Milestone or Liquid E?

[tinaa]

At the moment I don't want to sign a contract or even get a data plan (unless retention can give me a really good deal without contract) but it's time to retire my old Palm PDA so I'm thinking of picking up a cheap android phone to use for voice and WiFi Data only.

I'd love a Bell Vibrant or one of the upcoming HTCs but don't want to spend so much.

I've seen some pretty cheap Motorola Milestone and Acer Liquid E for sale. Between these 2 what do you think is a better phone? The physical keyboard on the Milestone would be nice but I've heard it's pretty bad as far as physical keyboards go so it's not that much of a consideration. What's more tempting is the slightly larger screen and I've always found Motorola to do a pretty good job in terms of sounds quality and reception for voice calls. I don't know how the Acer does in that regard. It is slightly thinner and faster though.

If there are any other suggestions for similarly speced phones under $300 I'm all ears.

Thanks!

[WasabiMobile]

tinaa,

You should check out the Liquid E review on youtube by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtkfDlNei4E
it generates a lot of heat and it feels cheap.

[cruz777]

have you looked into the samsung apollo? telus has it for $249.99 with no term http://www.telusmobility.com/en/ON/s...lo/index.shtml

[Rogido]

have you looked into the samsung apollo? telus has it for $249.99 with no term http://www.telusmobility.com/en/ON/s...lo/index.shtml

Any idea what version of Android it ships with? The 3.2" screen is a little on the small side, but I guess at $250 outright, it's a viable option.

[cruz777]

according to maple syrup, it's 2.1 (eclair) http://mobilesyrup.com/2010/09/28/sa...ased-by-telus/
definitely look for reviews and feedback, especially because of the price

edit: someone linked to gsmarena and it also states that it's 2.2 upgradeable http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i580...pollo-3432.php

[canadian studen]

Out of the two I would go with the milestone. I had the liquid E and it was crazy buggy, hardware and software wise.

[tinaa]

The Apollo doesn't look bad for the price but for around the same from private sale I think the Milestone or Liquid E are much better spec-wise. Not sure about the Apollo's processor, but the screen is considerably smaller and half the resolution.

What kind of bugs did you have with the Liquid E? I'd probably install the leaked 2.2 upgrade and the official 2.2 upgrade is supposed to be out next month. The Milestone won't be updated to 2.2 until Q1 next year so may be several months before we see it (although it's supposed to be updated in Europe earlier so maybe it will be available unofficially sooner)? I believe there's a hacked 2.2 ROM available for the Milestone but I don't know how good it is? Any idea?

Thanks.

[Deliximus]

Liquid E. It is an impressive device. It is fully rotted, has custom ROMs Froyo, etc. It has a good screen and just an downclocked Snapdragon which can be OC'd up to 1ghz+. The camera is pretty decent too. I hated the Milestone keyboard but the device itself was very good, no complaints. However, the kb added unnecessary weight as well.

[jeffrohurt]

I have both phones now. I would rather use the Liquid E as my normal phone than the Milestone. More optimizations, the fact that Froyo is out for it(helluva faster and Flash!), and a lot more possibilities make it a better phone to me. Screen sensitivity is probably for me the biggest difference but with the Liquid, there are more things to be done with it safely. Bricking it is hard to do. Check out modaco.com for a lot of info and the latest firmwares and roms.

[jpay]

You're on XDA so rooting and ROMs aren't too far a stretch? If so then the liquid should be your pick IMO. Feels cheap cause it sells cheap but modified its a workhorse under the hood.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[tinaa]

So I picked up the Liquid E today. The price had something to do with it as I really didn't want to spend more than $250 which is what I paid for the Acer but ended up not being able to get a Milestone for that price. Beside that, opinions on this thread and others I've been following seem to be largely positive for the Liquid E. I'm charging it up now so haven't really had a chance to play with it yet but it looks pretty good overall. Squeaks a bit if you press it too hard and I don't like the fact you have to seriously pry open the battery door and remove the battery to switch uSD cards, but otherwise it looks pretty solid. The polished plastic is a fingerprint magnet but I'll most likely cut a custom Best Skin Ever for it which should probably help somewhat. I do plan to root and flash to 2.2 so should keep me busy for a while.

Oh, there was some suggestion that the touch screen isn't very responsive. I've not owned any other smartphone for comparison but from the little I have played with the phone the touchscreen seems to be fine. In fact, I found the virtual keyboard to be much more accurate than I expected and haven't had any issues yet with unresponsive touches.

Thanks for all the comments!

[tinaa]

Okay, maybe the screen isn't that responsive. I find sometimes dragging doesn't work with a light touch and it's sometimes hard to work the edges of the display. I wonder how much is a hardware issue a software issue.

In any case, I'm new to Android. I'd like to put Froyo on this phone. Does the phone have to be rooted before you can do a firmware upgrade? Is there a good guide on rooting and upgrading (custom) firmwares for complete newbies? If so, can someone point me to it?

What's currently the best 2.2 firmware for the Liquid E?

What's the best forum for general Android discussion?

Thanks again!

[jpay]

All answers found on XDA

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk