Droid 2 and Milestone 2
The Milestone 2, the UMTS version of the Droid 2, is due to go on sale in the UK on 17 November. We take a look at the CDMA Droid 2 to see if fixing the problems with the original model in an almost identical case makes it a compelling choice or just a necessary update.
Side by side, the Droid 2 is virtually indistinguishable from a Droid or a Milestone, with the same 3.7in. screen and slide-out keyboard. It feels marginally thicker and heftier, and the slight texture on the back is a little easier to grip. Sharp edges are now smooth curves and buttons and ports are recessed rather than raised but they're still in the same place — and when you flip the keyboard out, users with large fingers will still knock against the screen when using the top row of keys.
Spot the difference: the Droid 2 and Milestone 2 have subtle but worthwhile improvements over the Milestone
It's the same style of sealed membrane keyboard but with definite (and much needed) improvements; if you're prepared to carry the extra weight of a keyboard on your phone, it ought to be worth it. It still doesn't rival a BlackBerry or the best HTC keyboards, but now the keys have a slight upwards curve that gives them a firmer, more positive actions — and dropping the D-pad in favour of arrow keys means that you can still place the cursor inside a word more precisely than the touch-screen allows without sacrificing so much space on the keyboard. The Droid 2 and Milestone 2 also rearrange the capacitive buttons to put the menu button close enough to the keyboard that you won't miss not having a second menu button. That means that even with the new Voice Actions button there's enough space for the QWERTY keys to be a little bigger and for the Alt, Shift and Return keys to be double size. There are still no dedicated number keys, but the Alt lock makes typing in a string of numbers — such as an address — less painful. These are more than cosmetic tweaks, but you're still not going to love this keyboard.
That makes the inclusion of the Swype software keyboard even more welcome (although we still feel that a press-and-hold gesture on a text box is not an intuitive way to choose a different keyboard). This lets you type by swiping your finger from one key to another until you get to the end of the word; although the word doesn't appear immediately, it's responsive enough to make this a great way to type faster on-screen
There are seem to be no improvements to the camera which is still 5 megapixels and still tends to take grainy images, especially in macro mode. The 1GHz processor certainly doesn't make it twice as fast as the 550MHz Droid and Milestone, but it does make common tasks like browsing or opening Android Market slightly, but still noticeably, faster.
The other major improvement is that it comes with Android 2.2, which means Flash 10.1 in the browser; that puts adverts, video, navigation and games on web sites. Streaming video gives you similar quality to the desktop versions of web sites, and Flash games are fun to play 7mdash; although not always quite as responsive as you might wish. Other Android 2.2 improvements include Bluetooth voice dialling and (operator permitting) using the phone as a Wi-Fi access point.
The Droid 2 also comes with a version of Motorola's MotoBlur software that gives you social network aggregation, various widgets and a pop-up bar to indicate which of the seven home screens you're on. There's a universal inbox, which confusingly doesn't aggregate Gmail, and a unified address book that shows updates and other information from social networks as well as the usual email and phone details. This is neither a completely custom interface like HTC Sense nor the standard Android interface; depending on your preferences and how familiar you are with Android, it's either a subtle improvement or something of a compromise (but you can strip away widgets you don't find helpful). Expect the Milestone 2 to have a slightly modified version of this again.
One welcome addition is DLNA support, which lets you copy and play media files between DLNA-aware devices like Windows 7 PCs, Sonos wireless music players and an increasing number of TVs. You can use this to play a video on your DLNA TV or copy music onto your phone; the options for making the connection and moving the media are comprehensive to the point of being confusing, and many of them work only when you're on your home Wi-Fi network (to stop you sharing copyright content with a friend) so it's not as useful for business presentations as you might hope.
Overall, the Droid 2 and the Milestone 2 are welcome upgrades for anyone struggling with some of the drawbacks of the Milestone, but there are still improvements we'd like to see.
Mary Branscombe