I've had the Milestone since last Thursday, so here's a review made up of the pros and cons:


Pros:

- Display + Screen Size: incredible display with great colors and very high resolution. Excellent screen size - not too small (like the Hero's), not too big (like the HD2's). Compared to this, the iPhone's screen looks fugly (fonts don't look smooth, especially apparent when looking at websites - but hey, this is going to be the only "next big feature" in the upcoming iPhone 4, and Apple will claim they invented it - so Apple users, be patient!)

- Speed: it's very fast unless you clutter it up with heavy background apps. As long as you remember to quit Tunewiki when you're done listening to music, it's as fast as the iPhone 3GS (but hey, that's why the iPhone won't run more than one app at a time). Having a plethora of smaller apps in the memory surprisingly doesn't slow down the phone at all. I have no need for a task killer at this time - which is a great improvement for Android. All of this isn't surprising, as the Milestone has the same processor as the iPhone.

- Browser: Extremely great. Over WiFi, it loads (even complex) websites faster than the iPhone, over EDGE it's a bit slower, over 3G it's the same. pinch-to-zoom works flawlessly. Overall I'd say it's a tad slower than the iPhone 3GS' browser but you only notice if you run the two side by side. On the other hand, it has visual bookmarks, has better page rendering (due to the higher screen resolution) and the extra screen real-estate really makes a difference when reading texts in the browser.

- UI: I've never liked the iPhone's "teletubby" menus, as I have stated before numerous times. I've always felt somewhat restricted by the overly simplified menu system and general lack of customizability. The Milestone has a more grown-up feel to it but may seem a bit "puritan" to someone coming from Mac OS or the iPhone OS. It's usability is great, though - because of the widget system, every-day tasks like enabling and disabling WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, data syncing etc. are extremely quick compared to the iPhone, where each of those has to be looked for somewhere in the preferences menu.

- Build, Look & Feel: Built very solidly. It's a tad on the heavy side - but then, this one's for grown-ups. The phone overall looks less "female" to me (if there's such a thing in phones) than the iPhone. It has an edged look to it. No rounded corners. It looks a bit like an iPhone that hasn't shaved for three days. I absolutely love it.

- Marketplace: well, it's love it or hate it here. It's an undeniable fact that Android doesn't have the same number of apps as the iPhone right now - but the Marketplace sure as heck covers the essentials both for paid and free apps. No issues here - the market looks great to me and while it's different from Apple's app store, I fail to see what some of the reviewers don't like about it.

- Multimedia features: I put these in the Pros although apparently there are a lot of people who have issues with these on Android. I don't spend a lot of time in these apps. I look for an album and hit "play", that's it. Never saw the appeal of enforcing real-life album-flipping on an electronic screen in the first place. The Milestone will play your music quickly and without a problem. It'll play your videos and it'll play Youtube content - that's what counts for me. The whole system is as "puritan" as the menus - but I really like it that way.


Cons:

- hardware keyboard: I know this has not been getting a lot of love from the reviewers. While it's really not great, it's not that bad, either. It kinda grows on you. It's great to have it once in a while if you need more screen real-estate. I prefer the virtual keyboard (replaced it with an app called "better keyboard" because the latter will allow me to more easily switch the input language between German and English). The device is so thin that having the QWERTZ keyboard at least doesn't make it awkward to type on the virtual one. It's more of a bonus to satisfy those coming from a Blackberry or a Motorola Q.

- Changing the keyboard language is much better solved on the iPhone and outright sucks on Android.

- flicking through the three screens can seem to be ever so slightly laggy. But to be honest, it believe it only looks that way because of the somewhat less-than-perfect animation.

- only three screens are available for customization. Having used the HTC Hero before, I have to say that three screens aren't enough. I can live with them, but I'd love to have more.


Neutral:

- the battery life. With push, 3G and / or Wifi enabled, it'll only last a day. That sucks. But that's still 4-5 hours longer than my iPhone 3GS which I always have to charge twice a day, burning through the recharge-cycles at an alarmingly high rate (which is super, since the iPhone 3GS won't allow me to a) carry a second battery and b) exchange the battery myself once it's toast).

- the camera: it's not super great (I'm told there are better cams in some Nokias) but it's not really bad either. It doesn't have the focus issue. Mine has a visible purple tint, though, in the middle of the picture which seems to be a manufacturing defect. It's hard to spot, so I really can't blame QC for letting that slip through (although I probably should) - but as a part-time photographer, it bothers me. But then again: as a photographer, I don't use cell-phones to take pictures anyway - that's why I won't get the phone repaired (and risk a lengthy wait) over this.


Outside the evaluation (because it's a bug and hopefully will be fixed in the next upgrade):

- The Milestone has a rather nasty software bug (no idea how Motorola could have overlooked that one): when you disable the airplane mode, the phone stops working in GSM mode and will only find 3G / UMTS networks until you reboot it. Needless to say - where I live, I can only get German 3G networks, which is a bit annoying. Apart from that, the phone's surprisingly bug-free for a first release.

- the micro-USB cable they provided with the phone is too short


Conclusion: it's the phone that I will FINALLY sell my iPhone for. For me, it just beats the iPhone in almost every category and it fills my heart with great joy that I can finally show the finger to the Great Dictator that Apple has become in the cell-phone world without having to feel iPhone-envy anymore.