Motorola Milestone - Why so little love!?

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Indio

153 posts

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Topic # 69956 15-Oct-2010 14:45

I've searched GZ extensively, and apart from one or two old threads, there isn't much on the Milestone at all: or did freitasm put everyone off with his initial experiences with this handset? I've just picked one up since older daughter decided she needed my E72 more than I do, and I've realised how spoiled I was with the E72 in terms of user-friendly convenience of operating the E72 from any PC with Nokia's PC Suite, so I'm looking for some help from anyone.

1: Is there an equivalent to the Nokia PC Suite out there for Android? Motorola's Moto Phone Portal is a POS, not worth the time to install or launch it. Same with the Motorola Media Link app. The MPT had a lot more functionality than these two bundled freebies from Motorola.

2: Contacts: Is there an app out there which would let me build groups within the address book so that I can simply click on the group I want to mass-txt? The E72 had this feature which is very useful. Dragging names within the POS MPP is time consuming.

3: Freitasm has already discovered the clumsiness of scrolling though the Contacts to find the person one wants to call. All other devices allows you to type the first letter and then offers up all available contacts with progressive shortlisting as more characters are typed. Any similar apps out there?

4: Upgradability to Android 2,2: how easy is this likely to be? If it's likely to involve "rooting" and other suggestive input from me, I'd sooner exercise the right of return and look at something else. But I do like the phone, it's just that it feels cumbersome to operate without the convenience of an MPT or PC Suite application.

All contributions gratefully considered..

siimo2005

68 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 392282 15-Oct-2010 15:20

I think Milestone has an encrypted/signed bootloader so it was harder to crack than the "Droid" and also it is quite underpowered and arrived late to the party in NZ.

Milestone 2 is already out, and if a Desire/Nexus One/Galaxy is only a couple hundred more then why would you go for a Milestone? (assuming you didn't get it for the keyboard - which i have heard of some bad reviews about)

Linuxluver

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Reply # 392304 15-Oct-2010 16:10

Indio: I've searched GZ extensively, and apart from one or two old threads, there isn't much on the Milestone at all: or did freitasm put everyone off with his initial experiences with this handset? I've just picked one up since older daughter decided she needed my E72 more than I do, and I've realised how spoiled I was with the E72 in terms of user-friendly convenience of operating the E72 from any PC with Nokia's PC Suite, so I'm looking for some help from anyone.

1: Is there an equivalent to the Nokia PC Suite out there for Android? Motorola's Moto Phone Portal is a POS, not worth the time to install or launch it. Same with the Motorola Media Link app. The MPT had a lot more functionality than these two bundled freebies from Motorola.

Having never really "synced" any phoen with my PC because I run Linux and no one writes Linux sync-ing applications....I'm always puzzled by this requirement. I have access to Windows / samba shares on the PC from my phone wirelessly via the Estrongs File Explorer app....and I copy over any files I need to copy over that way....or I can ftp them off the phone by running the Switftp app on the phone. Or I use the USB cable....What is it you "sync"?

2: Contacts: Is there an app out there which would let me build groups within the address book so that I can simply click on the group I want to mass-txt? The E72 had this feature which is very useful. Dragging names within the POS MPP is time consuming.

Android phones tend to work naturally with Gmail...so I use groups in Gmail to define the groups I'll see on my phone. I then tell the phone what groups to sync to my Contacts. I don't want all 2000-off Gmail contacts on my phone!! So I just sync my Gmail "Phone" group and a couple of others. For mass txting...there are apps that do that. I don't use them....but I know they are in the market.

3: Freitasm has already discovered the clumsiness of scrolling though the Contacts to find the person one wants to call. All other devices allows you to type the first letter and then offers up all available contacts with progressive shortlisting as more characters are typed. Any similar apps out there?

You want "Gesture Search". It's from Google and it's perfect for this. You can search a contact from anywhere you can access Gesture Search.

4: Upgradability to Android 2,2: how easy is this likely to be? If it's likely to involve "rooting" and other suggestive input from me, I'd sooner exercise the right of return and look at something else. But I do like the phone, it's just that it feels cumbersome to operate without the convenience of an MPT or PC Suite application.

Not sure what the upgrade plans are for the Milestone. Shouldn't be hard to find out via Google. I do know there has been a lot of discussion about it in various fora.

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Linuxluver

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Reply # 392307 15-Oct-2010 16:12

siimo2005: I think Milestone has an encrypted/signed bootloader so it was harder to crack than the "Droid" and also it is quite underpowered and arrived late to the party in NZ.

Milestone 2 is already out, and if a Desire/Nexus One/Galaxy is only a couple hundred more then why would you go for a Milestone? (assuming you didn't get it for the keyboard - which i have heard of some bad reviews about)

Milestone is the best phone Telecom can sell you *today*, I think is the answer.

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lchiu7

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Reply # 392314 15-Oct-2010 16:31

Linuxluver:

You want "Gesture Search". It's from Google and it's perfect for this. You can search a contact from anywhere you can access Gesture Search.

I like the way you can just flip the phone in a certain way (well the N1) and it brings up Gesture search. But to be honest sometimes it comes up when you don't want it to and other times it doesn't come up when you do!

I guess that's the accelerometer playing up.

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Disinfo

71 posts

Master Geek
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Reply # 392349 15-Oct-2010 18:39

1: Is there an equivalent to the Nokia PC Suite out there for Android? Motorola's Moto Phone Portal is a POS, not worth the time to install or launch it. Same with the Motorola Media Link app. The MPT had a lot more functionality than these two bundled freebies from Motorola.

I'm a bit confused by this. Contacts, calendar that kinda stuff sync OTA without any issues. Media management is drag and drop, or you can use something like Windows media player. What other functionality are you after?

3: Freitasm has already discovered the clumsiness of scrolling though the Contacts to find the person one wants to call. All other devices allows you to type the first letter and then offers up all available contacts with progressive shortlisting as more characters are typed. Any similar apps out there?

Hit the search key or open the keyboard (hold menu to open the soft keyboard) and start typing. Otherwise 'Dialer one' on the market supports search by T9

Hibino

103 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 12

Reply # 393064 18-Oct-2010 10:14

If you don't like to hit the search button to search the contacts, you can just type the contacts name using the physical keyboard under contacts.

Declan

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 393116 18-Oct-2010 12:07

4: Upgradability to Android 2,2: how easy is this likely to be? If it's likely to involve "rooting" and other suggestive input from me, I'd sooner exercise the right of return and look at something else. But I do like the phone, it's just that it feels cumbersome to operate without the convenience of an MPT or PC Suite application.

Milestone Froyo update is official. Motorola is testing the update in Europe this week!