Bought me a Moto Milestone

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

For those of you who don't know what that is, it's the GSM version of the Droid. I specifically bought a Telus Milestone which is for Canada but has 850/1900 3G bands so I can get ATT 3G. This is pricey. I feel like one of the people w/o insurance who go to Canada to buy cheap drugs or something, but this is what must be done for getting good phones with ATT 3G bands.

What I like:
- Multitouch is there. HAH! Droid users... Anyway, you can hack it with a Droid anyway, so it's not that much of a big plus for me. Pinch zoom is always nice to have. Double tap is great too, but pinch zoom makes my transition from iPod/3GS very easy.
- Certainly powerful
- Beautiful screen, resolution is nice. iPhone screen FTL? I mean the contrast and brightness of the iPhone is certainly great. The colors aren't as rich/accurate, and certainly the resolution is behind. I'll have to take the Milestone outside for a test because the iPhone excels outdoors and can hold its own against some AMOLED screens.

What I don't like:
- Laggy UI. This is worse than the iPod Touch 1G/iPhone 2G. Actually with those 2 you only get a slightly choppy swipe, but most apps run just fine (maybe except the new games that you need a 3GS for). Android needs to fix this.

- No push peak schedule. I don't want my phone vibrating at night with emails. I want to save power too. The ONLY thing I liked about Nokia S60's crappy Exchange email clients was that you could set a peak interval where push would be on. I set that for my work hours. If I need email at 11pm, I'll pull it. No need to buzz me while I'm relaxing at home.

- Multitouch on keyboard!! Don't you feel clumsy using the stock Android keyboard? HTC's keyboard makes life a lot better, but without multitouch, this thing feels clumsy as hell compared to an iPhone. Granted there's a hardware keyboard, but I'm not a hardware keyboard guy... especially if it requires sliding out too. Coming from Apple, such a refined keyboard is very welcome. Once again I state that multitouch on a keyboard is night and day. The Droid Eris feels very nice to type on.

- Android marketplace is a step behind Apple's app store. An on-computer app would be nice. I like browsing using iTunes. It's tough picking between 50 twitter apps, and sometimes using iTunes' rankings via category helps. Feels a lot nicer on a computer than on a phone with both Apple and Android, so I wish there was a better system here.... I'll accept that coming from S60, the Marketplace is 100x better than Ovi store. Poor WinMo users as well.

 

[Deeko]

- Multitouch is there. HAH! Droid users... Anyway, you can hack it with a Droid anyway. Pinch zoom is always nice to have. Double tap is great too, but pinch zoom makes my transition from iPod/3GS very easy.

Multitouch is coming to Droid with the next update...in fact, its already been added to Maps

- No push peak schedule. I don't want my phone vibrating at night with emails. I want to save power too. The ONLY thing I liked about Nokia S60's crappy Exchange email clients was that you could set a peak interval where push would be on. I set that for my work hours. If I need email at 11pm, I'll pull it. No need to buzz me while I'm relaxing at home.

Pretty sure that There's An App For That

- Multitouch on keyboard!! Don't you feel clumsy using the stock Android keyboard? HTC's keyboard makes life a lot better, but without multitouch, this thing feels clumsy as hell compared to an iPhone. Granted there's a hardware keyboard, but I'm not a hardware keyboard guy... especially if it requires sliding out too. Coming from Apple, such a refined keyboard is very welcome. Once again I state that multitouch on a keyboard is night and day. The Droid Eris feels very nice to type on.

Do I feel "clumsy" on it? no, but I don't really like any on screen keyboard. Try out Better Keyboard from the market, or better yet, track down the Swype beta.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Pretty sure that There's An App For That
.

I've been looking around. Nothing yet for me. Locale turns off ringing at night and what not, but that's not what I want. I want it to stop pushing email period. I'd rather save battery at night anyway. The iPhone lacked this too. Makes me wonder how the few S60 mail clients implemented this all so well. Now if it weren't for their terrible overall email clients....

 

[Deeko]

I've been looking around. Nothing yet for me. Locale turns off ringing at night and what not, but that's not what I want. I want it to stop pushing email period. I'd rather save battery at night anyway. The iPhone lacked this too. Makes me wonder how the few S60 mail clients implemented this all so well. Now if it weren't for their terrible overall email clients....

