If you are looking for a non-apple smartphone, this is it.
Primary function, being a phone, is outstanding. The phone has a good reception and you are able to have clear conversations even in noisy environments like games or construction sites.
Additionally, it is full of features with out of the box google integration. The screen is amazing and very responsive. Gps, camera and wi-fi works as expected. The full qwerty slider keyboard works great, however keys are too flat. Form factor is adequate. The phone is slim and not so heavy.
Despite of the bugs mentioned in several forums, I haven't found any. The piece I got came already with the Android 2.1 update and works straightforward.
It deserve a "well done" for the engineers at Motorola. Motorola Milestone Droid Unlocked Touch Screen Phone with 5 MP Camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and QWERTY Keyboard - Unlocked Phone - No Warranty - Black
This thing cost way too much, but it is a great phone. Every thing works, the keyboard is nice (except the keys are a little too flat), the screen, the camera, everything works well.
I Have had two problems though - First I bought this phone to use with T-mobile, but it doesn't operate at the frequency T-mobile uses for their 3G service. Second, after the last upgrade it has randomly started playing music. It is a known bug with some work-arounds, but it is very annoying.
So, with all the new variants coming out, I'd say look for something newer on contract first. But if there is a price drop (as stock and demand drop) this is a very capable choice.
i have been using milestone for almost 2 months in usa with t-mobile.i just get EDGE internet speed but it enough for me.i used to have nokia n900 but i returned it bacause of no portrait mode and hard to use like a cell phone.This phone is perfect slim and light.you can use all google features with this phone.phone calls easy and has a detail call log.after the new firmware update its better.gps reception is perfect.battery is enough for all day.it has nice accessories.and I really appreciate shopping with AMAZON never let me down i strongly reccommend this phone and AMAZON.
From the first time you got it, you feel the great quality from this phone. It's solid, a mix of plastic with metal parts. Good sound quality, strong and clear on phonecalls. The multitouch display works perfect, seems the iPhone multitouch works better but is not a problem. Bluetooth not tested yet, WiFi running very good. Pictures and video taken by the camera are acceptable. Data connection over cellphone only tested on EDGE (2G). 3G can't be tested on my area. Even I can't know what 3G bands are supported by this phone, no instructions, no info inside of the product, no info here on Amazon!. I wrote an message to Customer Service, and the answer was: "sorry, we don't know, please contact to Motorola". This part is the worst part. The phone works like a charm, i'm very happy with it, but the missing information about 3G band, means not to be worried about customers. Additionally to this, I receive the product in a too small package from Amazon and the motorola box was crushed :(
Buyer beware, this is a EUROPEAN model (the Milestone also comes in a Canadian version) so 3G is 900/2100 only and that means there is NO WAY to get 3G in the USA, either with T-Mobile or with AT&T - Amazon USA should not be selling this phone without a BIG DISCLAIMER - not to mention they should specify it is a UK model (comes with the original UK charger and a US adapter).
I need an Android phone so if I find there is a GSM Android phone out there that works on a 3G network in the USA I'm returning it.
I've wasted about 10 hours since I got it yesterday :
1. Trying to connect to my AdHoc wifi network : forget about that Google have killed that basic feature in Android that 99.99% of the WiFi enabled devices (WinMo, iPhone, Blackberry, Internet Radio, etc...) have.
2. Finding out that this 3G phone sold by Amazon USA does not work with any 3G network in the USA.
Since people like lists, I'll start with what I liked and disliked.
Pros:
1. One of the best screens that is not an iPhone 4.
2. Amazing browsing capabilities.
3. Relatively fast processor and GPU.
Cons:
1. Constant echo on all voice calls (T-Mobile and Skype).
2. Sound quality through the earpiece is mediocre.
3. People on the other end often complain of audio distortion (e.g. thought they had the wrong number on numerous occasions because they couldn't recognize my voice).
4. Music player starts playing on its own through speakerphone several times per day, even if you haven't used it since a restart. Only way to avoid it is to shut off phone entirely.
5. Keyboard is garbage for everything but playing games.
6. Sliding mechanism on screen is loose which means it will open partially in your pocket, turning on the screen momentarily (but continually) and killing your battery life.
