The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker than photos make it look, and the software is impressive for an initial version. No, it’s not as elegant as the iPhone, but of the touch-screen smart phones out there, it’s the closest contender yet.
I’ve been using a G1 for about a week, long enough to find things I like and things I think need fixing. The best news about the G1 is that not only can T-Mobile fix its flaws, so can any other skilled programmer.
That’s because, like the iPhone, the G1 has a place you can go to download new applications for it. The G1 Market is increasingly full of useful programs. But unlike Apple’s iTunes App Store, there’s no gatekeeper. Anyone can write a program and add it to the Market.
The G1’s handset is made by HTC, known for its bricklike phones with screens that slide up to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. That’s the design for the G1, though the screen slides out first and then up. It’s thicker than the iPhone but not as wide. The keys are small and round, making it difficult to type quickly. You also have to press down fairly hard.
The 3.2-inch screen is bright and its resolution crisp. As with the iPhone, the G1 can switch between landscape and portrait modes, but not automatically. To get into landscape mode, you must raise the screen. The G1 does have a motion sensor, so it’s not clear why it doesn’t switch automatically based on how you’re holding the phone.
The touch screen is not quite as responsive as the iPhone and it lacks some of the iPhone’s slicker multitouch capabilities — there’s no pinching or double-tapping to shrink or expand images and Web pages.
The G1 has an angled “chin” below the screen that includes a trackball; the traditional cell-phone answer and hang-up buttons; a home-screen button; a back button; and a menu button. I liked having additional buttons, though I sometimes became irritated with having to press the Menu button to get access to features in the G1’s applications.
As you’d expect, the phone comes with GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It will use
T-Mobile’s new 3G network, which is available at the moment in less than 20 markets, Houston being one of them. If it can’t find a 3G signal, it can connect to the older, slower Edge network.
Music lovers, take note that the G1 does not have a traditional headphone jack. Instead, it comes with a stereo headset that plugs into the same port used to charge the phone or connect it to a computer. If you want a better headset, you’ll have to buy an adapter. This is not uncommon in smart phones. For example, Samsung’s BlackJack I and II require an adapter for third-party headsets.
Audio quality is very good during calls. In fact, this is one of the best-sounding phones I’ve used in a long time.
Unlike the iPhone, the G1 has a replaceable battery. Battery life is a little better than the iPhone, lasting a good two days without charging, so long as you don’t make heavy use of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
The G1 also has expandable memory. It comes with a
1-gigabyte micro SD card and can take up to an 8-GB card. The iPhone’s memory is fixed, but its 16-GB model eclipses the G1’s storage capacity.
Google’s Android software is fun to use and includes most of the features you’ll want in a smart phone.
As you’d expect, the phone is heavily tied to Google’s services. When you set it up, you have to enter your Gmail account information — and if you don’t have a Gmail account, the phone will set one up.
If you have other e-mail services you want to access, you’ll need to use a different, included mail program. Why the two aren’t combined is a mystery, and it makes using multiple accounts a hassle.
The G1’s Web browser is based on Webkit, the same core component used in the iPhone’s Mobile Safari browser. This means that the G1 shows you Web sites as they are meant to be seen. Unfortunately, it also means you can’t see Web pages that use the ubiquitous Flash.
I found the applications included with the G1 to be … OK. Generally, they’re simple and uncluttered, but uninspired. As an example, the browser’s page viewer takes up the whole screen. On one hand, this means you have more room to view Web sites, but it also means that you must press the Menu button often to get to frequently used features.
Since you can’t pinch to zoom, Android puts plus and minus buttons onscreen. The zoom levels are imprecise, and I found myself hitting them multiple times. On the Web browser, a second button lets you box off a specific area to be enlarged.
The G1 doesn’t come with software required to connect to a computer. An included USB cable connects it to a Mac or a PC, and you can then access folders on the phone. That’s how you put music into it — just drag song files into the Music folder. I can appreciate the simplicity; manually dragging/dropping from a large library of songs gets old quickly.
If you want a G1, you may have to wait a while. It officially goes on sale Wednesday, but T-Mobile has said it’s sold out on pre-orders. It sold 1.5 million phones in advance, and it’s unclear whether you’ll be able to walk into a T-Mobile dealer next Wednesday and buy one.
If you do, you’ll pay $179 with a two-year contract. Usage plan pricing varies, but expect to pay a minimum of $55 a month for both voice and data.
And should you get one? If you’re an existing T-Mobile customer who has been thinking about an iPhone, you suddenly have a real decision to make. This is a great phone for consumers — for business users, not so much. It’s about at the same place the iPhone was in its initial release.
If you’ve been trying to decide between the iPhone 3G and the G1, I’d have to say that the former is far more elegant and polished. But the G1 holds a lot of promise, particularly with its open-software approach. There will be more Android-based phones coming, and those who aren’t wedded to any particular wireless carrier may want to wait until next year to see how things develop.
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