Motorola Milestone XT720 v Orange San Diego: Old v New

Orange San Diego contract deals

The Motorola Milestone XT720 is a top of the range smart phone from 2 years ago, whereas the Orange San Diego is a current mid-range Android. As you would imagine, it's not going to be much of a competition between the two, the mid-range San Diego blows the Milestone out of the water. Also, ironically the San Diego houses its own milestone as it is the first smart phone to be run by an Intel processor. More on that later. For the most part this review is going to be a feature on showing how far mobile phone technology has come in three short years.

You can still get great phone deals on both devices though.

Specifications

Back in 2009, the Motorola Milestone was wowing Android users with its 3.7 inch screen (bigger than the iPhone), its 480 x 854 pixel resolution (which is still pretty good to be fair) and the new Android 2.1 Eclair operating system. Well, we're now up to 4.1 Jelly Bean but that's not what the Orange San Diego has, it still sports the 2.3 Gingerbread system. It also has a 4 inch screen and 600 x 1024 pixel resolution. Remember, the San Diego does not represent the best that it is available, it is only twice as expensive as a budget Android. You'd have to double that cost to get the very best available right now.

Some other major differences. The Motorola Milestone came with 150MB internal storage. The San Diego has 16GB. Both can be topped up with microSD cards though. When the Milestone came out it was one of the first to have multi-touch features, allowing you to zoom by pinching your fingers on the screen. That's pretty standard these days.

The San Diego comes with an 8 megapixel camera which can record 1080p HD video. The Milestone has an 8MP camera too but only records jerky 720p HD video. The San Diego camera also has a burst mode which takes ten pictures in quick succession, which is good for photographing high speed action. This is quite rare even these days though.

One of the most significant differences is in processing power. The Milestone has a 600MHz processor, which would be bad even for budget phones now. The San Diego, however, is not typical in its processor. In fact, as mentioned, it is the first smart phone to be run by an Intel processor.

Motorola Mileston XT720 deals

Intel Processor

The San Diego's Intel processor has been clocked at 1.6GHz. That's a 1GHz of processing power more than the Milestone. That is very high for a single-core processor though, the high end Androids usually only reach around that mark with dual or even quad-core processors.

The major benefit of the Intel processor is that it makes web surfing very fast and slick. In fact, for the money, you won't get any faster web browsing. It also promises a more stable system, meaning that you're not going to get apps crashing on you.

It also means that it can do things that usually you would need a dual-core processor to do well, such as record video in 1080p and export through a HDMI port, allowing you to link it directly to your television. The only disappointment in this area is that the lens is not very good, so the quality of the shots is not as good as it might be.

There is a downside to this Intel processor though, which is that, for technical reasons too complicated to properly explain, it is incompatible with some downloadable apps. Orange says that 70% of apps will work with the Intel processor, but another way of saying that is that almost a third of them will not.

The full specs of the Milestone can be found on the Motorla website. The San Diego specifications can be found on Orange's website.

Phone Deals

So what have we learnt here, children? That even mid-range phones these days are better than the best phones from two years ago? Didn't we know that already? Yes, we probably did.

However, hopefully we have also learnt that the Motorola is still a quality phone, if a little dated now. Also, that while the San Diego's Intel processor has some impressive benefits, it also has some potentially deal-breaking downsides.

What else is there to know? Well, if you're interested in getting your hands on either of these phones then there are some great Motorola Milestone XT720 monthly contract deals and Orange San Diego deals available online.