7. Build quality is very cheap; unit feels very fragile overall and housing was actually loose around the buttons, especially camera and volume rocker buttons.
8. Outbound calls that aren't dialed through Contacts list make the phone crash completely about 5% of the time (I counted about 1 in 20 calls did this).
9. Browser performance gradually slows over a couple days until you reset the phone.
10. Camera is absolute garbage.
11. Accelerometer is way too slow for a phone of this price and supposed quality.
I tried really hard to love this phone, as I had used one on several occasions in the past and was quite impressed. Going in I realized that the keyboard is not exactly the best for what it's primarily designed for (i.e. typing messages), but it is amazing for retro gaming. Even though it's reversed from the usual gamepad setup, the keyboard is very good for use with S/NES and other game system emulators. For writing messages, it's simply too awkward, and in spite of my best efforts I could not get accustomed to it to the point that it was usable. The onscreen keyboard is much better.
The default browser is pretty good, and the screen is just amazing in terms of color, brightness and sharpness. As a capacitive touchscreen, it is easily as responsive as you'd expect, though I did often experience sluggishness with on-screen command taps, even with no demanding services or applications running. Physically speaking, I wasn't that impressed with the sliding mechanism under the screen, however. I don't know if it was particular to the unit I received, but the screen was quite loose. For some reason there was even some give up and down, not just side to side. That is, the screen moved in four directions, not just two, which made me quite nervous, as the screen overall seemed to have a tenuous connection to the body of the phone. Additionally, the screen moved way too easily in the directions it's supposed to and did not lock into an open or closed position. As I mentioned above, it started to slide at the slightest provocation while in my pocket. The problem is that every time the screen is moved like that, the phone wakes up and remains on for the duration you specify in settings. Turning auto-off to a lower setting might help, but honestly that's a pretty lame workaround. The phone shouldn't be so loosely constructed as to allow opening without a respectable amount of force in the first place.
Unfortunately the worst aspect of this phone was its primary function, namely as a phone. Every time I used it I heard an echo of myself through the earpiece. Using a bluetooth or wired headset eliminated most of it, but for me that's a very impractical solution. And given the cost of the phone, I am not about to suffer with a workaround for something that is supposed to work so well already. After noticing the problem, I did some searching and came across quite a few other users who have experienced similar issues. It seems to be a possible manufacturing defect, but after reading stories of users who had to exchange their units upwards of half a dozen times before getting one that functioned passably well as a phone, I decided to return mine and not exchange it.
Besides the audio problems, I noticed something unusual when dialing numbers manually. After dialing a number with the keypad and hitting send, the phone would sometimes lock up. After about 10 seconds, the Motorola and then Android logos would appear, meaning the phone had just reset itself. This happened to me twice before I started to get concerned. I managed to reproduce the problem myself, though it takes between 10 and 20 manually dialed calls before the phone crashes completely. Still, that is a number that I am simply not willing to live with. What if that one call out of however many happened to be extremely important? What if I were dialing 911 or 112 when it crashed like that? It's a risk that I am not willing to take.
Returning to the audio quality for a moment, I should also mention the unusual distortion that callers would hear on their end of the phone. Often it would happen towards the beginning of calls, where for the first 5 seconds or so it would sound as if my voice were being heavily modulated up or down, akin to what is done to protect someone's identity on TV interviews. Eventually it goes away, but again it was something that happened far too often to be an acceptable quirk.
At the end my biggest annoyance was the music player. If you have any music at all on your SD card or in your phone's memory, be prepared for the music player to start up of its own accord and play a random song through your speakerphone. This happened to me daily, even after I installed a new default audio player, which was the suggested workaround I found on some unofficial forum. It would often turn itself on during the most inopportune times: In a meeting at work, in a quiet elevator, at a movie theater, at 3am when we're asleep, and so on. The only way that I could manage to get it to stop happening was to remove all music from the phone, but since I use my phone at the gym as an mp3 player, it was an impractical solution.
Using many workarounds, this phone would maybe have been usable, but for the price and for what it is supposed to offer, it was simply unacceptable for me. It's distinctly possible that I'm just unlucky and got a defective unit, but keep in mind that every problem I mention above has been well documented elsewhere by numerous others for almost a year now. - Smartphone - Unlocked Cell Phones - Droid - Motorola'
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