I got the G1
October 24th, 2008 by Josh Houghtelin
I pre ordered the T-Mobile G1 and got it a day early. I’ve been working so I haven’t had an opportunity to really play with it until now. I haven’t owned a Iphone but I have owned a few Blackberries, T-Mobile MDA (HTC Wizard) , Sidekick, a few other smart phones and a couple PDAs. This is all my opinion of course. I’ve only been playing with it for a matter of hours.
Google interface:
I obviously really appreciate how it immediately asks for a google login to begin synchronizing data although improting all my google contacts is a little annoying.
Google maps & gps is cool but slow on gprs. I haven’t confirmed it’s using my evdo properly
Instant messaging is awesome
Email is awesome
Youtube interface is really cool but obviously a little slow over my current connection. (although it may only be gprs. not sure)
Having a google search form a single slide away from the main screen is very cool
More stuff:
The slider menus are darn cool. One from the top for active/running stuff and a start/application menu that slides up from the bottom
Setting up my Pop3 work email was easy and the interface is awesome
SMS Messaging is represented like an instant messanger. Very cool. Just gotta remember to type out a whole SMS before hitting enter. I don’t think it’s cool quite yet to actually treat SMS like standard PC based instant messaging but it’s very cool to have the conversation laid out as such.
Locking the keyboard couldn’t be simpler.
Hardware:
The camera is taking some getting used to but seems to work pretty cool
The music player looks cool but I haven’t used it with headphones yet to use it as I would an mp3 player
The whole thing feels good in my hand and the sound quality doesn’t seem too bad
The screen flips up in an interesting manner
The keyboard is pretty easy to type on
I like it. Zippy wants one. I was excited to get it so we’ll see how awesome it is after the new wears off. I think I’ll like it more since I’ll finally have a real feel for it by then. All in all, at first glance, it seems pretty darn cool.
Here’s a pic with the G1 at Faded above a pool table. It likes light.
Posted in Hardware, Tech
October 26th, 2008 at 10:36 am
How is the phone sound quality? Call me!
October 27th, 2008 at 9:22 am
The sound quality is pretty good but damn if I haven’t killed the battery 3 times already. I’m not sure if I have the “eat all the battery juice” setting set properly or not. I must not because I’ve drained the battery at least 3 times in the week I’ve had this thing.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:44 am
That was pretty much my experience when going from my el cheapo Nokia to my Treo 650. As I make few and usually short calls, the Nokia would last for a week or more without charging. My Treo 650 (then 700p) only make it a couple days. Jon says dimming the screen helps a lot, but I haven’t tested that empirically.
I wouldn’t mind a G1 for the frickin’ KEYBOARD. I thought my Neo Freerunner would be okay with a touchscreen virtual keyboard, but I can’t touch the 45 words-per-minute that I can thumb on the Treos. Also, having a few misc. buttons for one-handed navigation is really important. The Freerunner only has two (on the sides) and they’re a bit hard to push.