Motorola MILESTONE vs iPhone 3GS Comparison: Apple’s Best Against The Android Beast!
With the Motorola MILESTONE finally touching down in Europe and opening up for SIM-free pre-orders in the UK, we thought it a fine time to pit the Android-wielding monolith against the current celebrity of the smart phone sector, the Apple iPhone 3GS.
Can the DROID (as it is known in the US) back up its angular styling and Android pedigree by putting Motorola firmly back on the map, or will the Cupertino cutie claim another scalp with that gorgeous user interface and licence to print money that is the App Store?
Let’s find out!
Size:
The first category, and the MILESTONE compares surprisingly favourably to the svelte iPhone 3GS, despite sharp features and a black and gold finish that gives Motorola’s comeback caller a distinctly 80’s vibe.
A touch longer than the 3GS, the MILESTONE is narrower at only 60mm against the 62.1mm of the iPhone.
Given that it packs a 4-row full QWERTY keyboard, it’s miraculous that the MILESTONE only gives away 1.5mm in depth to the curvaceous rear of the latest iPhone.
A far closer round than predicted, the MILESTONE gets an honourable mention but Jonathon Ive certainly earned his money in designing a near perfect form in the iPhone, with the 3GS looking just as good as ever.
Winner: iPhone 3GS
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Weight:
Ah. Not so close here.
The Motorola MILESTONE might look good but it is carrying a lot of extra baggage, tipping the scales at a hefty 166g. The iPhone 3GS might have gained 2 grams over the 3G model, but is an entire 30 grams lighter than the boxy Google phone at 135g.
Whilst the iPhone attempted to erase the memory of the unwieldy smart phone with rounded edges and shiny metal, the MILESTONE drags us back into pocket-bursting PDA territory. The addition of the keyboard gives Motorola’s device the best of touch and physical type, but at the expense of a lot of additional weight.
Travelling light is definitely the way forward.
Winner: Apple iPhone 3GS
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Screen:
The additional height of the Android-toting MILESTONE pays off as it houses a glorious 3.7″ TFT capacitive touchscreen, displaying at a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. This places the iPhone’s otherwise impressive 3.5″ effort into the shade, with the 3GS outputting a more modest 320 x 480 pixels.
This means that Android really shines on the MILESTONE, with text and web browsing looking rich and crisp, as well as videos giving a smoothnes, a level of clarity and an absence of blurring during faster scenes which we haven’t seen since, well, the iPhone!
Both may support multi-touch, but this doesn’t mean pinching to zoom with abandon as Android 2.0 doesn’t support it, however both do have auto-rotate for landscape use, and a proximity sensor to prevent accidental ear-dialling.
The MILESTONE manages to surpass the iPhone on one of its most alluring points, then throws in another input method – a full keyboard with 5 way navigation key to seal the deal.
A convincing win on some entrenched territory.
Winner: Motorola MILESTONE
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Camera:
The iPhone 3GS still suffers from Apple’s “well, it’s good enough” mentality, a 3.15 megapixel effort which is indeed good enough. Enhancements over earlier models include touch and auto-focusing, 30 frames per second video recording and a mini-editing suite.
Whilst these are additions which would hardly deserve mention on a mid-range handset, these graduate the iPhone’s previously disappointing camera into being useful. After dark is still a no-go, as a flash is still painfully absent.
The MILESTONE has a standard camera by smart phone standards – a 5 megapixel snapper with autofocus and dual-LED flash – still performing far beyond the iPhone’s workmanlike effort.
Without even mentioning the MILESTONE’s higher resolution D1 video recording, Motorola romps home on yet another category!
Winner: Motorola MILESTONE
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Battery:
All about the numbers here, and whilst Apple states 5 hours of 3G talktime and 300 of standby for the 3GS, the MILESTONE is talking a lengthy 6.5 hours talktime with 350 hours of standby. Both run on standard Lithium Ion affairs, but you don’t care, you just need to know that the MILESTONE seems to stick around longer than the iPhone.
The less said about battery-guzzling apps, the better…
Winner: Motorola MILESTONE
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Memory:
Whilst fixed to either 16GB or 32GB depending on the model of iPhone opted for, the Motorola MILESTONE comes with an 8GB card out of the gate, but with support for up to 32GB microSD cards. Removable memory offers the opportunity for swappable cards and tons more media-filled fun than the iPhone’s rather rigid effort.
Winner: Motorola MILESTONE
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Connectivity:
Both are linked up to the nines for connectivity, GPS, USB ports and Bluetooth come as standard, but the iPhone hits a stumbling block as the latter is only for headphone connection as opposed to the transfer of data between handsets.
Also, the 3GS is supposedly all about speed, and yet the 3G connectivity is slower than the MILESTONE’s 10.2 Mbps connection.
This is a little moot as just like home broadband speeds, mobile 3G connections never hit their zenith, but it is interesting to know that the MILESTONE has more potential than the 3GS…
Both devices have great browsers, but the lack of Flash support on both is conspicuous in its absence on the 3GS and the MILESTONE, but they both work around this pretty well.
The lack of a pinch-to-zoom on the MILESTONE puts the iPhone experience ahead, yet the huge 3.7″ display on the Moto-phone means more of the web to see at one time, and the high resolution screen makes it crystal clear. It’s a close thing, but personal preference might be the best judge on the surfing front.
E-Mail and messaging is capably handled by both, with support for push and Microsoft Exchange meaning both are as comfortable in the bistro as the boardroom.
Cute touches like Voice Search and YouTube integration show that Google knows their internet pretty well, and it shows in the quality of the Android experience.
Might have to call yet another one in favour of the DROID!
Winner: Motorola MILESTONE
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Media:
Apple’s heartland.
iTunes. The App Store. Downloading podcasts, making playlists, buying music and watching movies – the experience is certainly not without fault, but it is beyond compare as far as phones go.
The iTunes desktop application provides seamless syncing of music and media, the degree of customisation that apps deliver to the experience means that you can immediately get a sense of a user just by what they have on their homescreen…
The Android Market is a noble effort with many cool applications, and the MILESTONE has a perfectly serviceable media player, but nothing comes close to the pointless and beautiful CoverFlow, the brilliantly laid out menus or the ease of obtaining new music on an iPhone.
A resounding return to form at the end of the iconic Apple device.
Winner: Apple iPhone 3GS
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Verdict:
Whilst the iPhone has a seemingly unassailable position in the mobile market, Motorola has seen an almost phoenix-like resurrection by embracing a new operating system and delivering a truly strong handset on all fronts. The Motorola MILESTONE is hard lines, a brash and bold device that makes a confident stance against the androgynous iPhone.
Surpassing the iconic handset in almost all departments on paper, and with the speedy internal architecture to provide a great user experience, the MILESTONE may well be an alternative to the HTC Hero for the anti-iPhone brigade. A handset that provides a different experience, and one that is better in a lot of ways, but most importantly one that doesn’t make one feel as though they are missing something by not having an iPhone.
In this day and age, that’s possibly the biggest compliment against Apple’s behemoth that you’re going to get, so take it and celebrate, Motorola MILESTONE!
Tags: 3gs, Apple, apple iphone vs motorola milestone, iPhone, iphone 3gs, iphone vs milestone, milestone, motorola