T-Mobile G1 with full QWERTY keyboard
The T-Mobile G1 is made by HTC. We’ve been closely following HTC’s rise to fame as the premier Windows Mobile smartphone manufacturer on the planet. HTC makes some seriously high-quality hardware that never fails to impress us - with solid build quality and a penchant for the high-tech, HTC devices deliver on sensory and practical aspects. As such, we expected the HTC-made T-Mobile G1 to be a robust handset packed with the latest mobile technology.
Did the T-Mobile G1 live up to the high standards that we’ve set for HTC smartphones?
Specifications:
* 3.2-inch touchscreen @ 320 x 480 (HVGA) resolution
* Qualcomm MSM7210A running @ 528 MHz
* 256MB ROM / 192MB RAM
* Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM/GPRS/EDGE
* Dual-band (1700/2100Mhz) UMTS/HSDPA (3G)
o Full HSPA support - 7.2Mbps HSDPA (downstream) and 2Mbps HSUPA (upstream)
* 3-megapixel camera with photo-sharing (geo-tagging) capabilities
* WiFi 802.11 b/g
* GPS
* Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
* myFaves-enabled
* Voice recognition, voice dialing and speakerphone
* Hinged touch screen that slides open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard
Pros:
* 3G data connection for high-speed wireless data service
* Push Gmail with automatic Google Calendar and Google Contacts synchronization
* Speedy user interface with little lag and seamless application switching
* Capacitance-based glass touchscreen (like the iPhone 3G, but without multi-touch capability)
* Full QWERTY keyboard
* Large 3.2-inch display @ 320×480 resolution
* Convenient trackball
* Full-HTML web browser
* Google Maps with Street View and Compass Mode
* WiFi
* GPS
Cons:
* Lack of on-screen virtual keyboard
* Slightly loud “slide-kick”
* Battery life
* Weak keyboard backlight
* Less than stellar indoor 3G reception
Verdict:
The T-Mobile G1 represents the first in what will likely be a long line of full-featured smartphones powered by Google’s Linux-based Android OS. As such, the T-Mobile G1 makes a big splash in an already-crowded pool of smartphone competitors. With its laundry list of features that include a GPS receiver, a WiFi radio, 3G data connection, 3.2 megapixel camera, and capacitance-based 3.2-inch touchscreen, the T-Mobile G1 is a powerhouse of a smartphone.
But, as the first-ever Android handset, the T-Mobile G1 does have a couple niggling downsides.
Keep reading for our in-depth review of the T-Mobile G1 and the Android OS experience.
Packaging
Let’s start from the beginning.
As with many high-end devices these days, the T-Mobile G1 comes packaged in an sleek and functional box that opens to reveal the G1 nestled securely within a foam cradle. Lift the cradle and you find all the accessories and documentation that you’d expect to accompany a new cellphone.
There isn’t too much to say about the T-Mobile G1’s box, but it sure is one pretty box.
Setup / Out-of-box functionality
The T-Mobile G1 requires none of the activation procedures that the iPhone and iPhone 3G require. Setup is as simple as taking your T-Mobile G1 out of the aforementioned box, turning on said G1, and entering your Gmail account information.
Entering your Gmail email address and password allows the T-Mobile G1 to synchronize all your Google Mail, Contacts, and Calendar to your Android OS mail client, addres book, and calendar. The T-Mobile G1 really emphasizes its Google-roots through its Gmail integration and hassle-free setup procedure.
Within minutes of turning on the T-Mobile G1, a little email notification icon popped up in the upper left corner, letting me know that I had just received my first Gmail email. The new Gmail email was “pushed” to the G1, so it was evident that this new email was no older than a coupe seconds (at most).
Sending the inaugural text message was just as easy as setting up the T-Mobile G1. Thanks to the Google-synchronizing feature, the G1 was already populated with a full contacts list. As long as you synchronize your Address Book with Google Contacts before turning on your T-Mobile G1 for the first time, you’ll find all your contacts conveniently pushed to your G1.
Needless to say, setting up the T-Mobile G1 was no harder than logging in to a Gmail account - literally.
Design and Phone Calls…..
Design
The T-Mobile G1 is made by our favorite Windows Mobile smartphone manufacturer, HTC. Known as High Tech Computers, HTC has made name for itself as the premier WinMo device maker in the world. You’ve likely used a Windows Mobile smartphone made by HTC in the past without knowing that HTC actually manufactured the handset. The G1 bears only two telltale clues of HTC’s hand in its creation - one logo along the display’s bezel and one logo adorning the battery.
