Video: Motorola Milestone 3

I hate on-screen keyboards and would much sooner have a real keyboard instead for anything other than a few words. Motorola's Milestone and Milestone 2 were two handsets that had a large QWERTY keyboard, and yet in Europe they didn't sell very well.

Motorola are probably guessing that Androids with keyboards aren't popular, but I suspect that the truth is that most customers don't even know about them. The original Milestone didn't sell very well.. but then hardly any carriers picked it up and marketing was minimal. Remember that Motorola had vanished as far as most carriers were concerned, so the Motorola brand wasn't exactly going to sell itself. The Milestone 2 suffered a similar fate, but now Motorola is beginning to pick up again in Europe on the back of the ATRIX and DEFY, so perhaps it would be the time to launch the Milestone 3?

At the moment, the Milestone 3 seems to be definitely NOT coming to Europe, and that's a shame. There's nothing worth having in the full-QWERTY Android range at the moment. Perhaps HTC or Samsung will see that there's a gap in the market for an up-to-date QWERTY Android?

Video: Motorola DROID 3

Really Moto's worst-kept secret for a while, the Motorola DROID 3 is a sort of improved ATRIX with a slide-out QWERTY. Apparently you can order it online from Verizon Wireless in the US right now, but if you're not in the US (or not on Verizon) then you will probably be waiting for the Milestone 3 variant. Of note is that the DROID 3 also supports GSM/UMTS when used with a SIM card. It might just be that the new DROID and Milestone handsets might be identical this time..

Video: Motorola XT883

A bit of an odd way to announce a major handset, but a couple of days ago Moto launched the XT833 on China's third largest mobile phone network, China Telecom. So far, so meh.. but the XT833 is actually the DROID 3  or Milestone 3, so a pretty major announcment.

Think of it as an ATRIX with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a better camera and more up-to-date OS and you get the picture. Probably due out some time after the summer.

More Motorola DROID 3 / Milestone 3 rumours

The original Motorola DROID (or Milestone depending on where you live) was a landmark Android device (a milestone even!) which left the competition struggling to catch up.. which of course they did.

Things move pretty quickly, and the DROID 2 / Milestone 2 came back with a faster processor and better keyboard, but things are moving pretty quickly and the DROID 2 stands out as being about the only high-end Moto device without a dual-core CPU.

The latest rumours indicate that the DROID 3 / Milestone 3 will have a new type of dual-core CPU plus an nHD display and Android 2.3 plus a very usable keyboard with a row of number keys.

It looks good, but when will it be announced? Well, there was only ten months between the announcement of the DROID and DROID 2, so it could be in the works very soon..

[Via]