Motorola Milestone: A Veritable Messaging, Browsing and Multimedia Machine
The first GSM Google Android is a premium machine meant for messaging and multimedia experience. In the US, it is called the Motorola Droid and features very similar specifications save for a few gives and takes.
Messaging
The Motorola Milestone sports a full QWERTY keyboard, the slimmest there is in a mobile phone thus far, that slides on the side for a horizontal view. This is ideal for those who use their mobile phones extensively for emails as typing is definitely easier on this type of keyboard.
Its 480 × 854 WVGA capacitive touch screen is a sight to behold. It is 3.7 inches wide with a 240 dot per inch pixel density and offer very clear display. So if your fingers are not nimble enough and you get a lot of typos on the physical keyboard, leave it hidden from view and turn your attention to the very sharp screen and use the virtual keyboard instead. The very clear display makes messaging a whole lot easier as if you are doing it on your desktop.
The four touch sensitive keys on the face, with the very useful menu and search keys, are particularly well-placed and accessible.
Multimedia
It has a 5 mega pixel camera with dual flash, 4x digital zoom and autofocus support that is really great for snapping around. It supports geo-tagging, which is great as the mobile phone also comes with a stand alone GPS with internal antenna. This becomes the perfect companion on a trip alone or with friends.
The camera also has a video recording capability with a high frame rate of 24 fps. Audio playback supports WMA, AAC and AAC+ formats, while video streaming accepts H.263, H.264 and MPEG4.
The wide touch screen is great for video snacking anytime and anywhere. Whether you are viewing your own recorded videos or watching movies loaded to your smart phone. So stack it up with your movie collection in case you might need something to while away time.
Browsing power
This phone comes packaged with the Android Webkit browser and is pre-loaded with Google applications such as Google search function and Google mail. The browser is pretty fast such that internet browsing is a breeze and the feedback comes clean.
It also features multi touch pinch zooming which is great for browsing. This feature is conspicuously absent in the US model. Reasons are hard to come by on the difference in this feature. However, Europeans would surely love this added tool. Pinch zooming works as a convenient zooming in and zooming out tool. You just squeeze your fingers together to zoom in on Web pages, photo displays and maps and spread them apart to zoom out for a wider view.
Another difference in the US and Euro versions is the navigation feature. Unlike the US variant, it does not feature the Google Maps. Instead, it is pre-loaded with MOTONAV -- Motorola's own guidance and mapping system.
