Motorola Aura

Style & Handling Summary
Motorola has proved that it still has an eye for stunning design with this handset.

User Friendliness Summar
The hardware of the phone is all very easy to get to grips with and, as features are limited, usability is definitely not too taxing.

Feature Set Summary
The Aura follows the luxury phone rule of being big on design but light on features.

Performance Summary
With EDGE download speeds at the helm for web browsing, this phone is only really adequate for quick internet snacking.

Battery Power Summary
Battery life is excellent, mainly due to there being no features to run it down.
The Verdict
A lovely looking handset, it is just a shame that the feature set is pretty limited.

Full Review and Specification for the Motorola Aura
It’s been five years since the RAZR rewrote the mobile style rule book but even after all this time, Motorola is still struggling to emulate those past design glories. However, its first foray into the top-end premium phone market with the Aura sees a return to form of sorts, showing the US manufacturer still has an eye for stunning design.

Unlike the RAZR, the Aura’s look isn’t completely native, closely recalling Moto’s 2002 swivel blade handset, the V70. While it can’t claim to be truly original, it’s certainly the most lavish phone Moto has fashioned to date.

Work of art

Just from handling its weighty stainless steel body, you can tell a lot of effort has gone into its construction. At a solid 141g, the Aura will have a presence in your pocket, but its compact dimensions make sure it is not too bulky. According to Moto, it takes 13 days to produce this phone from scratch, which includes processes like electro polishing, fitting the nickel-chrome plated screws, applying laser welds and chemically etching the front grooved pattern. This painstaking level of detail is certainly noticeable.

The Aura’s circular LCD display is richer in definition than most we’ve seen, and its pin sharp 300dpi is almost photographic quality. The screen is protected by a 62-carat sapphire crystal lens, which is supposed to be one of the most scratch resistant materials known to man. But with a diameter of just 1.55 inches, it does feel a tad cramped and its round shape isn’t really geared for prolonged web browsing or for being used as the camera viewfinder. When you line up a shot, you’ll find part of the view out of picture, so some guesswork is needed to perfectly frame the snap.

The 180-degree swivel mechanism is definitely the phone’s pièce de résistance. It is made up of 200 components including a Swiss-made central bearing and tungsten carbon carbide coated steel gears, which make for an incredibly fluid and snappy spring-assisted action that ranks as one of the best we’ve used.

Design top, features bottom

Considering Moto’s previous reputation for tricksy interfaces, we had concerns regarding the circular menu system. Thankfully, the Aura’s rotating main user interface (UI) proved intuitive to use. Similarly, the nicely spaced, anodized aluminium keypad is easy to thumb but the reliance on a four-way joy pad and separate OK selection key, rather than a five-way set up, could prove initially tricky. Spend some time using it though and it soon becomes second nature.

The Aura follows the luxury phone rule of being big on design but light on features. Its build quality may be cutting edge but its feature line-up is pretty pathetic. The fixed focused two-megapixel camera is as exciting as it gets and is only really good for MMS and perhaps, at a push, uploading pictures to your blog or Facebook.

3G is also off the menu with EDGE download speeds at the helm for web browsing. That may be adequate for quick internet snacking but it still falls short in our estimations. The same also goes for its memory quota. Its 2GB internal dosage is great for starters but with no card slot to boost it further, the Aura is limited as a prime multimedia and music device. And because you won’t be abusing its vapid features too much, battery life is impressive with over 16 days standby time quoted.

The verdict

The work that has gone into designing and making the Aura is very impressive, and our hats go off to Moto. But it still doesn’t warrant such an expensive price tag, especially when its feature set resembles a low-mid-range phone.

Motorola DEXT

Style & Handling Summary
The Motorola Dext isn't a small phone – in fact, the slide-out QWERTY keyboard makes it rather bulky. Saying that, it does feel good in the hand whether open or closed.

User Friendliness Summary
Integration of email and social networks is easy, with automatic settings and step-by-step instructions for set-up.

Feature Set Summary
A slide-out QWERTY keyboard, touch-screen, Wi-Fi, a five-megapixel camera, access to Google's Android marketplace and MOTOBLUR for full integration are all here.

Performance Summary
The touch-screen is accurate and responsive, even with the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. HSPDA lags, but the messaging and social network integration is excellent.

Battery Power Summary
The Motorola Dext has 360 minutes' talktime – a good amount of power for such a feature-heavy device.

The Verdict
Organising your social life is a breeze with the excellent integration of contact, email and social networks. It's just a shame that the build is a little flimsy and the HSDPA data connection sluggish.


Full Review and Specification for the Motorola DEXT
It's been a while since Motorola has been with us and, sentimental types that we are, we're happy to have it back in the game. The manufacturer would claim it's never been away, of course, but other than the highly priced Aura, there's not been a peep from one of the industry's leading manufacturers for quite some time.

