Motorola has started selling its hotly-anticipated Motorola Droid Google Android 2.0 handset in the UK under the name Motorola Milestone.
Launched in the US just a few weeks ago and already snapped up by 800,000 punters, the Droid-by-a-new-name can be picked up from Expansys for £449 or £50 with an 18-month contract on T-Mobile. Expansys has put together the £30-a-month T-Mobile contract offer as none of the main mobile phone networks has announced they will offer the phone.
Motorola's first-generation Android phone, the Dext, has met with favourable reviews here and is available exclusively through Orange on a £30-per-month for 18 months deal.
Motorola Droid aka Milestone review here
See also: Motorola Dext review
The Motorola Milestone (given a new name despite Motorola having licensed use of the term Droid from Star Wars maker Lucas Film), sports a 3.7in capacitive touchscreen display, slide-out qwerty keyboard and 1GB of onboard RAM. It has a relatively slow 533MHz ARM processor, but the Google Android mobile OS is not as demanding as some.
The Motorola Milestone comes with Google Maps and a built-in GPS module so can be used for navigation. It uses the Chrome web browser (another Google invention) and has a 5Mp camera with a 5x zoom. It can also record video at 24fps (frames per second).
Additional storage can be added via the Milestone's microSD card slot, which can accept cards of up to 8GB. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS, 3G and HSDPA connectivity are all offered.
Motorola has put together a Hollywood-style ad campaign for the Droid that pokes fun at the iPhone and trades on the 'otherness' of the Android's design.
See also: Apple iPhone vs BlackBerry vs Motorola Droid vs Palm Pre
Comments
SammsIam said: If youre a PC adviser Id look for another job as you clearly dont have brains for the jobFor those of you that care to obtain ACCURATE information Milestone uses the same chipset that is in the iPhone GS NOT slow by any means and can accept up to 32GB micro SDHC addon memory
Rosemary Hattersley said: To clarify Expansys informed the tech press on 26 November that preorders were being taken from that day onwards with a delivery date for preorders of week commencing 7 December Sounds as though they are still on track
Rob Howley said: If its launched in the UK today where can you buy it eXpansys arent getting stock until Wednesday according to their latest updateNot much of a launch if nobody can get one