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.

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The Motorola Gleam: A Shining Example of a Budget Phone

Motorola gleam black deals

It seems that these days, with all the smart phones around, actually using a phone as a phone seems like the lowest priority on most people's list. If that is the case for you, then you're not going to like the Motorola Gleam. On the other hand, if you primarily want a phone for making calls and texting, then the phone deals on this the Gleam are well worth a look.

Design

The Motorola Gleam is made in a clam-shell design, the type that opens up on hinges. You don't see that very much these days of course, but the main reason that Motorola has returned to this design we suspect is to harken back to the days of the Motorola Razr, perhaps its most popular phone. This was in the days before smart phones, when a good game of snake was just about the height of mobile gaming and hardly anybody had even uttered the word “app”. Now, the Motorola Gleam doesn't go that far back in time, but it's not a touchscreen and you're not going to have any apps to mess around with.

Although the design is reminiscent of the Razr, the Gleam is made from plastic rather than metal so isn't quite as sturdy. It has an alphanumeric keypad with very large buttons, which take some getting used to but once you do, texting because very simple.

The screen is only 2.4 in. at the diagonal, which compared to smart phones is very small but for phones of this sort it's not bad.

Hardware

Even for for a budget phone such as this, we would have expected something better than a 2-megapixel camera. That really isn't very good quality, and the video it takes is quite bad as well. That's okay though because you're not going to be able to fit much of any pictures of videos with the 5MB internal storage. You can get a microSD card to beef up that storage capacity though, so that's not so much of a problem.

There's also no 3G or wi-fi capabilities, which is a bit of a disappointment. But then they probably figured that anyone who is going to want to a fast web connection on a phone will go for a cheap Android instead.

There is some good news with all of this, which is that the Motorola Gleam has an excellent battery life. It can go days without a fresh charge, whereas with a smart phone you're not always guaranteed a full day without having to charge it again.

Find the full specs on the Motorola website.

Summary

If you're nostalgic for the days when a phone was a phone and don't want all the fuss of a smart phone then you're probably going to love the Motorola Gleam. It's not flashy, but it has a nice design, it looks good and it gets the job done. If you're interested, check out the best Motorola Gleam black monthly contract deals available on the web.  Or if you'd rather something other than the black, you can find Motorola Gleam lilac deals and Motorola Gleam white deals.

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Motorola Xoom: Ahead of the Competition?

Motorola Xoom

When most of us think of a tablet device, the first thing that pops in to our mind is some kind of iPad but of course there are also Android tablets, the Motorola Xoom (pronounced “zoom”) being one of the first to make use of the Android Gingerbread operating system.

So if you're looking at tablets then by all means you should check out iPad deals, but there's no need to stop there unless you're a dedicated Apple aficionado. So, how does the Motorola Xoom measure up?

Motorola Xoom Specifications

Operating system: Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb

Screen size: 10.1 in.

Size (HxWxD): 250x168x13 mm

Weight: 730 g

Find the full specs at the Motorola website.

Why Get a Tablet at All?

When the iPad was first introduced, a common reaction, in addition to “that looks cool” was “what would you use it for?” and for some people that confusion is still prevalent. If you're in the market for a tablet then that probably isn't you, but it helps to identify how the tablet can be best used anyway so bare with us.

First of all, it's not just a really big phone. You can't make a phone call on the Motorola Xoom. Other than that though it is a lot like an Android phone – you can get all of the same apps. So for instance if you've ever found flicking tiny irate birds around your smart phone too fiddly, on a tablet you can do it on a much bigger screen. It's not all just about playing games though, it really makes just about everything with a graphical element easier. If you've ever tried to read an ebook on a phone then you'll know it can be pretty straining with a small screen. The same goes for browsing the web. A big screen just makes these things easier.

Okay, you might say, but isn't that what you've got a desktop computer for, or a laptop? That's perfectly fair but they're pretty bulky. They might be called laptops but actually having them on your lap for long periods of time while you try to read a book on it isn't going to be that comfortable. Plus, what if you want to lie down and read or browse the web?

For these things it's helpful to have something which finds a middle ground between the portability of a mobile phone with the larger screen of a full size computer.

The Motorola Xoom

So, now that we know how we are going to want to use the Motorola Xoom, how good is it at providing these things?

Well, the screen is nice and big for one thing, at just over 10 inches. That's big enough to be able to browse the web easily, to read and write emails, and to watch videos. With the Android 3.0 Gingerbread it runs smoothly and ostensibly everything is fine. There was a slight problem when it first came out that there were very few dedicated tablet apps, but there are plenty of them around now.

The real problems come with the details though. Quite literally. All of your Android phone apps will work on the Motorola Xoom, but the problem is that the larger screen in this case is used to cram more on. You can get 56 icons on each screen, which is not really the point of having a bigger screen. What's more the widgets, instead of being nice and expansive, are small and focus on giving lots of information all at one time.

The email app is good, it makes use of the big screen by having two columns, one for the message and one for the folders. The Motorola Xoom is good for watching videos too... although listening to them as well poses more of a problem. The speakers are on the back of the device so someone in front of you is going to hear better what is going on than you are.

It would be easy to get carried away with the negatives though as the truth is that this is a very good device. Web browsing is fast and it has Adobe Flash so you can get the full internet experience. It is slightly annoying that websites identify the device as a phone so give you the small screen, meaning you have to switch to the full mode manually, but that's not a huge inconvenience. On the whole the Motorola Xoom is a solidly performing tablet device.

Overall

The Motorola Xoom does everything you would expect of it and what's more it does it quickly and stylishly. It certainly has its flaws but if you're in the market for a tablet then it's certainly worth having a look at Motorola Xoom contract deals to find the very best offers.

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