We've been hearing rumours of a Google Android phone for a while now, but many have passed them off as gossip. Until now – and the Motorola Dext is well worth the wait.

QWERTY keyboard

We do like the combination of a QWERTY keyboard and a touch-screen, and it's becoming more common on high-end handsets. The Nokia N97 and T-Mobile GI both featured the winning combo, and what they have in common with the Motorola Dext is their bulk – they are large devices that would benefit from losing a little weight. Saying that, the Dext feels great in both its open and closed states. The top part feels a bit flimsy, though, and we're not sure if it could withstand any more than a light bump.

Touch-screen

The 3.1-inch capacitive touch-screen can be swiped sideways to get to any one of the five home screens. We would have expected to see haptic feedback – a vibrating response to your touch-screen actions – but for some reason Motorola has chosen to leave it out. However, the touch-screen is very responsive and accurate, even when using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard, which is necessarily fairly small. Still, as you have the slide-out QWERTY keyboard at your disposal, you'd probably be better using that.

MOTOBLUR

When the HTC Hero was launched, the accompanying press blurb described it as 'people-centric', and this would be a good way to describe the Motorola Dext. It's all made easy for you by a system the manufacturer calls MOTOBLUR. The idea is that all your contact information – emails, phone numbers and social network updates – are there for you to view in one go. It's really easy to set up. The first time you switch the handset on, it will prompt you to to set up any email accounts for which you want to receive push alerts and whichever social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, you use. Settings are preset and automatic for all but the most obscure email providers, so you simply follow the step-by-step instructions.

Contacts control

Once set up, you will be alerted to each new email, update or tweet by a symbol at the top of the screen and a white blinking light in the top right-hand corner when the phone is inactive. If you have two email accounts, for instance for work and personal use, the Dext will merge them together into one list – unless you choose to separate them. In fact, you have complete control over what you wish to receive and what you want to filter out – it's brilliantly integrated.

Depending on how much information your contacts have provided, your address book will show their profile picture, phone number, email address and birthday as well as direct access to their Facebook, Twitter or MySpace page. Bebo is set to be added shortly, and Motorola says more will follow. You can also view your contact history with each contact in a conversation-style list.

Another great feature is that if you have your contact's address, all you need to do is click on it and Google Maps will pinpoint its exact location.

MOTOBLUR will be present on all future Motorola Android devices (and we're assured we can expect more).

Added security

Of course, one of the potential dangers of having all this information in one device is that security could be compromised. Motorola has considered this, though, and added some clever security features.
If you access your MOTOBLUR account from your desktop computer you can locate your handset using Google Maps together with the on-board GPS. You have to hope that if you do lose your phone, you do so in a place which has a good GPS signal, and we're not sure how useful the function would be if your handset had been stolen.
If your phone is stolen, you can remotely wipe the content, and it's all automatically backed up by MOTOBLUR. If you then chose to replace your Dext with another – or, presumably, a future Motorola Android – you can simply replace all the information to your new handset.

Mobile internet

There's more to the Motorola Dext than MOTOBLUR. For web browsing it offers both Wi-Fi and HSDPA. Unfortunately, even with HSDPA data speeds, websites were slower to load than we would have expected. This could be down to the operator rather than the phone, but as the Dext is currently exclusive to Orange, that doesn't help much.

When we swapped to Wi-Fi, though, the internet performance was excellent. Web pages were vibrant and crisp, and you can view them in full, although there is necessarily some scrolling involved.

If you press down anywhere on the pages, you can copy the URL address to paste on email, texts or whatever you want. This is a handy feature if you want to share breaking news stories or sports results. You can set up RSS feeds to any of your home screens to receive updates from your favourite sites.

Because the Motorola Dext is a Google device, you can access the Android market, a constantly growing applications store with thousands of apps. You can search for your specific app by category or by using the search tool. Android is now a genuine competitor to Apple's App Store, although some apps took several tries to download.

Five-megapixel camera

If Android phones could also carry high-spec cameras we would be delighted. Sadly, the Motorola Dext is true to form. The five-megapixel camera has no zoom or flash, which rather knocks it out of the running as a viable digital camera. While you can zoom into photos after you've taken them, quality will deteriorate when you do so.

But the camera isn't a total loss by any means. We like that your last photo is displayed on the lower right-hand corner of the screen, and rotates according to whether you are holding the device horizontally or vertically.

The geo-tagging function is also impressive, displaying the city and postcode location of a picture before you even take it – although if you can't get a GPS fix, an error message will appear.

Once you've taken your photo, you can upload it to one of a number of social networks, and the same applies to video footage. You can record up to five and a half hours of footage, but at only 24fps, it might not be the best medium for your movie masterpiece.

Google Maps

Google Maps is as impressive as ever. Here, you even get street view, which means you can see a panoramic view of most locations from street level. The GPS connection itself is quick and accurate, but we lost data connection more than once.

As for the other features on the Motorola Dext: you have access to Shazam, the music identification service, and voice control, which lets you tell Google your search terms instead of typing them in. A 3.5mm headphones jack is a welcome addition.

The verdict

We are big fans of the Motorola Dext but while we started off loving it, now we just like it a great deal. Even hardcore technophobes will find it easy to integrate email and social networking accounts – it's a simple process that works intuitively. Another plus point is that you can access the Android market's thousands of applications. In fact, early adopters are likely to rush for a taste of the Dext's high-end features.

There are just enough flaws to prevent the Motorola Dext getting an A+. The flimsy top half of the phone is worrying and the supposedly high-speed HSDPA access doesn't perform as hoped. But it's still a high-calibre handset, and is easily enough to put Motorola back in it's rightful place among the big mobile names. Welcome back, Moto.

Motorola Milestone

Style & Handling Summary for Motorola Milestone
This large and angular powerhouse of a phone has a great screen, but is somewhat old school in appearance.

User Friendliness Summary for Motorola Milestone
The latest Google Android OS is as easy to get to grips with as ever, and the capacitive touch-screen is accurate and responsive.

Feature Set Summary for Motorola Milestone
The internet and GPS features are superb, quick and fluid. Push-email is easy to set up for Google and Microsoft Exchange, but other accounts are not served as well. The camera is capable – a big move for a Android phone.

Performance Summary for Motorola Milestone
The Motorola Milestone’s massive processing power means multitasking doesn’t bother it at all, with no slowdown or lag.

Battery Power Summary for Motorola Milestone
Unfortunately, the battery lets down the powerful features – ours turned itself off after one day.

Full Review and Specification for the Motorola Milestone

The Motorola Milestone was meant to mark Motorola’s triumphant return to the smartphone scene, and it’s certainly a powerful device: it runs the latest version of the Android OS, is a multitasking demon and one of the fastest internet phones available.

But it’s hardly the most stylish of phones – in fact, it looks like an old-fashioned PDA, with the size to match. It’s powerful processing skills are no excuse – the iPhone put paid to the idea that power equals size for good. And with none of the stylish touches that grace recent Android phones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and the HTC Bravo, the Milestone may struggle to compete.

Style and handling summary for the Motorola Milestone

If we were being polite, we would describe the Motorola Milestone as old school, but while the look may be dated – a large, angular body with bronze detailing on the back speaker and D-pad – the build quality is excellent. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard has well-placed number and symbol keys to make tying a breeze, a dedicated shift key – a bonus for those who like grammatical texting – and an Alt key. The whole thing is similar to that email giant the BlackBerry. Unfortunately, the Motorola Milestone’s keyboard can’t compare. Sure, it’s tactile, but a D-Pad stuck on the side makes it a little too long, and the keys are quite heavy, making fast typing more difficult than on handsets like the BlackBerry Curve, or the touch-screen keyboards found on the HTC Hero or iPhone.

Connectivity and camera on the Motorola Milestone

The Motorola Milestone has a bumper 16GB of internal memory and, if that’s not enough, you get an 8GB microSD card bundled in. In terms of connectivity, you have a miniUSB port, a 3.5mm audio jack (more important that many manufacturers seem to think), and joining those of the sides of the phone are the camera release button and volume/zoom tabs.

The camera is the best one we’ve seen on an Android phone yet, although that’s hardly a recommendation. The Android 2.0 operating system at least supports a flash, which is new, so you get a five-megapixel cam with dual LED flash and autofocus. Unfortunately, the image sensors are about the same, meaning colours are slightly off even with daytime shots. Lowlight shots are far better, though – the LED flash does a pretty good job here. It won’t replace your dedicated camera, but will suffice for those out-and-about snaps, especially as the shutter release doubles as a launcher, giving you quick access.

Touch-screen on the Motorola Milestone

The capacitive touch-screen measures 3.7 inches and covers most of the Motorola Milestone’s frontage. The only hardware are four buttons along the bottom of the screen for back, menu, home and search. There’s no call or end call key, but a preloaded shortcut takes you through to the dialler. That does mean a couple of extra clicks if you even want to call back your last caller, though. One great little phone feature is a sensitive proximity sensor that that turns of the screen when you put it to your ear and turns it back on when you move it away – this is useful when your are calling voicemail or any other feature that requires you to enter numbers on a virtual keypad.

Internet on the Motorola Milestone

The internet and GPS features are the Milestone’s central features, and rightly so – they are incredibly fast and the best you can get. It’s one of the fastest internet phones we’ve used nad it’s superior processing power meant we could run the internet browser, messaging, Twitter and maps with no reduction in speed at all. There’s no delay between pressing your icon and launching an app, and using the phone is always immediate, intuitive and smooth.

