The G1 phone from Google is extremely awesome. I know I’m way behind the tech-savvy sites which posted all their cutting-edge reviews about a year ago, but hey, I’m just your average geek. I get around to testing a device when I want to, not because I am told to.
Don’t freak out, I like the iPhone too, and I know PDAmill Game Studios is currently developing new games for it. But as a personal phone, the G1 wins me over.
I like hardware keyboards. Growing up in the mobile word through Palms and Handheld PC Palm-Sized PC Pocket PC Smartphone Windows Mobile hardware, I think the hardware thumbboard/keyboard was a wonderful evolution. iPhone took that away from me and told me I had fat fingers. I like not using a stylus, but please let me type on a keyboard. Sadly, I have heard that the next Google phone may be removing this feature. Apparently, people want an iPhone, but don’t want to admit it. 
Speaking of hardware, I don’t know who invented it (RIM? Samsung? Apple?), but the little mouse-nubby -scroll-wheel thing that doubles as a Directional Pad, Arrow Keys, Enter Key, and Mouse is great! (Similar to the scroll wheel on the Apple Mighty Mouse, but nobody has one of those, so I doubt that helps 
). Wonderful when you need something more precise than a tap on the screen for say, text editing. Press-and hold the button down, and it acts like a right click with cut/copy/paste stuff. Brilliant.
Ah yes, and the hardware Call Button, Back Button, Home Buton, and End Call button are nice too. The iPhone’s ‘one button to close them all’ is functional, but it can be annoying extra step if you wish to call someone in the middle of an application (Close button, then tap the on screen Call button). Speaking of which, I think the G1 multitasks, let me check. Yup, it does.
The Home/Desktop/Whatever is so much more desktop-ish with icons you can move around and widgets you can add. It seems much more customizable than the iPhone um, pages? I’m a big Sticky Note fan (and random-text-files-as-reminders-on-my-desktop fan), and being able to add Stick notes directly to the desktop is sweet.
Built-in GPS is a plus for one reason. I’m not a huge fan of GPS for most things (Sorry Nav N Go 
), but for one application it is truly cool. The free Google Sky Map application blows my mind. It basically uses your GPS position and direction to calculate the stars above you. Take it out at night and it will be exactly what you are looking at with all the names and everything. Explaining it with words is pretty pointless. You really have to experience it to see how incredibly cool it is.
The G1 has Unicode support by default (Non-geeks: Supports Non-Roman characters, like Chinese/Japanese/Korean). In all the mobile phone stores, I only found 4 phones which had unicode support by default: iPhone, G1, SideKick, and the Motorola Phantom-something or other. I have heard you can hack/patch the Blackberries, but I don’t want to. I’m sure there is an outdated reason why Unicode support isn’t be standard on all phones. It can’t take up that much space, and would save a lot of time from localization for each market. I don’t even need an IME (Non-Geeks: being able to type in the other language), I just want to be able to read it.
The G1 falls behind on games and I don’t believe they can compete with iPhone as far as iTunes and marketshare, but all the free apps in Android Market installed easily and are quite nifty. Oh, and OS updates are a breeze, no iTunes synching nonsense, you simply get a notification, it downloads automagically, and tells you a quick reboot is needed. Reboot takes about 60 seconds.
The G1 browser is 99% as good as the iPhone browser. In some senses better because of the little mouse nub and the hardware keyboard. The only thing really missing is the double-tap zooming feature. Google has a zooming thing, but it honestly isn’t as good as the iPhone, and sometimes it simply wont let you zoom.
The #1 most annoying feature of the G1 was learning how to not use the End Call button to cancel out of menus and programs. On almost every phone I have had, the End Call button (the red one) would cancel and/or return you to the home screen. On the G1 it does more than that, it turns the phone off (well, goes to sleep and the screen turns off, you get the idea). It took me a couple of weeks to adjust to this and start using the back button instead. I still mess up every once in awhile, which really stinks because:
I hate locking and unlocking my phone. iPhone’s slide to unlock thing was bearable, but the G1’s unlock by playing connect-the-dots in a sequence is frustrating. I honestly don’t care about security (and I’ve had my phone stolen before by a Gypsy Roma in Hungary), I just don’t want my pocket dialing people without my permission…
So, if we could do all of this in a clamshell/flip-phone form factor, I’d be completely satisfied.
I Sold My Soul to Softbank for a Minimalist 740SC Phone Review
Jaybot Interviewed by Just Another Mobile Monday, Part 3
Landline phones are obsolete, and annoying, technology.
{ 3 trackbacks }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
all I can say is ME TOO….I love this thing!
Hey Doug, thanks for dropping by! For the record, I just tested out the GPS on the G1 in the middle of Tokyo, Japan with Google SkyMap and Maps and it still works beautifully
Hi Jason,
Thakns for all the great info. So, why are all the T-Mobile dealers shipping them back right now? I ran all over town looking for one last night, and was told they’re old news now and no one’s buying them. I don’t want a MyTouch or an iPhone (no hardware keyboard, and I certainly don’t want AT&T!!). Anyway, I found a store that has one (duh-I forgot about the corporate T-Mobile store just a couple extra miles away) and will pick it up today.
Thanks for dropping by Heather! The only thing I can think of is that the model is a bit old now. Phone manufacturers like to replace handsets several times a year with new models.
The latest in the Android OS stuff is the new Motorola Droid, which everyone is raving about but I have yet to try personally.
HTC (the makers of the G1) have a new phone in the works (or recently released? I’m out of the loop) as well, which is why I imagine the G1 is a bit hard to find these days.