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We can't help but feel that despite the camera upgrades that have come as part of the Android 2.0 experience, this element still feels sorely lacking in the slickness department. Say what you want about the terrible resolution of the iPhone cameras, but at the end of the day the pictures taken are decent enough quality to be used day to day.
The Motorola Milestone, like so many other Android phones before it, does not live up to the ability of even the iPhone, and that's with the dual LED flash and 5MP snapper bolted in the back. We have no idea why, but this phone seems to only want to take grainy, out of focus pictures as often as it can.
Try and snap a bright background, and it will eat up most of the picture rather than being neutralised. Throw in some low light elements, and the picture will have more grain in than a farmer's chicken feed store.
Add to that the fact you have to wait an age to not only take the picture (and then have a fair few subsequent retries as the auto focus tries to sort itself out) but the processing going on in the background to add the picture to media library is a bit farcical as well.
Admittedly, the addition of the macro mode is a nice touch, and this actually works well most of the time (providing you're in a well lit and stable environment). But the other changes, such as colour correction, aren't really worth writing home about.
We dig the fact you're able to share your pictures through a variety of sources (such as Facebook, Twitter or a default email address under 'Quicksend') as well as being able to tag them for easy reference later on.
Video is a similar experience, with a hi-ish res camera (D1, 720x480 pixels) being able to score footage in a respectable 24fps. However, we were pleased with the lack of choppiness from such an effort - we think it's going to be months if not years before we finally see the 'Android camera phone', as it still seems to be all about the internet on these devices at the moment.
And video on the Milestone is still a bit slow to process in the same way the camera pictures take a while to save - but at least this is a right step in the media direction.