The full HTML browser handles even the most content-heavy web pages with ease, and browsing is made comfortable thanks to that 3.7-inch screen and the multi-touch zoom function. Pictures and fonts are clear and sharp, and the touch-screen allows for accurate hitting of hyperlinks. Other than the lack of tabbed browsing, this is the nearest thing to a perfect mobile internet experience we’ve had.

Of course there’s a catch – there generally is – and in this case it’s the battery life, which is pretty poor. When we ran Facebook and Twitter in the background with frequent use of the browser, the Motorola Milestone switched itself off within a day. For an internet-centred phone, it could really do with a better battery.

GPS on the Motorola Milestone

The Motorola Milestone’s GPS receiver is fast and accurate, and it found our location down to the door number even when we were inside the building. Google Maps is included, although there’s no voice navigation feature (this is reserved for users on the other side of the Atlantic). To make up for this, Motorola has included its own navigation software, MOTONAV. This is a fully-featured package with both car and walking directions which comes with free Europe maps and a 60-trial of the Premium service. But the free stuff is good on its own, offering options to look around cities, find places around a cursor and send maps and directions by SMS or email. You can search for locations including restaurants, petrol stations, accommodation and parking, and when finding a route you can filter motorways, tolls, ferries and unpaved roads.

Keeping MOTONAV discrete from Google Maps is an odd decision, as the mapping functions would make more sense together. And you can’t turn on GPS from MOTONAV either, meaning a few extra clicks to accomplish this simple task. You can download on/off auto-GPS switches from Android Market, but plenty of other GPS phones have managed this without difficulty.

Contacts and email on the Motorola Milestone

Being a Google Android device, the Milestone’s Gmail access is an outstanding, desktop-like experience, and the QWERTY keypad makes typing messages easy. Google and Microsoft Exchange accounts offer easy-to-set-up push-email, but we’re surprised that push-email isn’t available for other email clients, even Hotmail. Set the send/receive notifications for the shortest interval possible and you will at least get regular updates, but that’s still only every 15 minutes. Another annoying twist is that even once you’ve cleared the notifications, you have to actually read the email to stop the phone sending you new notifications for the same message. Not fun for spam mails.

Social networking on the Motorola Milestone

As for social networking, you can get free apps for Facebook, Twitter etc via Android Market, but your notifications won’t be pushed to you like they are on phones like the DEXT. This is because the MOTOBLUR interface that made social networking such a breeze on the DEXT isn’t present here. Of course, not everyone is a social networker, and if that’s you, then you won’t mind the omission at all.

The free Facebook app isn’t up to much either, as you can’t even direct-message your friends. You can view the news feed almost exactly like you would on a desktop, but profiles are lacking in information. However, you can link up Facebook to your phone contacts – theoretically at least. It didn’t work for us, but that may have been a glitch in our review model.

You can also sync your contacts over-the-air with Google and Exchange, but moving contacts from a standalone Outlook account and you have to go in a roundabout way, by synching Outlook to Google. And the preloaded Phone Portal software, which can import contacts from Outlook, can’t sync your Outlook contacts to the phone.
What you can do, though, is see everything you’ve done on your phone, from calling and text history to internet browsing.

You can connect the Motorola Milestone to your PC via Wi-Fi, which is useful if you can’t lay your hands on your USB cable.

The verdict on the Motorola Milestone

The Milestone is impressively powerful, and its internet and GPS features are second to none. It’s bulky and lacks the usability of some other phones, but is a multitasking marvel, albeit one with a low batter life. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but if email and internet are your thing, it’s a great performer.

Motorola FlipOut

Style and handling summary for Motorola FlipOut review
The unique design means you flip the square FlipOut open like a switchblade. It’s well built and compact but feels a little flimsy in the hand, and those corners are a bit short.

User friendliness summary for Motorola FlipOut review
The flip-out opening of the name is smooth and stable, but that QWERTY keyboard takes some getting used to.

Feature set summary for Motorola FlipOut review
Wi-Fi and multi-touch browsing make for fast and smooth internet browsing, and A-GPS and Google Maps provide good navigation. Unfortunately though, the three-megapixel camera lets it down.

Battery power summary for Motorola FlipOut review
The battery life is average on the FlipOut, with 270 minutes’ talktime and 380 hours’ standby.

Full Review and Specification for the Motorola Flipout

Motorola has never been afraid to try something new with its mobile phones. It was responsible for the first clamshell phone and the only handset to have had a round display, and with the FlipOut it's once again trying something new. It's a square handset that opens like a switchblade, and is fully loaded with the Motoblur social networking interface and the Android operating system.

Style and handling on the Motorola FlipOut

The FlipOut is certainly unique although the design doesn't add a whole lot to the experience. It flicks open smoothly, although does feel a little lightweight, and the sharp edges on the phone can actually start to hurt your hand after a while.

The 2.8-inch touch-screen has a resolution of only 320x240 pixels, so looks pixelated, and it's too small for satisfying web surfing. But it does have multi-touch support which works well when browsing, viewing maps and going through the gallery.