I haven't used it since the G1, but Touchdown is a full-blown exchange app that I thought had this feature. Its somewhat expensive, though.

Come to think of it, i think HTC's exchange app in Sense has it too...not that that helps you.

 

[Demo24]

Why not charge it at night, thats what I do each night. Also my emails just made a 'pop' notification, so i'm never bothered at night.

The question is, why'd you get a Droid if you didn't want the keyboard?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I haven't used it since the G1, but Touchdown is a full-blown exchange app that I thought had this feature. Its somewhat expensive, though.

Come to think of it, i think HTC's exchange app in Sense has it too...not that that helps you.

I settled with this phone because I figured I'm not going to get Sense in a LONG LONG time. Even the old TouchFlo3D on WinMo phones made me drool. The new sense is truly awesome. I know I'm missing out, but this is unfortunately what I get for being in the US and on AT&T. We miss out on everything =[ And by the time a Canadian carrier gets the Desire, it'll be the end of the year....

Why not charge it at night, thats what I do each night. Also my emails just made a 'pop' notification, so i'm never bothered at night.

The question is, why'd you get a Droid if you didn't want the keyboard?

What other phone (minus the keyboard) compares to the Droid that I can use on AT&T? Nexus One lacks 3G for ATT. The Desire is not out yet but doesn't look like it has ATT 3G. The Hero is on Telus and can be imported, but why pay $550 for an older slower phone when the Droid is a mere $100 more. Other options are to import a MyTouch from Rogers. Yes I know it's outrageous to pay $650 for a phone like this, but when the iPhone runs for $599 and the HTC HD2 from Australia runs for $800+ (LOL), there aren't many options for me....

That or I keep waiting for that X10 on AT&T rumor! Hah.

About charging, from what I read this phone can get away with 2 days of battery life. I don't mind notifications when I'm sleeping. I have mine on vibrate anyway. It's just the fact that push email only matters to me 8 hrs of the day when I'm at work. The other 16 is honestly trivial. That's 2/3 of the push email power saved. As for my gmail, that's running IMAP IDLE I suppose? Something slightly different.

 

[Demo24]

Fair enough, just thought it strange since there are other phones on the near horizon that would work on ATT.

edit: as for charging, you can probably get away with 2 days if you don't use it much. But if you use it pretty reguarly through the day then a nightly charge would be a good idea.

 

[vshah]

I've been looking around. Nothing yet for me. Locale turns off ringing at night and what not, but that's not what I want. I want it to stop pushing email period. I'd rather save battery at night anyway. The iPhone lacked this too. Makes me wonder how the few S60 mail clients implemented this all so well. Now if it weren't for their terrible overall email clients....

turn off auto sync from the power control widget, that will stop gmail being pushed.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Interesting... Found the Touchdown mail app. Definitely better now in terms of pushing only when I need it to during the work day.

The sluggishness is bothering me more and more as I watch youtube videos comparing the 3GS and Nexus One and occasionally Droid. My Droid does not fly like the Nexus One, and the iPhone's UI just flies even more. I guess I was under the impression if 528mhz ARM11 chips could handle Android, that the Droid would do it with no problem.

The touchscreen isn't as nice as I like it to be. A lot of things require touching twice or sliding twice. It's just not as fluid as the iPhone.

Oh well.

Also I'm desperate for a root but it seems that'll probably never come for the Telus Milestone given how few people even have it.

 

[dguy6789]

Android has become more polished and smoother looking with every version. I wouldn't be surprised if they were to continue that trend. You'll most likely get your smoother UI, just have to wait for it.

 

[vshah]

i'm sure there will be an overclocked kernel soon enough...people are running their droids at 1ghz

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

i'm sure there will be an overclocked kernel soon enough...people are running their droids at 1ghz

can anyone comment on battery life when OCed? How bad does it get?

 

[Deeko]

I'm running my Droid at 1ghz. Honestly, I've seen little to no change in battery life. The screen is the primary battery hog on this device, followed by the radio, not the CPU.

 

[vshah]

also, the standby battery life is unaffected since the min proc speed remains the same. also, the voltage doesn't change, so the difference in power usage is literally a linear amount, from 600-1ghz it 2/3 more. but, as deeko said, the cpu isn't the most power hungry device on the phone...