Motorola MILESTONE XT720 Review

Introduction:

Is it a mirror? Is it a reflective PCMCIA card? No, it’s the Motorola MILESTONE XT720! Touted to be Motorola’s camera-phone extraordinaire, this touch-screen phone mixes a traditional candy-bar form-factor with some interesting styling, a WVGA resolution screen and a hopeful 8MP camera on the back with auto-focus and a xenon flash. Running Google Android, could the MILESTONE XT720 be the media monster Android fan-boys have been craving for?



Design:

The first thing we notice about the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 is its shine. The front panel is reflective to the point that it can double up as a mirror.  The back panel contrasts this to great effect with a navy blue matte brushed metal finish, adding both grip and a solid feel. Despite being only 10.9mm thick, this phone feels chunky for a touch screen handset of this size.  With its angular styling, when compared with other touch-screen handsets such as the curvaceous HTC Desire, the edgy MILESTONE XT720 feels larger in the hand and pocket than its specs make out.



You can compare the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The front of the phone is occupied by the capacitive screen. It is large and beautiful. With a resolution of 480x854 pixels, the display is sharp and bright, colours are vivid and viewing angles are great making it a pleasure to look at. The pixel density won’t rival that of the Apple iPhone 4, however, against other Android devices, it is at the top of the pile, beating the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S. As we mentioned, the mirror-like screen attracts finger prints very easily and while this isn’t so noticeable when the screen is illuminated, when on standby, the evident smudges don’t look good. Despite this glossy screen, the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 is viewable outdoors for the most part, except in very bright direct sunlight.


Below the display are four capacitive Android buttons, the phone speaker and the microphone, as well as indicators relating to the camera and gallery in the bottom right (under the camera button). On the top of the unit is the 3.5mm headphone jack, a mini HDMI port and the power button,  with the volume rocker, camera button and gallery button on the right. The phone’s left hand-side contains a micro-USB port, with the battery cover, loudspeaker, camera and xenon flash all located on the back.


While we do think the overall design of the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 is solid and slick, it did leave us wanting, for example, the capacitive buttons underneath the screen were all too easy to press accidentally and the screen is a fingerprint magnet.

Interface:

There is no real MOTOBLUR on the Motorola MILESTONE XT720, therefore it doesn't incorporate its custom widgets. What you’re left with is a relatively undisturbed iteration of Android 2.1 with tweaks being skin deep. Operation works as we would have expected with five home-screens which can be populated as the user sees fit by Android widgets and shortcuts, a pull-down  status bar at the top containing notifications, battery life, reception, connection type and clock, a dialler icon on the bottom left, a messaging icon on the bottom right and finally, between these two, a pull-up menu with your apps. While we will come onto the subject of the processor a little later in the review, it is worthwhile mentioning that while the interface is perfectly well put together, sadly, operation isn’t entirely smooth due to the lack of processing power underneath the Motorola MILESTONE XT720’s hood.


Everything regarding the phonebook, calendar and messaging apps is standard for Android, so no surprises there.

Camera and Multimedia:

After reeling from the wonderful screen, we were very excited to use the camera. At 8MP with auto-focus and a xenon-flash, the specs are stacked in the MILESTONE XT720’s favour. As for the results, it fares better than most phones on the market, especially Android phones, though overall, not as good as we might have hoped. The interface options are comprehensive, with a range of scene modes (auto, portrait, landscape, sport, night, sunset and macro) and the option to shoot at different resolutions ( 8MP wide, 5MP, 3MP, 2MP, 1MP and VGA), as well as the ability to manually select the point of focus by tapping on the screen. When taking a picture lag can be an issue, especially when multi-tasking, and when using the xenon flash. On the subject of the flash, it’s great. Able to illuminate even pitch black situations much better and more evenly than LEDs, it makes the XT720 usable as a camera in  a whole range of situations standard phone cameras would simply under-perform. The on-board processor over-softens the image, ultimately producing less noise, but considerably less detail in the final version to the point that it can even turn gradients into bands of colour. This is always noticeable, however, especially so when shooting macro-shots, where detail is paramount. On the other-hand, this softening means that noise is less of a hindrance than it might be on other handsets, so our advice would be to take a look at the sample images and decide if the results are sharp enough for you.