Flip it open to reveal a five-line QWERTY keyboard with a dedicated number line and well-sized keys, although they can be a bit hard to press. A separator bar down the centre is a bit offputting at first, but could prove useful if you were trying to text in the dark. There's a D-Pad positioned on the bottom left-hand corner of the keyboard but it seems a bit pointless when you can use use the touch-screen to move around.

Dialling on the Motorola FlipOut
The handset needs to be opened before you make a call, but that feels comfortable to use. The proximity sensor leaps into action as soon as you move the phone from your ear and the screen comes on almost immediately. However, the touch-screen is sometimes a bit slow to recognise the call-end command.

Use the on-screen keypad to dial, but you don't get the option of typing in the first few letters of a contact's name to find a number that way. Also, there is no favourite contacts option so you'll have to hit a tab to search for the person you want to call. We did attempt to type a name into the QWERTY keyboard, but the phone only recognised our typing as numbers. It just makes things that more unnecessarily complicated than they need to be.

Camera on the Motorola FlipOut

Android phones don't tend to have great cameras, and the standard three-megapixel snapper on the FlipOut is par for the course. No flash or auto-focus means indoor shots suffer and taking pictures and night is out of the question, and you have to hold the camera extra-steady to avoid blurry shots. Daylight pictures are soft and blurry, although better than those taken inside.

Social networking on the Motorola FlipOut

Motorola's Motoblur social networking hub brings all your social networks, email accounts and contacts together to make the most comprehensive universal phonebook you could hope for. When you start up the FlipOut you will be prompted to enter the details of all your social networks and email accounts. Your phonebook is then synced to these so all your contacts are brought together. You can also choose which social network takes precedence when you sync up profile pictures.

You can also choose different groups to display, and your inbox shows messages from across your social world, whether Twitter, Facebook or email. A widget on the home screen shows the most recent.

But the main attraction of Motoblur is Happenings, its social networking app. You can place as many Happenings widgets as you want over the seven home screens, and tweak them to your preferred settings. It syncs the feeds from all your social networks or, if your prefer, you can have individual widgets for Twitter, work, a favourites group of whatever you fancy.

Your widget will display the latest update alongside a blurry picture of the person who posted it, although not the full update. To read that, click on the widget to be taken to the mobile version of the relevant site. It's not the most intuitive system we've come across, and it will take some time to reconfigure the phone to your preference.

Other widgets include Quick Action, which puts a favourite contact on your home screen so you can call or text them directly or see their latest update. Once you have set these you cannot change them unless you delete the widget and make a new one.

There are a few flaws; for example, selecting certain action options can stop the interface working so you need to close the program and relaunch it.

Android on the Motorola FlipOut

The FlipOut is powered by Android 2.1, which is as easy to use as usual. The notifications toolbar is the best thing on the handset: all your alerts show up on a bar at the top of the screen – for example, missed calls, messages or battery power. Swipe down and you will be taken to the right place to check or follow up.

Gmail is as good as ever, with desktop functionality, but for some reason you can't have it as part of your unified inbox – annoying if it's your main email account.

Internet on the Motorola FlipOut

The web browser supports both HTML and Flash Lite sites, so you get a desktop-like view of web pages and embedded video too. The experience is marred by the low-res screen though, with text looking ragged unless you zoom right in. Pages load quickly thanks to HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, and multi-touch makes browsing a breeze.

A-GPS and Google maps are both preloaded so you can expect the same high level of navigation as you would on any Android phone.

The verdict on the Motorola FlipOut

The FlipOut certainly looks original and is compact too – you may well find it to be a welcome change from many of the bulky Android phones on the market. Social networking is front and centre here, so its appeal is definitely to those users who can't stay out of touch for long. Other users might find it a bit overwhelming. The low-res small display does let it down though. It's cute and quirky and aimed firmly at social networking users.

Motorola Milestone XT720

Style and handling summary for Motorola Milestone XT720 review
The Milestone Milestone XT720 is a hefty phone in both size and weight, with a ridged back that accommodates the Xenon flash.

User friendliness summary for Motorola Milestone XT720 review
The capacitive touch-screen is sometimes over-responsive, leading to launching apps unintentionally, and the QWERTY keyboard requires careful handling.

Feature set summary for Motorola Milestone XT720 review
The features on the Motorola Milestone XT720 are impressive and include HSDPA and Wi-Fi internet speeds, A-GPS, a capacitive touch-screen and the star feature: an eight-megapixel camera with Xenon flash.

Performance summary for Motorola Milestone XT720 review
The unpowered processor means you get delays in launching applications.

Battery power summary for Motorola Milestone XT720 review
The battery power is good considering all the features on the Motorola Milestone XT720 : up to 540 minutes of talktime.

