Despite its impressive looking spec however, the camera didn't quite live up to its promise. Edges didn’t look as sharp or clearly defined as we'd expect from a camera with 8Mp on its spec sheet, and colours too often appeared saturated, without as much detail as we've have liked. So it seems to be business as usual as far as Android imaging goes.
Sample Video
Click for a full-resolution video
Furthermore, the 720p HD video records at 24fps but still tended to look jerky and juddery, rather than delivering the smooth, detailed performance I was hoping for. Pre-recorded H.264, MPEG4 and WMV video clips looked pretty good though, and there's an option to expand the video to fit the screen, which is always useful.
Moto Phone Portal
Motorola didn't supply us with the dedicated headphones for the XT720, but sampling the sound with a few others I had to hand showed it to be decent enough, albeit suffering a little too much from compression effects, such as woolly bass tones. Points lost too for no option to adjust the sound from the track you're playing though the FM radio with its 20 presets worked very well. Audio formats include MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV.
A big screen, but only 11mm thick
The Milestone comes with an 8GB MicroSD card as standard, though you can bump this up to 32GB if you feel the need. Syncing for media, messages and contact info is achieved using Motorola's rather clunky but serviceable online Moto Phone Portal or simply drag and drop. The Moto service has the advantage of allowing you to sync your data from multiple locations, but it's not particularly intuitive to use.
COMMENTS
It's probably worth mentioning:
You make no mention of whether or not this variant of the Milestone sports the same signed bootchain as the regular Milestone, preventing users from using custom ROMs.
What you should have mentioned is Motorola's absolutely abysmal track record for getting Android updates to phones in a timely manner. Their flagship, the Verizon branded Droid still doesn't have 2.2, and they're deliberately dragging their feet over confirming if the nigh-identical Milestone will get it at all.
regarding battery life
It would have been a more useful review if you'd also had a go at installing Juicedefender and running it. Android power management is hopelessly tentative by default- every Android user that I know uses Juicedefender or something like it to tighten up the power management.
I know you shouldn't have to- but being pragmatic, this is one of the few major downsides of the otherwise splendid Android platform. Without it, my HTC Desire is out of steam before I am heading home, with it, I'm on 40% battery when it's time for sleep.
Neat toy...
...so we'll see them in Canada just after the US or the EU gets their first Android 3 phones.
*sigh*
