Motorola MILESTONE XT720 Pro Reviews

Great battery life and a large touchscreen don't often come in the same package, but the 720p video capture is disappointing and you'll need to buy a memory card.

The Motorola XT720 certainly isn’t perfect. Its shiny plastic screen isn't a patch on the best out there, its design is an acquired taste, and its performance isn't exactly stellar. However, it still a very capable smartphone with a higher than usual resolution screen, and a camera that beats most of the competition. It's also a tad cheaper than much of the competition now. So, if your priority for your next phone is for it to have a good camera then it's well worth considering.

The Motorola Milestone XT720 has a large, high resolution screen and a good range of top end features. But compare it with other leading edge Android smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy S and HTC Desire before taking the plunge.

The Motorola MILESTONE XT720 is certainly a handset that wants to make a difference. Its incredibly sturdy feel and a design that sets its apart from the crowd are probably its two strongest points. The very solid still imaging also counts in its favor, as long as you don’t have too high expectations for the xenon flash.

It isn't the overall look, then, that ultimately does for the Motorola Milestone XT720, but rather the disappointing performance. With a camera that fails to live up to its promise, sluggish response times and meagre battery life, there's little that stands out bar the reasonable price.

We like the Motorola MILESTONE XT720, we just don’t love it. Its richness in features means it will never be a total let-down, yet a couple of issues reduce it to mediocrity when it could have been something great. The slow camera and painfully jerky HD video capture, stuttering when scrolling through the menu and changing home-screens all make the European MILESTONE XT720 feel grossly underpowered for a current generation smart-phone. It does deliver however in providing a comprehensive set of features, that could be worth the sacrifice in finesse. Without the slick user experience we’ve come to expect from other phones such as the HTC Desire, and the Apple iPhone 4, we would recommend either of these as alternatives to the Motorola MILESTONE XT720.

There are certainly things to like about the Motorola Milestone XT720, including the large multi-touch screen, endlessly configurable interface and the 8GB of memory it comes with. But while the 8Mp camera is far from rubbish, it never quite lived up to its promise, offering so-so pictures rather than really impressive ones, and though I had high hopes for the HD video recording, in use its tendency to be jerky was disappointing.

From the aesthetic outlook, we do have some mixed reactions to the Motorola Milestone XT's design concept. Like the earlier Motorola Milestone, its heavy-metal packaging is appealing to the geekier crowd. The added weight gives a solid feel to the Milestone XT, but for some, it could be an extra burden that they're unlikely to bear in their pockets. The Milestone XT does deviate slightly from the usual design, with its odd protrusion at the side that also houses the camera button. One thing that did irk us is the difficulty in accessing the microUSB port, what with the cover being a pain to pry open.

Had the Milestone XT720 packed a Snapdragon 1Ghz processor inside rather than the 550Mhz offering, this review would have ended very differently. While the design won't be to everyone's liking, the camera and capabilities of the other tech included in the handset could have made this a fantastic phone to challenge the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S.

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.