Motorola Milestone.

Got a chance to play around with the Motorola Milestone for a few days and here are my initial impressions.

THE GOOD STUFF:

-> A nice gmail interface that comes with the device.

-> A nice gtalk interface that comes with the device.

-> A nice email interface to configure your corporate email, yahoomail accounts.

-> Inbuilt corporate directory, that gets configured automatically as you configure your corporate email.

-> A nice facebook interace that comes with the device.

-> A nice youtube interface that comes with the device.

-> Good Contacts and Messaging app with conversation view, for calls and texting.

-> Most importantly integarated contacts, that is once you sync in contacts from facebook, twitter etc, it integrates all contact information into one contact.

-> Nice visuals with live wallpaper. - ofcourse it drains battery.

-> Notifications of incoming email on all your accounts, be it corporate, yahoomail, gmail, everything is live and instant.

From the Android Market,

-> Twitter app. - Really neat app, very good experience, following and tweeting.

-> Blogger client - I also posted my previous blog from there and it was a very comfortable and neat experience.

-> Google Reader - A neat app which syncs up the feeds from your google reader.

-> Engadget app - I follow engadget on and off for news about mobile phones and gadgets, now this a real neat app, that keeps you upto date about news from engadget, ofcourse you don't really need this app. if you are subscibed to engadget from google reader.

Then there's fun stuff,

-> Guitar app. - This is real good, am convinced somebody who could play a guitar can actually make some good music.

-> Piano app - Didnt' try much personally, but was convinced.

-> AK 47 - Yes, an ak47, where you can load a magazine with 30 rounds and actually fire shot by shot.

-> Shotgun - Yes, a realshot gun experience, where you load and shoot.

-> Fitness & Health apps - shows you a video representation of how to a exercise, so you can customise your workout, or you can just launch the app, learn how to do an exercise, fire your personal trainers !

Then the works ofcourse, bikini girls, sex wiki, truth or dare, it's all there.

In summary, andoid market has lots of cool stuff for free.

THE BAD STUFF:

-> Now, with a phone that has so much to offer drastically need better battery life. If you are running gtalk, corporate email, gmail, facebook and twitter in always on, then the battery dies down in less than 12 hours. If you are running them intermittantly and only have gmail and corporate email in always on, then it lasts for about 1 and half days.

-> The hardware is a bit clunky, heavy and not convenient to use. The slider keyboard doesn't slide out smooth, requires some effort and usually works well only when used with both hands.

-> Basic functionality such as making a phone call, for a non-smartphone user is not so easy, as there is no dial / disconnect button in the hardware. You have to launch the phone app, and launch dialpad or go to last dialled list. My wife had a difficult time, unlocking keypad and finding a phone app to making a call, involves too many steps.

-> The phone restarted about 4 times in a total of 4 days use. For no particular reason, I have no clue what action of mine caused it.

-> Doens't come inbuilt with a task manager to launch and switch between tasks, or even see which ones are currently open and exit them. It remembers and runs the last six used apps and one of those apps continue to use up battery, as there is no specific direct way to exit them.

-> The camera experience was disappointing.

Overall, I would give it a 6 on 10. The software on a better looking and more usable hardware would be a killer device!

Will have to wait and watch.

ps: I am already conviced I wouldn't so much like the Nexus One as it doesn't come with a physical qwerty keypad.