Motorola Milestone and the Joys of Android – Part 1: What Phone?
January 8th 2010
For the past four years I have owned various Sony Ericsson smartphones (the P900i followed by the P1i) which have had a basic calendar, notepad, etc and a hardware keyboard. I liked being able to use my phone for more than just making calls.
About a year ago my contract with O2 came up for renewal but there was no phone available that took my fancy. My foray into smartphones had left me disappointed as the applications installed were usually sub-par and I am too used to free stuff to shell out for anything better.
The rise of the iPhone during this time seemed to be moving things in the right direction where the applications were concerned but the touchscreen keyboard and my allergy to anything Apple was too big a boundary to cross. I would have never heard the end of it from everyone that knows me if I ever bought an Apple product.
I was patient though (or lazy) and didn’t renew my contract straight away.
After a while the Android phones started appearing. While this new operating system from Google seemed to be everything I was looking for, the touchscreen keyboards on 99% of the phones was putting me off.
It was then that I heard about the Motorola Dext. Running Android and sporting a hardware keyboard, it looked perfect except the heavy emphasis on social networking that was putting me off. I started to think I was far too picky and was never going to find a phone.
It was then that a press release came out from America announcing the Motorola Droid. The early photographs looked amazing: A large touchscreen with just as large a keyboard hidden underneath.
When it was eventually released in the US it was greeted with unanimous praise and selling like hot cakes. It was soon destined for Europe and the UK (although strangely retitled the Milestone) but there was still a problem: No service carrier was picking up the phone over here. T-Mobile, O2, 3. They all had all strangely rejected it. Then Expansys came to the rescue. They offered the phone without a contract for £550 or with a T-Mobile contract for £50.
So I waited for it’s UK release and after the feedback was positive I took the leap, cancelled my O2 contract and got the phone.
To be continued…