Full Review and Specification for the Motorola Milestone XT720
Motorola had a bit of a low period for a while, following up the massive success of the iconic RAZR with a period of absence punctuated by the occasional odd concept phone like the Aura. But since the release of the Dext last year the manufacturer appears to be on the up and up. The Milestone XT720, the second phone in the Milestone range, is powered by Android 2.1 and looks to be another success.

Style and handling on the Motorola Milestone XT720
The Motorola Milestone XT720 is a chunky, heavy handset that weighs a hefty 160 grams. The 3.7-inch screen is great but set in a wide border; we can't help thinking that either the screen could have been bigger or the phone smaller. Like many touch-screens it's a fingerprint magnet, but it does seem worse than usual. Below the screen sit four touch keys for menu, home, back and quick search.

The back of the phone is navy blue, which sounds odd but actually looks great against the metallic front. This is where you'll find the XT720's killer app: its eight-megapixel camera with Xenon flash. More on the camera later, but the flash and (unprotected) lens are on a slight ridge that makes the phone even fatter. It needs the bulk to accommodate that flash, of course, but some users may be put off by it.

Touch-screen on the Motorola Milestone XT720
The Motorola Milestone XT720 is a capacitive screen, which is better than the resistive kind, although in this case the screen is almost too responsive. We kept accidently hitting an icon twice, or brushing past one and launching up an app we hadn't wanted to.

Whereas the original Milestone had a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the XT720 relies on an on-screen virtual one, with a haptic response so you know your key press has been recognised. It works in both portrait and landscape view - the latter is larger, obviously - although the accelerometer takes a few moments to register when you change from one to the other.

A new feature Google is introducing is a Voice Input key, located on the keyboard next to the space bar. This enables you to dictate your messages instead of typing them and it works well, except for unusual names. And dictating email addresses takes far longer than simply typing them into the address bar.

Shortcuts and widgets on the Motorola Milestone XT720
The Milestone XT720 has five home screens, all of which are customisable. The main screen can be reached from anywhere simply by pressing the home key below the screen.

No social networking apps have been preloaded, which seems odd, so you have the option to go via the browser or download the apps from Android Market. It's free to download both Twitter and Facebook and a far easier option than using the browser.

YouTube is preloaded on the phone, though, and if you drag it to a home screen it will update regularly with recommended videos. Playback quality is variable: clips take a few seconds to load and if you don't play them in high quality are grainy and small. But select the HQ button and everything changes: the videos are larger and the quality very good indeed.

We're always pleased to see a 3.5mm audio port for plugging in your headphones, and the speaker is also pretty good, and loud enough to bother fellow passengers on public transport.

Internet on the Motorola Milestone XT720
Internet is a speedy business on the XT720. If your network is up to it, you will get HSDPA data speeds of up to 1.2Mbps, and there's also Wi-Fi.

Thanks to the Android 2.1 OS you also have multi-touch, the pinch-and-pull method of zooming pioneered by Apple. Having experienced this on other Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S, where it was slick and intuitive, we expected great things from it here. Unfortunately this wasn't the case, as text and pictures take a couple of seconds to change size.

Processor on the Motorola Milestone XT720
This is not the only slow thing about the Milestone XT720. The ARM Cortex A8 720MHz processor is fast, but doesn't come anywhere near the speeds achieved by the Galaxy S, HTC Desire or iPhone 4.

Even that eight-megapixel camera is slow to launch, with a delay of about four seconds between pushing the perfectly positioned dedicated camera launch key and the camera firing up, by which time that spontaneous shot you wanted to capture will be well gone. There's also a delay when you actually take the photo, so don't move as soon as you've pressed the button.

Camera on the Motorola Milestone XT720
But despite the delays, the camera on the Milestone gives great results for but still and video photography. Quite apart from the eight-megapixel resolution, the Xenon flash makes all the difference. Even the pictures that we took in complete dark came out clear and detailed. A plethora of settings are on board to help you along including multi shot, face detection, red-eye reduction and camera shake prevention. Even the most amateurish of snappers can get good-quality pics from it.

Video is also superb, enabling you to shoot over four and a half hours of high-definition footage in on go. Perfect for budding filmmakers. You also get a HDMI cable boxed in, which means you can watch your footage back over HDTV, and a button next to the camera key gives you access to your gallery.

Sat nav on the Motorola Milestone XT720
For navigation you have Motonav, Motorola's proprietary mapping service. It gave us a quick and accurate location fix, and the 3D maps and clear voice instructions make everything clear and easy to understand. Sometimes our positioned jumped instead of moving smoothly, but other than that it worked well, and plenty of users are likely to take up the paid service once the free trial has expired. If no, Google Maps provides a reliable and familiar alternative.
The verdict on the Motorola Milestone XT720
The Motorola Milestone XT720 is great in theory, ticking all the boxes for a good and reliable all rounder. However, it is big and heavy with a processor that can't handle the feature set, meaning you are prone to delays. It's a good device with a fantastic camera - it just may not compete against similarly priced, and better, competitors.

