Motorola Milestone XT720 review

Is there more to the Motorola Milestone XT720 than 720p video recording?

Motorola Milestone XT720
The definitive Motorola Milestone XT720 review

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Motorola milestone xt720

The Motorola Milestone XT720 is a versatile smartphone that puts Motorola right back at the top of the tree as far as features are concerned. It has a lot going for it on paper, though we found that in practice there were times when things didn't pan out quite as we'd have liked.

We liked

The screen resolution is superb and it really comes into its own for things like web browsing and viewing video.

The camera is really easy to use and the Xenon flash delivers great and very true colours indoors. We also really liked the macro mode for shooting close-ups. There are plenty of features in the camera which ought to make it fun to use.

The GPS seems very efficient, locking onto a signal quickly and maintaining it well.

We disliked

The web browser doesn't reflow text, which makes it tedious to read pages when you've zoomed in.

The 720p video shooting seemed to be a bit jerky and that is reflected in our sample video in this review.

The chassis has an unruly hump on its bottom-right side, which makes it rather wide to grasp in the hand at that end. Not everyone will appreciate the quirky design.

It isn't always easy to see the screen outdoors in bright sunlight. For a phone that majors on photography and video, this is a big disappointment.

Verdict

The top end of the Android smartphone world is really in need of handsets to rival the best that HTC can produce. Motorola has done a good job in providing competition in some respects with the Milestone XT720 and it is an impressive phone.

There are aspects that need ironing out, though, and we'd have really liked it if Moto could have come up with user interface to rival HTC's Sense UI for sheer pizzazz.