Motorola Milestone/Droid & Happy new year from paradise

Welcome back!

Hello,

well let me start with wishing everybody a happy new year. I hope you had a great entry into this new decade. As a few you may know I am enjoying my “years-end” holiday far far away from home. I use to do this nearly every year so I can get away from all the day by day stuff and recharge my batteries for a new rocking year. Usually during this period of time I dont turn on my computer, but while I am writing on a new book i decided to write also some new posts to get back into the habit of writing and posting more frequently…Yes I know i was a bit lazy the last weeks

So while laying here at the beach and looking at the ocean i decided to write this post about one of my new gadgets – the Motorola Milestone (named Motorola Droid in the US). I know it has been a while on the market and there are a lot of posts out there about it. But since I am still getting asked what kind of phone this is and why i use it (since i left europe a few weeks ago i got asked probably round about 20 times), so i just went on with this post while enjoying the sun.

The first time i heard about the Motorola Droid was when my friend Cali Lewis talked about on her show geekbrief.tv. I was kind of interested because for years I was using Nokia phones and every other company i tried sucked. Special my experience with Motorola phones in the early years was more then bad. So i decided to follow this rumor. What got my interest was, that Google decided to launch the new android 2.0 on this phone and not on the HTC ones, which they went on for the last years. So i got curious. The next thing i really was into it, was to know if the new phone is going to allow multiple Google Accounts. Since i use Google Apps for handling most of my work stuff since I am on the road most of the year (Yes I know what you are going to tell me know but hey its my decision, so dont border me with that stuff please )this was an important issue for me. All I heard and read sounded good to me and I was really thinking to give the Droid a try. But I had to wait because the launch in Europe was later in the last year then in the US. So i thought it would be a great chance to see the experiences of others before i go for it. The reason behind this is that I have been a early adopter of all the technical stuff for years and there was more then one time when i spend tons of money on new stuff and it didnt worked out like i was expecting it. The only reliable phone for me (for years) was the Communicator series from Nokia since I do a lot of Email, Scheduling, Conferencing etc. while I am on the road. The first phone who was really able to fulfill all the challenges I had was the iPhone. I use it heavily and so I was curious to see if the Motorola Milestone/Droid could handle that too.

After my buddy Shoemoney wrote this fabulous post about his experience with the Droid and after Cali Lewis answering my question on Twitter about the multiple accounts stuff (Yes she really does answer questions on Twitter when you ask her and she answered very fast=> So if you want add her @calilewis) I decided to buy one. So I got one of the first Motorola Milestones and went on. Another great post was written by my buddy Mediadonis, so feel free to head over to his blog and read his review too.

My experience till know it that it absolute fulfills my expectations and that i can use all the labels i use in my Google Mails perfectly. Something most of the other phones and even my desktop is not able if i am not using Gmail through a browser. The keyboard is a bit to small and even if I am used to type very fast on small keyboards I am still practicing it. Sometimes its just to funny to see what happens when I type fast…I am really thinking about writing a post on this new words I am creating – funny stuff.

But the display is amazing. I never saw a phone display which shows images so clearly. The resolution is just fabulous and the look and feel of the phone is amazing. Even if some people seem to have some trouble with the battery pack cover falling of, till now i didn´t had that experience too – thank god –

The new android 2.0 seems pretty stabile and it allows to write your own applications for it, which i started and got the experience that after a while my battery was very fast empty, which had to do with all the different apps i was running in the background. So i had to take some decisions, because the Motorola Milestone/Droid really allows you to run several apps in the background simultaneously. The big difference between the US version and the version in europe is that the Milestone allows to use gestures like some of you may know from the iPhone. Its pretty the same gestures you can use and so i find myself tipping as fast on the screen as i am used to on my iPhone. Since i use both devices now heavily i can say they fit perfect for my workflow and even if you dont check nearly 50 different Email Accounts simultaneously and even if you dont tweet and chat like I do the Motorola Milestone is clearly a “go for it” till know.

I ordered mine through amazon which got me the fastest delivery and since i didn´tt need another contract with a new provider it was the cheapest way to get it too. So enough for today. I will jump back into the ocean now and feel free to leave me your experience or your questions in the comments section below.