T-Mobile G1 with Google mobile phone review

Comments

• Your review is the only thing thats crap here just another site thats sucking apples c*ck.
  
  Your whole review seems to be based on the design which is actually better than the iphone including all this is better than the iphone...
  
  MMS (picture messages)
  
  Better Camera
  
  Removable Battery
  
  Removable Memory
  
  Proper Keyboard
  
  Trackball
  
  Copy & Paste
  
  Better Call Quality
  
  Cheaper and on better contracts
  
  Faster 3G
  
  Posted by steven, England
• Thanks for your comments steven, Just to confirm we aren't about "sucking apples c*ck". We give every product we get in for review here at pocket-lint a fair and unbiased review based on what's good and equally bad about the product in question. In this case the G1 just didn't cut it. Plenty of potential with the operating system, but overall dissapointing on the hardware front. With so many Android based phones expected to be announced this year tying yourself for 18 months wasn't worth it for us, and therefore this isn't a device we would recommend. Posted by stuartmiles, United Kingdom
• Given some time with my G1 I'd like to offer some thoughts, not all of which are apparently obvious or published on at length that I'm aware of. The handset design isn't that awful, even if it isn't the sexiest looking.
  
  For me, the hardware falls short in the following:
  
  Admittedly the camera is weaker than wet toilet paper, but it works well enough (with a different camera app) to get a pass...for a camera phone (IMO).
  
  A 3.5mm jack, while nice, isn't a deal breaker for me (and there are adapters available, even if not the most elegant solution) - although the inability to have have the phone charging with headphones plugged in is probably a deal-breaker for some.
  
  The digitizer for the screen is a bit weak (multiple inputs join together once they are close enough to each other) resulting in limited two-finger pinch support (or any other action which involves fingers being close together).
  
  The phone only has 74MB of available user memory. This memory is also used by the OS for caching and data storage.
  
  One feature many don't seem to like, but that I appreciate is the hard keyboard. I would still prefer to use a soft keyboard most of the time, but having a 'real' keyboard built in is nice - I'll take the extra thickness.
  
  My biggest problem is with Android as it is configured on the G1,. As is, it is pretty unpolished. To wit:
  
  1. No long press on a contact to send e-mail and no 'call contact' option from the built in SMS (ChompSMS fixes the latter).
  
  2. While Android is 'open', themeing the *default* UI requires hacking the phone for root access and reflashing (by my understanding). A non-issue for many, but a big swing and a miss for what is probably a disproportionately large portion of the early adopters.
  
  3. The 'back' hard button is sometimes 'back', sometimes 'exit', and sometimes both - confusing and bothersome, especially since the Home key is basically a default 'exit' button.
  
  4. There is no easily accessible back button in the browser UI. You can press Menu/More/Back or use the hard back key. Great until you accidentally press the hard back key one too many times and exit the browser. There is no forward button.
  
  5. There is a known security exploit in the default web browser. The patch is in the code tree (has been for some time). Yet no update has been rolled out. Google could at least roll out a patched browser app on the market until the Cupcake update.
  
  6. The calendar app...ughh. Click on any day in month view and get either a view of that day, or an agenda list of upcoming items (whether or not any of the items are scheduled on that particular day). What you get depends on how you set your preference with a long press in the month view (obvious, right?)...well kind of. Sadly, it seems that if you ever view the Agenda, the month view defaults back to displaying the agenda when you click on any day in a month, thus changing your settings without your input if you had it set to display the day you clicked. 28-31 separately clickable days in month view and I can't ever view the agenda if I want to reliably click a day and go to the day view of the day I clicked.
  
  7. There appears to be no automated maintenance of memory wasting caches (while it seems that Market doesn't grow unabashedly like it used to, clearing the web browser's cache can make the difference between a stable responsive G1 and lag...lag...wait...force close? no...wait...). Regularly clearing my browser cache keeps an extra 9MB of memory free.
  
  8. No way to have the market, browser, etc. use the SD for caching...unless the phone is hacked for root access. Pretty inexcusable considering the low cost of SDHC and the anemic amount of memory available to the user.
  
  9. No multitouch.
  
  10. No tethering. I just read about an app that can provide this without requiring root access. While that will be a nice change, it should have been possible from the start. I'm guessing T-Mobile may have requested this to prevent their 2G/3G network from getting hammered.
  
  11. No WiFi calling. This phone has GPS, WiFi, BT, and Cellular & WiFi location. The thing is a veritable communication and navigation powerhouse (as phones go), but it can't make WiFi calls.
  
  12. Until the RC33/RC8 update the SMS app couldn't save attachments.
  
  13. Everything missing that will be available in the Cupcake update. These aren't small things - onscreen keyboard, video recorder, A2DP, start voice dial from BT headset (I wonder if this means the voice dialer will finally use the BT microphone instead of the handset mic), etc.
  
  Other issues (I don't know if these are hardware or software related):
  
  1. No data during a phone call - so much for looking something up while on the phone with someone.
  
  2. Unchangeable ring tone on bluetooth headset while phone speaker continues to ring and make other sounds. This makes custom ringtones, etc. useless in noisy situations as you only get a generic ring in the BT headset. My last phone went silent and pumped all sound through the BT when it was connected - as it should be, IMO.
  
  Bottom line: This phone definitely lets you have your cake, but you still don't get to eat it. Cupcake should change some of that, but my G1's OS and default apps feel like they were developed by people who don't actually use the product.
  
  I humbly bow to the development community that continues bringing out apps to make up for the many shortcomings of the G1 in its default trim. My G1 is twice the device it was when I purchased it and getting better - now if only Google seemed as excited about the G1 as its owners are. Posted by Bruce, USA