Motorola Milestone XT720

Motorola’s appetite for Android handsets is nothing short of remarkable, and it’s easy to see why: Google’s mobile operating system has provided the company with a badly-needed lifeline, and since the launch of the legendary Droid (known as the Milestone in Europe) we’ve seen several successive best-sellers hit store shelves.

The Milestone XT720 – also known as the Motoroi - is one of the latest phones to emerge from Motorola’s design labs, and has been roughly evaluated by some sectors of the press as a Droid without a keyboard. This summary is only partly true: while the XT720 retains many of the Droid’s best features – including an almost untouched version of the Android operating system - it boasts enough functionality of its own to stand out from the crowd.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Motorola’s phones have gained a reputation lately for outlandish designs – take the zany Flipout, for example – and the XT720 seeks to continue this trend. It’s a phone which is likely to divide opinion like Marmite. The abundance of chrome-like gloss and futuristic appearance are factors which will endear it to exactly the same group of purchasers that flocked to the Droid, but you’d have a very hard time arguing that the XT720 is in the same league of physical loveliness as Apple’s iPhone 4.

Possibly the most striking element of the XT720’s design is the hump that sticks out in the bottom-right corner of the phone. This area houses the phone’s camera controls, and its prominence leaves no doubt as to what the handset’s biggest selling point is.

With eight glorious megapixels to play with and Xenon flash to boot, the XT720 is capable of some capturing some seriously impressive photos. We put it through its paces and weren’t once disappointed with the resultant shots. Colour balance is brilliant, images are pin-sharp and the Xenon flash illuminates your subject fantastically. Simply put, it’s one of the best cameras we’re yet to see on a phone.

Movie magic

It doesn’t end there, though. As well as servicing the needs of budding David Baileys, the XT720 is also able to record video in 720p. While the level of performance is unlikely to cause you to hurl your HD handy cam out of the nearest window, the quality is still very worthy of praise, and looks especially good when you use the phone’s built-in HDMI port to view it on your TV. Sadly, there’s no HDMI cable included in the box.

Peeling back the casing for a moment, it’s refreshing to discover that the XT720 sports a reasonably unmolested version of Android 2.1. Motorola’s infamous MotoBlur skin is nowhere to be seen, although there are elements – such as the icons at the bottom of the screen – which retain Moto’s unique look.

Because it’s free from MotoBlur’s unnecessary bloat-ware and sluggish widgets, the XT720 runs reasonably smoothly. However, it noticeably lags behind other ‘stock’ Android devices like the Nexus One and Desire Z, namely because the CPU is pegged at 720MHz.

Before we grumble too much, it’s worth noting that when it was first launched, the XT720 was actually under-clocked at 550MHz before Motorola restored it to its full potential with a timely software update.

That’s entertainment

From a gamer’s perspective, the XT720’s gorgeous screen makes it ideal for touch-reliant titles. The lack of a physical keyboard means it’s not quite as multi-functional as the Droid and DEXT, but it’s not a deal-breaker. The aforementioned entry-level CPU is a more bothersome point, and makes 3D-intensive titles run a little less smoothly than they would on rival Android phones.

The XT720 is a curious entry in Motorola’s Android line-up. It’s been overshadowed by the other members of the Droid range, and the relatively slow CPU means that hardcore tech nerds will turn their noses up at it. However, it has the looks to impress, and its superlative photographic and video capture capabilities have to be seen to be believed.

It’s not the perfect Android device by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re looking for a smartphone with real multi-media aspirations, then this could well be the ticket.