Motorola Milestone: 2010

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Day 9: Getting more familiar

Been having problems posting at blogger. Hence was not able the update the blog as often as I wished.

Texting/SMS:
One of the issues I always have with texting/sms on a touchscreen, is the lack of physical button pushing feel which. And most notably, errors with composing my message.

The Milestone have allows you to type either via the QWERT keypad or by its on screen keyboard.

Qwerty:
My previous phone was a Nokia E71, I thoroughly enjoyed texting on it even though the keypad looks small, but it's actually quite finger friendly that you can feel and type your message with great speed. It didn't take me long to master typing on the E71.

However, the Qwerty keypad on the Milestone, might be too wide for me as I constantly needa stretch my fingers to hit a particular button. After using for 9 days, I have yet to comfortably master it yet, in fact I felt like a pianist with outstretched fingers.

Another small issue is when you slide the phone up, some people may feel a space restriction when they are hitting keys on the top row (qwertyuiop, del row).

On-screen keyboard:
The buttons are rather close to each other. Hence, some with fat fingers like me may have issues with accuracy. Not to fear though, because of the intelligence of the phone, it will auto correct the words for you. Almost 99% of the time, the words which I keyed in wrongly, are being replaced correctly with my actual intended words.

Why the lip on the phone?
You may have noticed there's a lip below the 4 buttons on the phone from the image on http://moto-milestone.blogspot.com/2010/03/motorola-milestone.html.

I read some Motorola Milestone reviews, and they were questioning the reason for the lips.

I think I understand why it was designed that way. Because the 4 buttons are actually touch button, not your normal push buttons. Hence, without the lip, you may accidentally touch on those buttons when you are holding the phone.

That's it for today. Will review more in the next few days.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Day 3: Interesting discoveries

I realised why I can't send MMS!

Because when I saved the phone numbers, I have to check it as Mobile instead of the default "Home". Hence the intelligent Android do not allow me to send MMS to a "Home" number.

I found out how to zoom in for shots!

I tried pitching the screen. Clicking on option to see what are my options, but yet there's no option to zoom in/out. -.-

Lo and behold! The zooming button is actually the volume up/down button.

I used MotoNav while driving!

Please remember to switch on your GPS before you move out from the carpark. Interesting thing is that the Android speaks in Mandarin. Wonder if I can configure that to English.

Other discoveries

There's something like a window task manager (aka control alternate delete) on Android.

When the battery life falls below 15%, it will prompt you, and at the same time, you can check which activity used up how much energy.

I was texting my friend just now and I realised when you enter a smiley, instead of the usual round face happy chub, we get a smiling robot which looks like the Android. So cute!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Day 2: Testing out more functions

I woke up to a fully charged Motorola Milestone, but I didn't get to enjoy it so much in the morning because I woke up late due to late night partying with my colleagues over at various locations in the west of Singapore. Thus I had to rush my way down to ICA to collect my passport. While waiting for the queue in the midst of a super duper crowded ICA, I whip out my Motorola Milestone and started to post comments on my Facebook. Now I know why Twitter is so popular...

Got so bored that I decided to download some games to play. Not knowing what to download, I download the all time favourite type of game - tower defence.

After collecting my passport, I went to West Coast Plaza to chill out. I must say this is the first time I've seen it so crowded. Probably due to the Cosplay show at the ground floor.

Fortunately I manage to get a sit at Tully's Coffee which is just at the edge for me to peek over the Cosplay stage.

Wanted to zoom in, but don't know how to do it. Still needa explore alot more to fully understand how the phone works.

And also, I wanted to send my friend an MMS of the Cosplay, but for some reason, I can't select her name! Actually, I can only select a few names on my contact list. I wonder why......

I also manage to take a video of the Cosplay finale, but when I want to upload it onto my computer, it seems to be taking years just to upload one image. -.-

Afterwards, I went out to play L4D2 with my friends at Serangoon. Wanted to give the MotoNav a try, but didn't know how to operate it. But will definitely still give it a try next time.

After my game with my friends, I can't help but switch on the Starhub TV to watch Chelsea vs Aston Villa live on my mobile. The quality was rather bad with pixelation peppered 90% of the time. But I don't remember it being like that previously, might be because of the live transmission hence the lousier quality.

So far, it's still a cool phone. Just that the user -me, is still quite noob in using it.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Day 1: Unboxing the Motorola Milestone

So after work I headed down to Stereolounge at Pan Pacific Hotel. Had to ask the service staff on duty at the counter where is Stereolounge. Apparently, it's a club located at the perimeter of the hotel. I think it is near the taxi stand. Never knew there was such a cool place. What better way to launch a trial of a cool phone at a cool place.

My initial reaction when I unbox the phone was like "Oh my gosh, such a cool phone". Then when I tried to insert my SIM card, I experienced some problem opening the back cover. But well, of course I manage to learn how to open it.

Tar da~

The phone was switched on and to my amazement, it is already preloaded with the Android 2.1 platform! That means no troublesome software update for the user!

Remember I mentioned it was a really cool phone? Then I realised it's actually a really hot phone. It seems to get heated up quite easily.

The Motorola lady told us that when we open a program and then open another one again, the programs are all running behind the screen unlike iPhone which can't multi-task. So I asked her how do I close the program if I don't want it anymore. She replied that Android will automatically close by itself through its intelligence. Sounds cool to me. I bought what she said simply because the Google people are such smart people who come out with good algorithms for their search. I trust they did something similar to Android too.

You know what? The moment I laid my hands on it, I never really took it off. Started trying many things like downloading apps from Google Marketplace. Heard from my friend that Meebo is battery efficient for iPhone, hence I downloaded it just in case it may have the same effect for an Android.

And of course I watched a bit of soccer on Starhub Mobile TV. Cool yeah although there's limited channels. Wished there was AXN or HBO. Bloomberg was there, but I was prompted to subscribe. Gee, I thought it was free.

Have a look at this video which I found from YouTube. The commentator's accent don't seem very English-speaking-nation-liked. Whatever.

Thursday, March 25, 2010