the droid, or milestone here in europe, looks pretty good
but of late I've read some reviews which indicate there are design flaws and/or manufacturing problem
the n900 is still the best alternative to the zaurus as far as I can see without going to a UMPC like the netwalker
Milestone Verses Zaurus or Jasjar
I am attempting to migrate from my Zaurus C3200 & Jasjar to the Milestone, I am about 75% of the way. Some of the issues are shown below. Most of the items are negative which is always the way as you have long since forgotten about the limitations of your old devices. I fully expect to complete the migration!
Like the screens once you get used to using gestures, love the smooth scrolling, speed is affected by speed gesture.
Milestone requires all input using your finger or thumb it will not respond to the use of a stylus or fingernail, this requires larger areas to activate options which reduces the space available to display other information. Example: List management applications enables you to display 7/12 lines of information Milestone will only show 2/6 lines (Landscape/portrait) as more screen space required for things such as edit button.
No copy/cut/paste facilities on Android so extra typing.
Zaurus & Jasjar uses a stylus to select options while the Milestone uses gestures. Navigating the Zaurus/Jasjar uses scroll bars while the Milestone requires you to drag the screen, I keep trying to use drag on my Zaurus!
I save lots of web pages for example on-line receipts or details of products that I am interested in, Milestone does not allow you to save web pages nor display pages saved on a PC & copies across. I understand that this is a limitation of Android as Opera does not support it on Android but does on other platforms.
Can’t synchronise with Outlook on the PC it can synchronise with Exchange, can transfer contacts etc., via Gmail & there are people working on a third party solution. I am trying to avoid Gmail as it comes up with a fatal error when trying to send messages to my domain email service, I don’t have this problem with any other email service.
Lots of free software on Google market place although it can be difficult to find what you want & some is of questionable quality. You can install applications without going through Google Market Place, just download to PC, copy file to Milestone after enabling by pressing menu key from the home screen click settings, applications then unknown sources to enable this. I have avoided applications that warn that they will make mobile phone calls as I only use WiFi for Internet access.
Comes with Motonav saterllite navigation, mine does not work, waiting for Motorola support to come back with a solution.
Some Milestone users have reported problems connecting to WiFi others can connect but can’t maintain a connection, lots of possible reasons being put forward but still not clear why. I have the later problem, my personal view is that the Milestone does not fully comply with WiFi standards so it does not have a problem with every router. Switching router off/on always fix it for me, doing this to Milestone never works.
Never remove the supplied xSDcard even briefly as as software protection will disable Motonav.
Keyboard does not have separate numeric keys so you have to press function key to use numbers.
My regular applications
Activity Zaurus Jasjar Milestone
Word Textmaker Textmaker DocsToGo
Spreadsheet Hancock PlanMaker DocsToGo
Passwords zSafe MyWallet IOsafe
Checklists/shopping ListPro EasyShopping
Notes Portabase StageOne UltraNotes
Bank Accounts CashOrganiser Cashew
Sat Nav Tomtom Motonav
Social Networking Facebook, MySpace
YouTube
TV BeebPlayer
Photos PhotoStorage
Kids TuxPaint Still Looking
Not paid for any applications will probably pay for the full version of DocumentsToGo as this allows editing, also not sure if Motonav is a trial, will pay for a full version if it can replace Tomtom on my Jasjar.