Motorola Defy

Style and handling summary for Motorola Defy review
The Defy is different, fun, and stands out from the crowd. Classy it's not, but with a small body and big screen, it certainly catches the eye

User friendliness summary for Motorola Defy review
The Defy doesn't use the latest version of Android - but the version 2.1 onboard offers an intuitive user experience with the benefits of multi-touch

Feature set summary for Motorola Defy review
We were surprised to find a 5-megapixel snapper with flash on a ruggedised device like the Defy - although it doesn't deliver the best images

Performance summary for Motorola Defy review
The Defy offers decent performance; even if it doesn't have the fastest processor we've seen

Battery power summary for Motorola Defy review
You'll squeeze out enough power to take you into a second day if needs be, but you'll probably be charging every night


Full Review and Specification for the Motorola Defy
We have to say, the Motorola Defy brings some fun to the handset market. Okay, it is not as classy as the Moto Milestone or Samsung Galaxy S, but that's because it is encased in plastic to offer a shock-, dust- and water-resistance that they don't. It's reminiscent of a zebra, with a white edge strip and rubberised matte-black front, which should mean it stands out if you drop it when you're in the great outdoors.

First impressions

Generally, ruggedised phones put their all into being indestructible, sacrificing looks, a decent display, a good snapper and a nifty set of features in the process. The Defy tries to do both - okay it's not as highly protected as the Sonim Solid Extreme for instance, and it doesn't have top-of-the-range features, but they are better than those found on most tough handsets. Tough and smart is quite something to achieve in the mobile phone world.

The Defy manages to stay pocket-sized, although it has a bit more girth than your average Android phone. The designers have tried to disguise this a little by sloping its sides, and while it can't claim to be as svelte as the iPhone 4, it is far shorter, even though it has a 3.8in display. You won't be surprised to hear that all edges are sealed - on the volume rocker and power switch and the pop-out plugs for the 3.5mm headphone jack and micro USB charger. The battery sits behind a sliding lock cover, which has small edge screws along its sides, to add to the feel of industrial chic. The huge display takes over the front of the device, apart from the four Android buttons that sit in touch-sensitive lights underneath it. It's the best-looking Motorola handset we've seen for some time.

The display looks pretty decent. It's multi-touch and, while it's not up there with the AMOLED screens (colours can look a bit pale), it has an excellent resolution of 480x854 pixels. To add to its tough credentials, the display is made from Gorilla Glass, which should keep bumps and scratches at bay.
Back to basics

So that's enough about the Defy's looks. What about its performance? As we're sure you're aware, capacitive displays work by conducting the electricity from your finger to the screen, so if the display is wet, it won't operate so well. iPhone fans may well already have discovered this.

That aside, the Defy survived our clumsiness well - we dropped it on the floor a few times and even let it slip into a puddle. Once we'd wiped it down, the Defy carried on working and looked as good as new.

Media and social networking

The Defy boasts an impressive (for a tough device) 5 megapixel camera, complete with LED flash, and though it performed okay, it was disappointing in low light. We were happy with video recording, although there is no HD offering. But hey, you can't have it all.

The version of Android the Defy supports is 2.1 - not the latest incarnation, so you might miss a few of the fancy additions. However, it does have the benefit of MotoBlur, a very decent social network aggregator, which gathers together your Facebook updates, messages and tweets and places items in widgets on the screen. Rivals have taken over MotoBlur recently, but it still remains a fun-to-use interface.

There are seven screens, all of which have plenty to do. One has an icon for recent messages as well as contact shortcuts, while another features a media playback widget, as well as a help shortcut should you need any aid actually using the handset. Then there are Favourites, Contacts, Camera and several other buttons - all sitting at the bottom of each screen. Mind you, you can always dump them if you don't want them there. And we did like the useful bar of switches, to turn on and off flight mode, GPS and Wi-Fi should you wish to.

The verdict

While the Defy may not have a speedy 1GHz processor onboard, its 800MHz model seems to run pretty quickly. The battery life compares well with most of the other big-name Android devices, and will easily get you through the day on a full charge. Anyone who's a tad clumsy and has lost a smartphone in a pint of beer, or, even worse, down the toilet, might like to consider this tougher device, which combines ruggedisation and some fancy features. Motorola often manages to surprise us - and after bringing out a number of somewhat disappointing devices, by producing a handset with brains and brawn, it has done just that with the Defy.

