The first mobile phone to use Android 2.0
The Motorola Milestone offers a similar feature set to the firm’s previous touch-screen Dext smartphone, with its slide-out Qwerty keyboard and social media functionality, but supports a sleeker overall appearance.
As with the Dext, the Milestone also runs the Google Android mobile operating system, and is the first to use the latest iteration, Android 2.0. This latest update to Android looks and feels much like any other vanilla deployment with its three customisable home screens. However, there have been some improvements to a few key areas.
These fall into the realms of native Microsoft Exchange support, a better user interface and browser experience, along with a much improved virtual keyboard. The latter is almost a bit of a moot point with physical keyboards, but the browser’s ’pinch to zoom’ plus full HTML viewing works much better than on other phones.
The zoom feature was left out of the US Droid version of the mobile, and the Google turn-by-turn navigation software has been replaced by Motorola’s own sat nav in the European model. The plus side to this is that no other phone has the Google mapping software either, so what we don’t know we won’t miss. Also all the Motorola maps are based on the phone and they’re not pulled down over the air.
One item missing from the Milestone that was first seen on the Dext is Motoblur, which is an overlay to the Android OS much the same way as the Sense is on HTC Android mobiles. Besides expanding the number of screens available for widgets, there’s an in-built engine for displaying social networking updates on the home screen.
Security features Motoblur also offers great security for the handset, making it possible to track the mobile’s every movement through Google Maps, along with being able to back up all the phone’s contents into the cloud. If the phone is lost or stolen, the handset can be remotely wiped of all data and the content restored to a new mobile.
