First Android 2.0 smartphone arrives in UK
Motorola's Milestone breaks cover
Motorola's first smartphone running Android 2.0 is now available in the UK.
Motorola's Milestone: an Expansys exclusive, for now
Online retailer Expansys has secured the exclusive rights to sell Moto's highly anticipated Milestone handset - it's called Droid in the States - before the likes of O2 or Orange.
Admittedly, Expansys' deal with Motorola only lasts until the end of this month. It's unclear which network operator(s) will win Milestone rights next year, but Expansys is offering the handset for £50 ($81/€55) when you sign up for a £35 monthly contract with T-Mobile.
Punters can't - for the time being - buy the phone from UK T-Mobile stores, an Expansys spokesperson confirmed to Register Hardware.
Expanays is also selling the Milestone for a SIM-free price of £449 ($732/€494). A £100 old-phone trade-in offer is also available.
Though only based on a 550MHz processor, the Milestone offers a 3.7in touchscreen display and has a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The phone's screen offers haptic feedback, Expansys said.
All the mainstream connectivity options are supported on Milestone, including 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, HSDPA 3G at up to 10.7Mb/s and quad-band GSM/GPRS.
Motorola has fitted Milestone with a 5Mp camera with image stabilisation, auto-focus, a dual-LED flash and 4x digital zoom. Pictures are stored on Micro SD memory cards of up to 32GB and can be wirelessly sent to other phones over Bluetooth 2.1.
Milestone's other notable features include a voice search feature that lets you "find anything on the web or on your phone", according to Expansys, and the optional Multimedia Station - a hi-tech docking station.
Further details about Motorola's Milestone smartphone and accessories are available online now. ®
COMMENTS
Extra Fail
Still not shipping... press release said 7th Dec.
Double fail with an extra order of fail on the side.
Re: GMN
Isn't Google Maps Navigation US only?
While the Milestone/Droid looks great, I'm more interested in a 2.0/2.1 update to my Hero :(
Triple fail...
Motorola are late shipping into Expansys.
Expansys aren't updating customers with ETAs (not like they hold our e-mail addresses with the orders or anything).
Google have the Market set up so that sim-free/unlocked Milestones cannot see protected apps, and don't appear to be doing much about it: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3852&q=motorola%20milestone&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars
legally
I think the hassle with porting to the same provider is more to do with the fact that they offer different deals to "new customers" and "existing customers", so if you already have a phone number with them how can you be a new customer? so you have to port to another provider so that all they see is you moving from another provider to them, as a new customer...
Not available yet
Expansys don't know if they are coming or going with regard to the Milestone. The delivery date fluctuates from 1 day to 6 days depending upon the wind speed, air temp and number of times the average iPhone user says "awesome".
