Review Earlier this year, Motorola was doing a very good impression of a company that, if not quite dead in the water, was certainly looking increasingly like shark bait. But then came its Android-powered Dext, with some advanced social networking capabilities and a clutch of high-end features, and the US company suddenly seemed to be back in the race.
Landmark offering? Motorola’s Milestone
Now with the Milestone it marks another, erm milestone, by being the first UK handset to run the new 2.0 version of the Android OS. Add in a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 5 megapixel Camera, improved browser, Wi-Fi, and A-GPS with sat nav capability, and things are looking very interesting at Motorola.
‘Interesting’ is probably as good a word to describe the look of the Milestone as any. It’s not conventionally beautiful, with its block lines and that strange protruding lip at the bottom prevents any aspirations to cool.
It’s solidly put together though, weighing in at a surprisingly heavy 165g for its 60 x 116 x 14mm dimensions. The weight is partly due to its metal casing, which features a rubberised coating on the back to prevent it sliding around on smooth surfaces. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Few would be surprised to learn that US brand Motorola has struggled of late. Since the flush of success it enjoyed with the Razr series back in 2004, Motorola has singularly failed to set the mobile world alight, seemingly watching as other brands grasped the smartphone nettle and raced to the future.
Motorola’s Dext: better than we’d imagined
But now, the company thinks its saviour may be at hand. The Motorola Dext is a smartphone that focuses on social networking using its Motoblur service. This makes innovative use of cloud technology to put instant Facebook and Twitter updates on your home page and holds all your phone’s info on a remote server, so you can access it anywhere and revise it instantly.
Motoblur features aside, the Dext runs the Android operating system, has a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 5Mp Camera, HSDPA 3G, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and a host of additional apps. However, for UK users, it’s initially only available on the Orange network. The Motorola Dext is a fairly chunky device at 114×58x16mm and 163g. Still, its designers have made the effort to soften its brick-like tendencies by tapering the front edges dramatically. This actually feels a bit odd at first, since the top half sits slightly inside the bottom half, but it turned out to be quite a practical solution. Read the rest of this entry »
