Since I got hold of the upcoming TELUS Milestone I can confidently say that this is the best Motorola device I’ve experience in a VERY long time.
This first review is about the hardware. We’ll follow up with a separate review of the Android OS 2.0 and how it performs. When it comes to the design of the Milestone it certainly gets noticed. It’s basically made of metal and weighs in at a hefty 165 grams, so you’ll feel it in your pocket but but it’s not bulky by any means. The Milestone is sleek looking and if you think down the road 3-years will the design last? The answer is yes. It’s shape is not anything trend setting which makes it standout. Overall dimensions are 2.4 x 4.6 0.5 inches.
The 3.7 inch WVGA screen is impressive and has a resolution of 480×854. Quickly glancing over the web to see how much space it really occupies and it takes up the entire screen. Since the Milestone is a touchscreen the only downside I found so far is the amount of fingerprints it gets. Like all touchscreen devices all you have to do is rub a cloth to remove them. On the screen itself you’ll find capacitive touch sensitive buttons: back, menu, home and search. Around the device there is a power/lock button, 3.5mm headset jack, microUSB port, volume rocker and a one-touch button for the 5 megapixel auto-focus camera that has a dual LED flash, 4x zoom with video capabilities.
Probably one of the best features of the Milestone is it’s full slide out QWERTY keyboard. This will attract those users who want both a physical keyboard and a touchscreen. The actual keys are nothing special and are flush with with the lower part of the device. There are a couple keys that are missing that I believe Moto could have occupied with a button for the web or e-mail, but they are simply left blank. In addition, there is a 4-way directional pad on the right hand side of the keypad that I have yet to use. Looks good but it takes up a great deal of real estate on the actual keypad. When it comes to the durability of the slide mechanism, you’ll see in the video that I’ve put it to the test and it’s incredibly solid and wickedly smooth.
So far I am incredibly impressed with the Milestone. Check out the video and we’ll post the 2nd review shortly.
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