HTC knows what they’re doing with smartphones, and they’re expertise really shows through on the T-Mobile G1. The touchscreen is sublime (more on that later). The keyboard provides great feedback and is easy to use (more, later). The trackball is a welcome change from the ubiquitous direction pad (D-pad). The soft-touch finish on the battery cover gives the G1 a refined in-hand feel.
Thanks to the huge 3.5-inch touchscreen and hard keyboard, the G1 is a bit bulkier than we had expected. It’s not going to have the model-esque waistline of the HTC Touch Diamond, but we expected the G1 to feel a bit slimmer. That’s not to say that the T-Mobile G1 is huge or feels like a bloated monster. Rather, the T-Mobile G1 is well-balanced and feels solid. Were it to shave a couple millimeters off its profile, we wouldn’t protest.
The camera shutter and volume buttons are perfectly placed and work best for left-handers or right-handers that use the G1 in their left hand. When held in portrait orientation in the left hand, the G1’s volume controls are easily within reach of the left-thumb. For taking pictures in landscape orientation, the camera shutter button is perfectly placed for your right index finger.
A USB port dominates the lower-edge of the G1 and allows for easy charging and data transfers. The microSD card slot is a little harder to get at - you’ll have to flip open the display to get at the card slot.
The “chin.” That little slightly-bent portion of the G1 that houses the trackball and navigation buttons is a polarizing design element to say the least. Some will say that it kills the G1’s smooth lines. Others will praise the jutting “chin” for its ergonomic value and unique aesthetic. You’ll just have to make up your own mind…
Phone calls
After all, this is a mobile phone made for making phone calls.
Call quality is superb. You won’t have any problems with your listener not being able to understand your muffled or garbled speech. Calls come through nice and clear on the T-Mobile G1, making for a good “phone call experience.”
The phone, or “Dialer,” application is accessed via the “Call” button, the homescreen, or the applications menu. Whichever method you choose to fire up the phone dialer app, you’ll be off and calling in under four button clicks.
And, remember, all your contacts are automatically synchronized to the G1’s address book. No hassle, no fuss.
Email and Messaging…..
Push Gmail
As you are probably already aware, the T-Mobile G1 features Push Gmail. As mentioned above, the G1 only asks that you enter your Gmail login credentials in order to setup your device to accept push Gmail emails.
The Push Gmail feature, as many BlackBerry Email and Microsoft Exchange users will likely attest to, is invaluable for staying on top of all your important emails. Even if you don’t rely on time-sensitive emails, it’s nice to have emails pushed directly to you handset without having to affect an email update (as with POP3 and IMAP email solutions).
Other email
Setting up other email accounts is just a matter of entering your email address and your password. The Android OS email client automatically configures your email account (downloading your Inbox with folder structure intact) and should be up and running in no time.
Push Gmail seems to only work with the main Gmail account, additional Gmail email accounts don’t have push functionality enabled.
Full-HTML emails are fully supported and parsed quickly. You won’t have to wait to load images (especially over the 3G connection) in your emails allowing you to enjoy HTML formatted emails.
Messaging
Text messages are easy to send. The “Messaging” application threads SMS text message conversations, which is a huge plus for heavy texters. You can manage your text messages as conversations between contacts, and even send out mass messages to your entire contacts list (again, automatically synchronized with Google Contacts).
Google Maps, YouTube, Web Browser…..
Google Maps, YouTube, Web Browser
Google Maps
The Google Maps application has garnered some serious media hype since the HTC Dream was demonstrated with Google Maps Street View. Google Maps features functionality on-par with the desktop version of Google Maps, which says a lot. And, with the ability to zoom into street-level views with the Street View feature’s Compass Mode, Google Maps becomes an indispensable app. Compass Mode allows you to pan around the Street View window through G1 movements, as if the G1 was a window into Street View - it works by measuring directional-data from the G1’s integrated compass and accelerometers to detect which direction you are facing.
YouTube
The YouTube application brings the world of mobile-optimized YouTube videos to the T-Mobile G1. There are a lot of mobile optimized YouTube videos available from YouTube, but there are some less-popular videos that fail to make the cut. So, don’t go expecting to access all of YouTube video library on your G1, but chances are good that the video your friend is raving about is available right now on the G1.