As for video-recording, the HD recording isn’t very useful. It only managed remotely smooth capture after we terminated all background applications which is very impractical. Due to the nature of the xenon flash being onboard, there is no video-light, and so noise in video was a real issue. This is a shame as much older devices such as the Samsung OMNIA HD i8910 capture HD video at a better frame-rate and also performs considerably better in low light. Still, you'll be able to record some decently-smooth video in 720x480 pixels at 24fps.





In contrast, the music experience of the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 is among the best we’ve seen on an Android device. When viewing albums, the music player displays a cover-flow like view in landscape mode, and a simple list when in portrait. It is smooth, and one of the few features in the phone that doesn’t noticeably suffer from lag caused by the processor. Plugging in a pair of good quality headphones produces a great sound both when playing back audio files and when using the on-board radio (reception depending).



With a 3.7” screen that pops, we were excited to experience video on the Motorola MILESTONE XT270. Supported video codecs are MP4, H.264 and WMV. Out of the box the phone provides MP4 support for videos up to its native resolution (480x854), and these videos look stunning. The screen size and brightness make viewing video a treat, except for in direct sunlight, where the glossy screen causes too much reflection. For playback of other formats such as DivX and Xvid, third party media players such as arcMedia player can be downloaded. It is worth noting, that large videos in these formats will have to be resized in order to playback smoothly due to the processor’s limitations.

Connectivity and Data:

With quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G on board, the MILESTONE XT720 also adds Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a GPS to its list of connectivity options.

Browsing the web on the phone is great, which is to be expected from a 3.7” Android device with such good resolution screen. Multi-touch worked well, and pages are displayed in Android’s default browser quickly and accurately. When using the pinch to zoom with tasks running in the background, the phone stutters more than on most Android handsets, however this isn’t enough to ruin the great web experience provided by the Motorola MILESTONE XT720’s large, sharp and bright screen.


The phone also comes with Google’s navigation software, as well as a trial version of Motorola’s Motonav.

Software:

With Android 2.1 on board, we expected Motorola’s MOTOBLUR to be hard-wired into the device, however, Motorola has chosen not to incorporate MOTOBLUR into the MILESTONE XT720. They have however included one of our personal favourite customisations, Phone Portal, which allows users to control their phone with a computer through Wi-Fi within a web browser (Firefox and Internet Explorer are supported), omitting the need for both a USB connection and PC software. For productivity, the phone also comes with Quickoffice and the standard Android calendar and organizer functions such as a calculator, notepad and alarm clock. Unlike some other Android handsets, the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 also ships with a very comprehensive task manager and task killer, which lends to assist the slow processor by enabling manual termination of background apps.

Performance:

Ultimately, almost everything about the MILESTONE XT720 has been positive so far, however performance is where that changes. We tested the European release, which packs a 550Mhz processor under the hood.  Slowdown occurs more often than we would expect it to on such a feature-rich phone. Some of the best things about the phone, for example the screen and camera, aren’t given the power needed to keep the experience smooth. The menus stutter quite a lot and trying to flick between home-screens is often laggy and unresponsive. The camera is also slow to fire. Ultimately, while the European release of the MILESTONE XT720 is perfectly usable, the lack of finesse outlined above drives a wedge between this and other premium Android devices in terms of usability. With the US release getting a boost to 720Mhz, it seems this is something Motorola have picked up on, though sadly too late for us European MOTO-FANS.

As far as the phone function goes, the Motorola MILESTONE XT720 excels. With noise cancelling on-board, call quality is exceptionally  clear when receiving calls.  Calls from the phone resulted in a good level of clarity with minimal interference. With reception also being very good, we’re pleased to say that this is one enjoyable phone to talk on.

Conclusion:

We like the Motorola MILESTONE XT720, we just don’t love it. Its richness in features means it will never be a total let-down, yet a couple of issues reduce it to mediocrity when it could have been something great. The slow camera and painfully jerky HD video capture, stuttering when scrolling through the menu and changing home-screens all make the European MILESTONE XT720 feel grossly underpowered for a current generation smart-phone. It does deliver however in providing a comprehensive set of features, that could be worth the sacrifice in finesse. Without the slick user experience we’ve come to expect from other phones such as the HTC Desire, and the Apple iPhone 4, we would recommend either of these as alternatives to the Motorola MILESTONE XT720. If you are looking for an Android alternative with a decent camera, check out the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 as well.

Motorola MILESTONE XT720 Video Review: