QWERTY keyboard yet
• Great build quality
• ARM Cortex A8 600MHz CPU, PowerVR SGX graphics accelerator; 256 MB of RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and geo-tagging
• D1 (720 x 480 pixels) video recording @ 24fps
• Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS
• 133MB storage, microSD slot, bundled 8GB card
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1

Main disadvantages

• No DivX and XviD video playback
• No smart and voice dialing
• Somewhat clumsy camera interface and limited camera features
• No free GPS navigation solution
• No Flash support for the web browser
• No FM radio

There’s hardly anything missing on the Motorola MILESTONE spec sheet so we should be ready for an exciting ride. The test-drive got us impressed: at the end of our preview we felt positive about the MILESTONE prospects. So now, the Moto DROID has a full review ahead to build on that good impression.

Considering the rate of its sales, the handset is doing well from a user point of view too. Yet, a short-lived success is just not good enough for Motorola: the company doesn’t have the resources to come up with an equally talented successor as quick as some of the competitors. So, the MILESTONE needs to stick around the top of the sales charts for at least a few months to give Motorola some breathing space.

Motorola MILESTONE views

The Motorola DEXT by the way did reasonably well in scouting out the territory but it now falls upon the MILESTONE to carry the offensive through. Proper backup is still to come so it will have to fight all by itself.

We’ll follow in its footsteps and – as the tradition goes – we continue with the hardware and ergonomics right after the jump.