Web Browser
The iPhone Safari browser, Opera Mobile/Mini, and the Android Web Browser are easily the three best mobile web browsers on the planet (as far as touch-based devices are concerned). With the Android web browser, webpages are rendered in their full HTML-glory. That means you see the webpage as it looks on the desktop.
Panning around webpage is a simple matter of dragging your finger around the screen. Zooming in and out is accomplished via the “+” and “-” zoom buttons - a little less intuitive and sleek than the iPhone Safari’s double-tap zoom method, but workable, nonetheless.
Scrolling through webpages is a joy, thanks to the Android OS’s smooth page rendering capabilities and the smooth capacitance-touchscreen. Just flick your finger across the screen and the webpage scrolls down smoothly proportionately to the speed of your “flick.”
Touchscreen and QWERTY Keyboard….
Touchscreen
There’s nothing like a squishy touchscreen to ruin your smartphone experience. Pressure-based touchscreens have been in use for more years than we care to count, and we couldn’t be more pleased to see resistive-based touchscreens going the way of the IR port (although, we do get nostalgic for IR functionality).
The T-Mobile G1 sports the superior capacitance-based touchscreen technology that was made so popular in Apple’s iPhone and iPhone 3G. Sadly, multi-touch functionality is missing from the G1’s touchscreen, but the solid, glass touchscreen adorning the G1’s front face is plenty nice. And, with a generous 3.5-inches of real estate, the G1 touchscreen is a pleasure to use.
Make sure to remove the protective film covering the touchscreen surface prior to powering-on your G1. We know some of you obsessive smartphone enthusiasts like to leave plastic films on your device as long as possible, but you just can’t get a feel for the G1’s smooth touchscreen surface with all that plastic in the way. If you’re worried about screen scratches, just know that the all-glass display is much more resistant to scratches than plastic, pressure-based (resistive) touchscreens.
QWERTY keyboard
Ahh, yes. The slide-out keyboard. For some, a physical keyboard is a necessity that makes or breaks the decision to buy a smartphone. For others, an on-screen keyboard will do just fine.
The T-Mobile G1 caters to fans from the gotta-have-a-hard-keyboard camp. With a flick of the fingers affecting a smooth “snick” of the slider mechanism, the T-Mobile G1 opens up to reveal the comfortably sized and ergonomically laid-out keyboard. The screen flips-out along an arcing pathway, distinguishing this QWERTY slider from almost every other keyboard-toting smartphone currently available.
Unfortunately, the G1’s hard keyboard does have an issue with backlight intensity. The keyboard backlight just isn’t strong enough for normal use. Granted, the presence of a backlight is definitely a good thing, but the weak backlight makes it near impossible to see the keys in dim lighting conditions - where there isn’t enough ambient light to make out the letters, but still enough light to overwhelm the keyboard backlight. To make matter worse, the bright screen tends to overpower the keyboard backlight.
At this time, the T-Mobile G1 doesn’t offer an on-screen virtual keyboard. The absence of a touchscreen keyboard takes away from the G1’s appeal as a hassle-free handset. Without the ability to enter short, simple text/character input via the touchscreen, G1 users will find themselves flicking the screen to get at the QWERTY keyboard quite often.
Thankfully, all other features and functions on the G1 (those that don’t specifically require text inputs - like Google searches, text messages, calendar entries, etc.) can be easily accessed via touchscreen finger-inputs and the trackball.
Android OS and Android Market…..
Android OS
T-Mobile G1 in its closed, portrait orientation
T-Mobile G1 in its closed, portrait orientation
Android OS is still new, and it shows. The Android OS is continuously being patched and updated by Google. At time of this writing, there have been no less than 3 updates to the Android OS. All updates are incremental build-updates that fixes bugs and seals up security holes, so they’re not unwelcome, but they indicate the Android OS’s still-green feel.
Android OS offers an intuitive interface and makes use of eye-catching effects and icons. The UI doesn’t measure up to the iPhone OS (which is arguably king of the usability-hill), but it gives the iPhone OS a good run for its money. The lack of a soft-keyboard (on-screen, virtual keyboard) is a perfect example of the Android OS’s unfinished feel.
Some will claim that Android isn’t as polished or refined as it could be, but those pundits are just comparing the Android OS to its touchscreen competition. On its own, Android is a great platform that has huge potential. Unhindered by the kind of “walled garden” approach that Apple uses to control the user experience, Android offers developers and consumer the flexibility to do with their Android device as they see fit (within reason). Sure, Android OS is missing features like the soft-keyboard, but that will be fixed in time - and then Android will truely shine.
