I have a confession – my name’s Martin and I’m an adulterer.  I’ve cheated on my HTC Hero – I spent the last few days playing around with a Motorola Milestone (kindly supplied by Motorola’s PR people), and I’m impressed.  This is a seriously slick phone.

Upon taking receipt of the review unit, I have to confess I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed by the Milestone’s appearance when I opened the box.  I’m not a big fan of the phone’s look; it’s all angles and hard edges.  Picking it up, it’s got a good, heavy feel to it and it’s roughly the same width as an iPhone or a Euro HTC Hero (not counting the Hero’s chin of course).  The slide mechanism for the slideout QWERTY keyboard feels slightly more stiff and resistant than I’d expected, but it moves smoothly and does give a satisfying click when it’s locked in place.  The slideout keyboard itself is flat and, I found, a little fiddly to use: I could never seem to get my hands in a comfortable position to type.  I much prefered using the touchscreen for typing as I found I could knock out text much quicker without the keyboard.

So, it’s safe to say, I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed by first appearances.  But, when I powered up the phone and started actually using it, that’s when I was able to really appreciate what the Milestone is all about.  The phone is very responsive, in fact I didn’t notice any lag whatsoever flicking between homescreens and all of the apps I used opened quickly and smoothly.  I thought I’d miss HTC Sense and what it brings to Android, but, honestly, after about 10 minutes of playing with Android 2.0 on the Milestone, I forgot all about it, although if I used the phone for a longer period, I’d definitely be pining for more homescreen real estate than the standard 3 screens.

Web browsing was quick and fluid, and the mutli-touch zoom in /out makes getting the most out of the gorgeous 3.7inch screen whilst browsing simple.  No true Flash support of course, but that’s coming at some point in the first half of this year according to Adobe.  Media playback was good, better than the Hero in both sound and video quality, but the media software that comes with the phone isn’t the best if I’m honest.  It’s fiddly to navigate and not particularly intuitive.  As this is an Android phone however, there are plenty of alternative media apps to choose from, so this isn’t a show-stopper by any means.

I found that telephone calls were fine with audio clarity particularly good, although the lack of a dedicated call button, as seen on other Android phones, was a somewhat bemusing omission.  Text messaging and emailing were fairly straightforward too, particularly given that you have a choice of input methods with the physical and software keyboards.  The addition of native Microsoft Exchange synchronization, enabling you to use push delivery for corporate, Exchange based email as well as the usual GMail offering, is a useful touch.  You can also choose to unify all of your email accounts in to one inbox, with emails to different accounts differentiated by colour coding.

The phone’s battery life seemed pretty solid, certainly better than the Hero for longevity and I’ve heard that the Milestone/DROID’s battery life is actually superior to the Nexus One also.  The camera on the phone is ok, but nothing earth shattering.  Here, again, it’s superior to the Hero, especially with the addition of the LED flash.  Video recording however, is excellent for a phone like this.  I was blown away by the quality of some of the videos I shot – the camcorder records images at 720 x 480 and 24fps.

Overall, I’d say the Milestone is an excellent smartphone.  The hardware, whilst a little clunky to look at in my opinion, certainly makes Android fly during use.  There’s not a lot to fault here, and certainly nothng that should give pause for thought.  If you’re considering a Milestone, I can heartily recommend going for one.  With Android 2.1 just around the corner, and developer support for the phone starting to increase, this phone is only going to get better.

Specifications

General

Experience	Premium messaging and multimedia
Form Factor	Side slide keyboard
Operating System	Android v2.0
Android API Level	5
Device Emulator Image	Android 2.0 SDK
Input Types	Capacitive touch screen Directional pad Home/Menu/Back/Search touch-sensitive buttons Physical keyboard Virtual keyboard
Consumer Web Site	Product page

Display

Physical Resolution	480 x 854 (WVGA)
Number of Colors	Up to 16M
Pixel Density	240 dpi

Connectivity

WAN: Voice Bands	GSM 850/900/1800/1900 W-CDMA 900/2100 or 850/1900/2100
WAN: Data Bearers	GPRS/EDGE Class 12 HSDPA 10.1 HSUPA 5.7
Wireless LAN	802.11b/g 802.11i (WPA2) WEP WPA
Bluetooth Version	2.1 + EDR
Bluetooth Class	2
Bluetooth Profiles	A2DP 1.2 AVRCP 1.2 GAP HFP 1.5 HSP OPP 1.1 PBAP 1.0 SDAP SDP SPP
USB	Micro USB connector USB 2.0 High Speed
Headset Jack	3.5 mm Mic Stereo out

Media

Camera Resolution	5 megapixels
Image Capture Resolution (max)	2592 x 1936
Camera Features	Autofocus Color effects Flash (dual LED) Geotagging Image stabilization Picture quality Scenes White balance
Camera Digital Zoom (max)	4x
Image Capture Formats	JPEG w/EXIF 2.2
Image Viewing Formats	Android core media formats
Video Recording Formats	Android core media formats H.264
Video Recording Resolution	720 x 480 (D1)
Video Recording Frame Rate	24 fps
Video Playback Formats	Android core media formats
Video Playback Resolution	720 x 480 (D1)
Video Playback Frame Rate	30 fps
Audio Recording Formats	AAC Android core media formats
Audio Playback Formats	Android core media formats WMA
Streaming Formats	AAC AAC+ AMR-NB H.263 H.264 MPEG-4
Digital Rights Management	OMA DRM 1.0 forward lock for images and music
Speakers	Receiver speaker Stereo speakers

Processor and memory

Processor	TI OMAP3430
Processor Clock Speed	Up to 600 MHz
RAM	256 MB
Flash ROM	512 MB
User Storage Available (max)	256 MB
Memory Card Type	FAT32 microSDHC, Class 6
Memory Card Size Supported (max)	32 GB