Motorola Milestone 2

Style and handling summary for Motorola Milestone 2 review
Looking very much like the original Milestone, the Milestone 2 boasts a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that makes it as weighty as its older brother

User friendliness summary for Motorola Milestone 2 review
The capacitive touch-screen is impressive both in terms of being easy to use and its vibrant colours, and the very tactile slide-out QWERTY keyboard made texting really simple

Feature set summary for Motorola Milestone 2 review
Social networkers will like the MOTOBLUR facility, which integrates all your feeds, while the five-megapixel snapper offers impressive performance, even when taking pictures of moving objects

Performance summary for Motorola Milestone 2 review
The phone runs on the latest version of Android – 2.2 or Froyo – and with its 1 GHz processor, it is speedy for browsing the web and application loading

Battery power summary for Motorola Milestone 2 review
Battery life is pretty average, with 350 hours of standby and 360 minutes of talktime

Full Review and Specification for the Motorola Milestone 2
Even though phone manufacturers are always bringing out new incarnations of old phones, sometimes they are better than their predecessors, and sometimes, inexplicably, they just can't cut the mustard. When we reviewed the Motorola Milestone, we were impressed by its emailing capabilities but were disappointed by its social network offering. With the Motorola Milestone 2 featuring the latest version of Android and Motorola's own social network integrator, has it improved on its older brother?

First impressions

Chassis-wise, the Milestone 2 is pretty similar to the original, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and the same sharp edges. It feels as weighty as the original and also has the same 3.7in capacitive touch-screen - it boasts the same resolution (480x854) and colours (16 million). The keyboard, though, has changed for the better. Motorola has done away with the D-pad, and added in four dedicated cursor keys. They have also raised the keyboard a little, which makes it easier to type on. There are no dedicated numeric keys - you need to press and hold the ALT key to type in numbers - but another line of keys would have created a rather cramped keypad. Turn the handset over and you'll find its navy blue back (which looks stylish against its silver trim) is made from smooth rubber. Mind you, we were a little concerned about the heat emanating from the back when the phone was turned on for any length of time. There is also a speaker placed underneath the battery cover - it emits a pretty powerful sound, too.

On display

We were impressed both by how easy to use the capacitive touch-screen proved, and by how vibrant it appeared. It offers just the right degree of responsiveness, which allows you to use the least pressure to perform actions, while not being so sensitive that you end up opening the wrong program by accident. There are seven home screens that can be customised. The user is able to flick between them, and use the page guide at the bottom of the display to hop to any page you like. There's also a virtual QWERTY keyboard if you don't want to use the real keyboard. Hold the handset in horizontal mode and you'll be able to enjoy a spacious keyboard, in vertical mode it's somewhat cramped.

The Motorola Milestone 2 also has the clever Swype text input function, which we first saw on the Samsung Galaxy S. It differs from other inputting methods in that you slide your finger from one key to the next, and Swype tries to recognise what you are typing and then offers you what it thinks is the right word. As on the Galaxy S, we found it very fluid and you can get up quite a speed typing this way. Having said that, it can be a bit of an issue if your finger covers the next letter you want, and we're not really sure why you wouldn't just use the real QWERTY keyboard, but we do really like the Swype experience.

Froyo

As well as Swype, another new introduction on the Milestone 2 is the latest version of Google's Android. This is 2.2 or Froyo. Along with the onboard 1GHz processor, this new operating system offers really speedy internet browsing and we found that applications also loaded up double-quick. It also offers the facility to use your voice to dictate texts and email, and search Google. To input your search term, just press the microphone key on the keyboard. On the whole we were impressed with its performance, even when we tried using it on busy streets in London's West End. We reckon it's about 90 per cent accurate, so we're not convinced you'd use it for more than a very quick email or text. If you want to dictate email, text or use it for navigation, you'll need to fire up the relevant programs before you start.

Getting social

While the Milestone 2 may be a Google device, Motorola has certainly had its input. Not least with the addition of its MOTOBLUR social networking integrator. We first saw this on the Motorola DEXT, although it was oddly missing from the Milestone. It's not quite up there with HTC's FriendStream, but nevertheless, MOTOBLUR does a good job of integrating emails, messages and social network fees into a single feed. Plus, if you head to the contacts page, you'll be able to flick between contacts, their most recent status, as well as any correspondence you have had, whether it's emails, tweets or wall posts.

We had mixed emotions about the snapper. It takes some time to get going and we weren't overly impressed by the rather cloudy image before we took a picture. However, the results were pretty good - autofocus worked well, even on moving objects, and the dual LED flash really helped when we were taking snaps in low-light conditions. We had no such doubts about navigation - we got a speedy and very accurate fix, even when we were indoors, and now that you can use voice guidance with Google Maps whether in the car or on foot - and use other applications while it's guiding you - we have no complaints.

The verdict

The Motorola Milestone 2 offers a whole heap of features and does what we had hoped - improves on the original version. Social networkers will be happy that MOTOBLUR has been included, and users will be enamoured by the tactile QWERTY keyboard. With the inclusion of Android 2.2, an excellent navigational experience, and DLNA compatibility, the Motorola Milestone 2 offers a very decent alternative to Android handsets from LG, Samsung and HTC