Why You Can Trust CNET Motorola Milestone XT720 (unlocked) review: Motorola Milestone XT720 (unlocked)
Motorola Milestone XT720 (unlocked)
Motorola Milestone XT720 (unlocked)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Motorola Milestone XT720 is the next-gen model of the original Milestone--the GSM version of the Motorola Droid. This time around, Moto ditched the slide-out keyboard to give the XT720 a sleeker design, and made other improvements, such as an upgraded 8-megapixel camera and HD video recording. Yet despite being well-stocked in the features department, the Milestone doesn't quite have the horsepower of some of the latest Android devices, so if you need power, you'll be better off with something like the Motorola Droid X.
For our review, we took a look at the unlocked version of the Motorola Milestone XT720 ($460) provided to us by eXpansys USA, but recently Cincinnati Bell announced it will also offer the XT720 for $199.99.
Design
The Motorola Milestone XT720 is a sleek but slightly odd-looking smartphone. The handset measures 4.53 inches tall by 2.39 inches wide by 0.43 inch thick and weighs 5.6 ounces, and like many other touch-screen devices, it has a slate design. However, there's a slight bump on the right side--where the LED lights for the media gallery and camera/camcorder notifications are housed--that gives the handset a unique shape. We didn't particularly care for it, preferring a more streamlined design, but it didn't hinder our use of the phone either.
On front, you get a 3.7-inch, WVGA (480x854 pixels) capacitive touch screen that's beautifully crisp and clear. Text is easy to read, and viewing images and Web pages look sharp. The display also offers pinch-to-zoom support and a built-in accelerometer, both of which are quick and responsive, so if you want to increase the viewing size, you can easily do so.
Overall, we had no problems with the touch screen. It registered all our touches, and we were happy to see the phone running the stock Android skin over Motoblur since it presents a cleaner interface. That said, we had issues with the keyboard. Unlike the original Milestone, the XT720 doesn't have a physical keyboard, so you only have the option of the stock Android keyboard. It was particularly cramped in portrait mode, but even in landscape mode, we had numerous mispresses and errors, so you might want to explore the Android Market for a better keyboard.
We should also note that the phone comes with an app called My Sign, where you draw gestures to launch certain apps. For example, drawing a W will toggle Wi-Fi, whereas drawing a V will call voice mail. There are preloaded gestures, but you can create your own as well. However, you can't simply make these gestures on the home screen; you have to actually open My Sign first and use the designated drawing area, so it didn't save any time.
Below the screen are the standard Android buttons: menu, home, back, and search. They're touch sensitive but provide haptic feedback so you'll feel a slight vibration when you touch them. There are some physical buttons on the phone, including a volume rocker, a camera activation/capture button, and a media gallery launcher on the right side. The top of the device features a power/lock key, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an HDMI port; there's a Micro-USB port on the left. The camera and Xenon flash are located on the back, which also features a soft-touch finish in an attractive midnight blue color.
The Motorola Milestone comes packaged with a travel charger, a USB cable, an HDMI cable, a wired stereo headset, and reference material. Since the phone was designed for international markets, the charger doesn't fit U.S. outlets, so you'll need to get an adapter or find a charger with a Micro-USB connector. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.
Features
The Motorola Milestone XT720 ships running Android 2.1, so you're getting the usual Android staples such as Gmail, Google Talk, Google Maps Navigation, a dedicated YouTube app, and QuickOffice. The Milestone is said to be getting an Android 2.2 update, but a release date has not yet been announced. When the update is rolled out, however, you can expect features like Flash 10.1 support and voice dialing over Bluetooth, as well as some of these hidden features.
Like other Android devices, the Milestone can sync with Gmail, POP3, IMAP, and Exchange accounts. It will also pull and merge contacts and calendar information from social-networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. The smartphone also offers separate apps for your corporate calendar and corporate directory. We had no problems setting up our Gmail, Outlook Web Access, and Facebook accounts on our review unit. The configuration process for most simply requires entering your log-in ID and password, but you'll need some additional information, such as server address, if you want Exchange support.
As a phone, the Milestone offers quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, speed dial, smart dialing, voice commands, conference calling, and text and multimedia messaging. The phone also has Bluetooth 2.1 with support for stereo Bluetooth, but as a limitation of Android 2.1, you can't voice dial over Bluetooth. Moto throws in a Phone Portal utility that lets you manage content on your phone from your PC over a Wi-Fi or USB connection.
The smartphone operates on the 1700/2100MHz WCDMA bands, so if you were to buy the phone unlocked and pop in a T-Mobile SIM, you should be able to get 3G. The Cincinnati Bell version is also 3G-capable. There's also Wi-Fi, and the device comes with Android's WebKit HTML Web browser, which is quite capable in functionality and performance with support for multiple windows and Flash Lite.
The Milestone's multimedia capabilities are fairly standard. The built-in music and video player supports a range of music and video codecs, including MP3, AAC, WAV, MPEG-4, and WAV. The music player features an attractive Cover Flow-like interface and also supports on-the-fly playlist creation and shuffle/repeat modes. The Milestone also has an FM radio and a separate Audio Effects app to optimize the sound for headphones and for the phone speaker.
The Milestone is equipped with an 8-megapixel camera with Xenon flash. The camera offers a number of advanced editing options like image stabilization, face detection, and panorama mode. It's also capable of HD video capture. Picture quality was decent for indoor shots once we turned on the Xenon flash. Without it, images came out dull and grainy; with the flash, colors were brighter. Overall, the picture was still a little murky, and recorded HD video had a slightly grainy look to it as well. In addition, the camera isn't fast. There's a noticeable delay when you turn it on, and there's shutter lag, so the Milestone proved a little frustrating as a camera phone.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) Motorola Milestone in New York using T-Mobile service and call quality was mostly good. On our side of the conversation, the audio was loud and clear with no trace of background noise or voice distortion to interrupt the call. Most of our friends had equally good things to say about the sound quality on their end, but one caller did complain that our voice sounded low, so it was hard for him to hear part of the conversation at times.
Speakerphone quality was acceptable. There was plenty of volume, so we could have conversations in louder environments, and though calls sounded slightly hollow, it was better than most. We easily paired the Milestone with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones. We also had no problems using an airline's voice automated response system and didn't have any dropped calls during our testing period.
Armed with a 720MHz TI OMAP processor, the Milestone kept up with our demands for the most part. Apps launched without problem, and we were able to switch between tasks with little delay. However, there were moments where the smartphone felt sluggish, particularly when using the multimedia features, so it wasn't quite up to snuff compared with some of the latest devices running on 1GHz processors.
The Milestone ships with a 1,390 lithium ion battery with a rated talk time of 9 hours (GSM)/4.5 hours (3G) and up to 13 days of standby time. The Milestone provided 7 hours of continuous talk time in our battery drain tests.