A new initiative by Starhub now allows users to watch some of the cable channels live on the go. And its free for some channels or just a mere dollar per day per channel. The live streaming of the channels work very well, with high quality images and audio most of the time. While the travelling underground, there's some intermission occasionally though.

There are 21 channels, some of the big boys are included, such as Channel Newsasia, CNBC, National Geographic and BBC. There's even 7 days TV programme guide built in to check out the upcoming programmes!
After testing the TV mobile on both android and windows mobile, both works similarly. Except, the windows mobile client allows you to create a scheduled reminder for the TV programme, something pretty neat that has been left out in the android version.

Wish Starhub could expand the service to all of their tv channels, especially those bundled free with cable tv subscription. Even better if the client could record the programmes and playback on the mobile phone sometime later. =P

The Milestone is exclusively available from Starhub. Among the first to boost Android 2.1 out of the box, the firmware also have slight touches by the telco. The most obvious modification is the start up splash screen being replaced by Starhub logo. A Starhub wallpaper is also included in the phone and a page indicator widget is built into the home screen. Some of the default 3D applications are not seen in this built, namely the main menu and 3D gallery.

Other than an occasional restart, the phone works smoothly and great. Good software in excellent hardware, plus the crazy pricing places this android phone at the top of the pack!

A picture represents a thousand words, let alone a video. Check out the video for more indepth walkthrough of the user interface. =P

Not able to do a screenshot least i root the phone, which probably cause the staff at rip to root me..

Received a Milestone as part of RippleVox Trial program. On top of the phone, Starhub has also throw in free MaxMobile Premium  data plan for a month! Yippe!

The milestone has a sturdy build quality, especially the slide-out keyboard, it feels that it will last for long. In addition, the golden touch to a little here and there, plus the rubbery backing add a nice classy feel to the phone.

Some thought here, I would prefer spring loaded slider, but the manual mechanism works very well still. For some reasons, lately more phones are designed without the hot-swappable micro-SD slot, so does the Milestone. Not much of an issue though, these are nice to have, but not must.

Unlike other region, this Milestone is preloaded with the latest Android, Eclair version 2.1. The startup splash screen has been modified to that of Starhub, and the set is preloaded with Starhub wallpapers and Mobile TV app.

Logged in to my google account, and milestone is all sync with my contacts, calendars and emails =D

Next milestone for Milestone - Maximise its potential!

Digital Frame
This software has been there since i900. It is kinda making i8000 to behaving like a digital photo frame. The software will cycle through the selected photos in the background, with some of the phone's notifications overlaid.




Photo album
This nifty software allows you to browse through your photos. In landscape mode, it has this cool 3D card effect with the photos of each folder being spread across the screen. While viewing the photos, you could use the one finger zoom to enlarge the photo or tilting the phone sideway would scroll to the next photo =D

5 MP Camera
As the old saying goes, if it's aint broke, don't fix it. The camera interface remains largely the same as what is on i900. The video recording mode does receive a slight upgrade, with the added resolution of 720 x 480.




Midomi Mobile
If you are on the move and overhear something you like, could not recognise what music is that? No worries, just whip out your i8000. Another neat application included in i8000 is this piece of software that allows you to search for music by singing, or humming to the phone.

Recording and recognising the song.


No problem recognising non-english song! Cool!


They even provide links to the mv and lyrics ;D



FM Radio
Same old radio application here, you could record the channels, and set up to 12 favourite frequencies.





Touch Player
Lastly, the multimedia player. 2 possible audio enhancement for you to choose from, namely DNSe and SRS. The largest video resolution the player could playback is 720 x 480. That means no HD videos, but the wealth of codec supported should be more than enough to justify the lower resolution.

Samsung Inbox
Samsung has revamped the inbox, making it more touch friendly, though right now it is non threaded. The new QWERTY keyboard works pretty well, except that comma is rather inconvenient to input. The shadowed symbols on top left corner of each key could be inserted by pressing and holding the respective key.


The other 2 keyboards are well hidden. To activate them, press and hold the Mode key until a dialog appears as shown below. Unlike the QWERTY, these 2 are not as well designed. The 20 keys do not have a key to enter punctuation easily. As for the 12 keypad, you could only input the first punctuation as indicated on the keys (though they show 2 there) with the xt9 turned on. Lastly, the default Transcriber, Keyboard and Block Recognizer are skinned also.


This is the only keyboard shown while the composer is in landscape mode.


Tap on the recipient field, a dialog shows up before you could select the guys.


To change between CC, BCC, and To recipients, only way is to do it over at this screen one by one.




Samsung Phonebook
Continuing from Omnia, the current phonebook is very easy to navigate. All the possible entries could also be filled up using Samsung phonebook.


The issue with the contact view is that text that exceed the width of the string will remain hidden. 2nd tab is the categories as per windows mobile implementation. You are able to mass send sms or emails to everyone in the category. 3rd tab is the speed dial settings, you could configure up to 99 entries!


The last tab allows you to filter off unwanted calls =)
I would have prefer it to accept certain calls, instead of just black listing a few numbers.




Touch Calendar
The new calendar app is more finger friendly now. The added bonus of Samsung version is the ability to set different colors for each category.







Clock
Despite being named as clock, this application does more than that and does it well. The wake-up alarm allows you to set up to 3 different timing, including auto power up if the phone is switched off.



Set your anniversay here for the clock to alert you. The Countdown widget takes the date from here.


Set the world clocks here




Calculator




Opera 9.5
This is not your usual Opera. The Touchwiz customisation went so deep that even Opera is customised. The picture on the right shows the one-finger zoom as per Samsung Jet =)


The same old boring bookmark page.


The new Samsung bookmark with preview of the site.




Audio Note
Samsung voice recording application. You could choose 5 different type of recording formats (AMR, WAV, MP3 (Low), MP3 (Medium), MP3 (High)).




Podcast


RSS Reader





Smart Converter
The converter has been upgraded now with currency conversion and a tips calculator.





Smart Memo
Quite a nifty app in my opinion, you could draw, insert text, images, voice recording, and even alarm! This is quite a good replacement for the default task list i would say.




Smart Reader
Its a pocket OCR that does recognition for Business Cards, Documents and translating them on the fly. Despite being an asian set, the only language available available for translation is French.








Smart Search
Allows you to search within messages, contacts, and files.




Bluetooth and WIFI
Tap on the center to toggle on/off, drag the surrounding nodes to the center to connect to them.






Last but not least, the File Manager
Similar flick scrolling and a tab at the side to jump straight to certain letters.


Only way to copy or move files is through the menu, right clicking on the files does not do the job. The search function implemented in file manager is even more powerful, it could return results that include system and hidden files.