I have been on a smartphone hunt for quite some time now. The basic feature that I am looking for in a smartphone is of a touchscreen phone with the flexibility of adding apps – 3rd party Apps. Apart from the extremely popular iPhone which happens to come in a repulsively expensive deal here in the UK, there are the other iPhone alternatives. So, in this section of Smartphone Hunt we will be analysing the iPhone alternatives one by one. And the biggest iPhone alternative in today’s mobile market is the family of Android phones.

Motorola’s latest offering in the Android phone section is the Motorola Droid known as Motorola Milestone in Europe. But throughout this review we’ll be referring to it as Droid [ coz it's easy]. While it is still to be seen where the Droid lands up with which carrier in the UK [ No one has confirmed it yet - though O2, 3 and T-mobile have backed out. Possible carriers could be either of Vodafone or Orange]. Here is a quick review of the different features that the Droid offers and we’ll finally decide if it is worth buying it or not.

To begin with, let’s have a close look at the aesthetic side of the model. It is black and well-built. The finish on the back and the body overall seems top notch. However, I am NOT looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard. Because it is a touchscreen phone, I believe it only adds to the weight of the model. Also, the huge D-pad on the right of the keyboard is just unnecessary. It is a touchscreen for Christ sake. If I wanted to navigate, I would use the touchscreen. Why add a humongous D-pad and instead cramp up the key spacing in the keyboard. Bad choice of design.

The screensize is 3.7 inches, which is greater than that of the iPhone and at 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the display is for sure one of the strong points of the Droid. So it will be a breeze when it comes to viewing websites [ even those only suitable for viewing on a PC monitor] or DVD quality movies. And like other touchscreen surfaces, it is a fingerprint magnet. I want someone to come up with an innovative solution to this.

One of the other strong points that comes with the Droid is that it releases with the latest Android release 2.0 – Eclair. From the early look of the Eclair, the UI is snazzy and easy to navigate. While the US version lacks multi-touch, the Europe version – Milestone has multi-touch. As for other smartphone features like multi-tasking [ you know like searching while on call etc], or voice-recognition and even the most essential feature of making calls, the Droid scores well on all these grounds.

And now for the cream. Motorola Droid is the only phone right now to feature Android 2.0. And with it, it offers Google Maps Navigation which offers 3D street view. As for the camera, it’s a 5MP camera offering a maximum of 2592 x 1936 pixels of resolution and clubbed with 16GB of extensible memory [Micro SD card], you have a digital camera ready to take quite good snaps. It has 4X digital zoom with image stabilization and also a flash. Video capturing is done at 720X480 resolution at 24fps. And of course, since Android offers facilities to upload on YouTube or Facebook etc, media sharing is going to be a breeze.

Most importantly, it has 3.5 mm headphone jack and so it can fit your favourite set of earphones or headphones to enjoy music. And the best thing about media syncing is that there is no iTunes with this one.

On the hardware end – the battery life that the Droid offers is 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby. This should be more than enough for normal users like me who use Wi-Fi, a few apps – like the media player and maybe maps sometime. And I am not one of those who are on the phone 24/7. With a processor speed od 550 MHz, the Droid is certainly a powerful piece of machinery. The question is however, how much will all of this cost.

There are no answers of who is going to be the carrier of the Droid in the UK yet.

My only problem with the Droid is the keyboard and the large D-pad. But given the many features that the Droid provides, it surely can justify to be a good buy. Unless it sports a ridiculous price tag, I guess, this is the Android phone to beat, as of now. Until maybe, the Acer Liquid takes off. More on the Acer Liquid later. For now, let me know in the comments what do you think about the Droid/ Milestone. Cheerio!

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