The Motorola Milestone XT720 is Moto’s latest high end device following on from the popular original Milestone, this time we have a candy bar style phone without the slide out keyboard of the first model, packing an 8 Mega-Pixel digital camera, Xenon Flash running on the Android 2.1 operating system.
What’s in the box:-
Motorola XT720
Battery
USB Mains Charger
Data Cable (microUSB)
Stereo Headset
miniHDMI to HDMI Cable
Memory Card
User Guide
Read on for the full review:-
To start with we have recorded an unboxing video with a quick look around the hardware:-
The Externals
Front
The top of the phone has the proximity and light sensors and the earpiece speaker as well as the well known Moto logo.
At the bottom of the phone you can see capacitive buttons for Applications, Home, Back and Search, the bulge out on the right hand side has indicators for the mode the camera is currently in when you are in the camera application.
Sides
The left edge of the phone houses the charging point (MicroUSB) and at the top a place for a lanyard.
The right side of the phone has a bit more going on with the volume rocker, a mode change button which switches between Media, Still Camera and Video Camera and finally a dedicated shutter button for the camera.
Top
The top has the well received 3.5mm headset jack, the on/off button and a mini HDMI out for connecting to a HD TV or projector, a nice touch, especially when the cable is included in the box.
Back
The rear of the phone is dressed in a soft touch blue paint with strange height differences which make the look and feel of the phone a little strange to say the least.
At the top you can see the camera lens and the Xenon Flash
Ok so thats a look around the outside, what do we think in everyday use of the phone:-
First off the design for me is quirky, what do I mean by that, well it is a Motorola phone so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it has strange lines and sticky out parts where you would normally see smooth lines and transitions on other manufacturers phones, is this a bad thing, for me yes, it just does not compute in my head but I do know lots of other people who love the strange Moto designs so to be honest if you like Moto products you will probably love this one too.
Getting away from the design weirdness, the phone is really well made with and feels solid in your hand, smooth metal edges and well covered slots for cables all make it feel a very well made device.
The screen, hmmm this is a bit of a conundrum as I am also testing out the Samsung Galaxy S, its just not as good in this department but then again nothing else is either, it has a 480×854 WVGA TFT screen which is nice if not spectacular.
Android 2.1 is running inside the phone and it is a Vanilla version with a few added extras from Moto like Moto Car which is a dedicated home screen for in car use and big buttons for easy navigation.
The Camera
The 8 Mega-Pixel camera performed very well and this is the biggest selling point of the phone, below are a sample of daytime and night time shots for comparison all taken at the highest resolution.
Conclusion
The Motorola XT720 is a very nice phone if you like the quirky design features, its not exactly symmetrical, but performance and build quality are excellent although we do have to mention that intensive tasks do bog the processor down a little, on investigation it appears that it is clocked at 550Mhz with a rumour that it will get a speed bump to 720Mhz in the near future. This is a little slower than the current crop of Android flagship devices.
It has some very nice value added features from Moto like the in car home screen and free trial Sat Nav which is not to be sniffed at and would be a great addition to anyone looking for a well made Android Smartphone.
Pros
Build Quality
Camera
Flash
Cons
Underpowered Processor
Quirky design
Available today Sim Free from flagshipfones
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