Motorola Milestone XT720 review

Motorola’s designs always split opinion. The XT720 has a blocky design, but its weight makes it feel well-built, as does the rubberised back; the latter also improves grip. The capacitive touchscreen is responsive, but it lacks an oleophobic coating and is quickly smeared with oily finger-swipes.

Even with multiple apps open, the phone feels quick despite its relatively slow processor. Meanwhile, the battery lasted for almost two days in our light usage test, which is remarkable for an Android phone.

Motorola’s customisations are subtle. As well as Android’s standard apps, you get a few extra utilities such as a task manager and file manager, a trial version of the Motonav navigation software and an app that lets you define custom gestures. An interesting Phone Portal app lets you connect to your PC via USB or WiFi to manage the phone’s contents from your PC, and lastly there’s a copy of QuickOffice for viewing office files.

Charging is done via a microUSB slot that also handles data transfer, and there’s a Mobile HDMI Type D slot for outputting video and audio. A standard 3.5mm headphone socket is another welcome addition, and there’s a volume rocker on the right side. As well as a camera shutter button, there’s a smaller button that lets you switch between still camera, video camera, and video playback, with three backlit icons in the bulge on the side of the phone indicating which mode you’re in.

While the XT720’s battery life is exemplary, its headline feature – 720p video – is badly implemented, and its design may leave you cold. It’s available on contract for as little as £25 per month, and we’d recommend choosing the Unlimited Internet bundle rather than Unlimited Texts.

If you don’t mind its Quasimodo looks (complete with “hump”), and are happy investing in a memory card, the XT720 is a perfectly functional, great value Android phone with good battery life. However as a 720p video camera it fails miserably, and so just misses out on an award.