At a press event in New York City today, T-Mobile, Google and HTC got together to launch the G1, the first phone to run Google's Android OS. We were at the event and had plenty of time to gather hands on impressions of the phone. Overall we were very impressed. It wasn't a perfect device by any means, there is still obvious room for improvement, both in the hardware and the software. But we were taken in by the phone's deep polish and attention to detail, and the all-important responsiveness of the hardware.
The New Stuff
The G1 (nice, easy name, by the way) has a somewhat unique design for QWERTY sliders. It's slightly curved at the lower end, the part that stays in place when the keyboard slides out. The keyboard and buttons were all solid, as we would expect from HTC, and even the trackball felt at least as good as any recent BlackBerry we've tried. The rest of the phone's case felt a little light in the hand. The plastics felt very light, perhaps a little flimsy, and the shell was a bit larger than we'd expect for such a light device. We think there is room to shrink this down in the future.
Enough about the hardware, though. What we really wanted to see was the interface. In this respect, Google has really hit one out of the park. Like the iPhone, the Google interface employs a virtual desktop system to help organize more icons and widgets on screen. Unlike the iPhone, though, the Google phone lets you pick a background picture, and when you pan from virtual space to space, the picture pans as well, like a panorama. The war is on.
We especially liked the compass features on the phone. This is something we've been expecting for a while, since we saw similar functions on the Nokia 6210 Navigator. Basically, the G1 uses a combined compass and accelerometer to display a virtual world on the phone screen, using Google's Street View. So, you can see the street you're on, and when you pan the phone up and down, or if you make an about face, the Street View virtual image will follow your movements. We can't say the compass seemed especially responsive, we'd like to give it a real street trial, but the accelerometer worked very well moving up and down, and provided a very cool, virtual experience.
Like Apple, T-Mobile and Google are also hoping to push applications to the G1 through an application store. Unlike Apple's phone, there will be other ways to load apps to the phone, including simple sideloading from a PC, and Google also made some bold claims about the supposed openness of the device. We'll believe it when we see video conferencing and bittorrent clients clogging up T-Mobile's shiny new HSDPA network. In any case, the G1 ships with an Amazon Music Store App for downloading music in Wi-Fi range. You can check out pictures of the new store here, in our full gallery.
The Good Stuff
We won't go into every detail about the interface design, but let's just say there were many fine detail. Menus opened up after a long press of the finger, just as they do in Windows Mobile. Like that business OS, Google's Android also has cut and paste features. Of course, it can't handle all Office documents, and Exchange support is a mystery, but we'll get to that later.
The interface seemed very responsive in spots where other touchscreen phones have fallen flat. For an HTC device, the G1 can switch display modes, from landscape to portrait, faster than any Windows Mobile device we've seen. Also, the G1 churned through long lists without breaking a sweat, or breaking down. We ran our fingers on the screen track and field style, a test only the iPhone has previously passed, and the phone kept up without problems.
Network speeds were also pretty good, and the test units seemed to be running on T-Mobile's HSDPA network in midtown Manhattan. We got a GPS signal indoors, though we were within sight of some large front windows. We tried playing some YouTube videos and they looked, well, like YouTube videos. But we found those videos by jumping right from our music playlist, which was a pretty cool feature. There were plenty of similarly contextual features hidden throughout the phone.
The Bad Stuff
Besides the interface, the hardware feels a bit plain. It's quite functional, as we could see even in our brief hands-on period, but it still wasn't anything truly eye-catching. There was a lot of empty space taken up by light plastics. The slide mechanism is unique. The display slides up and to the side, making an arc on its journey and exposing the slide arms beneath. It's unique, but not in a good way. The phone feels like it could be tighter all around, though perhaps the loose, more casual build is meant to appeal more to the hip, ex-Sidekick crowd.
Perhaps this is the same reason why the phone won't ship with Exchange support. Of course, when pressed, Google execs repeated their new mantra that such support could always be built into the phone with a third-party application. We aren't concerned about the specific lack of Exchange support, but more about how we would synchronize our address books and calendars with the G1. Of course, Google provides all of these services for free with it's Gmail service, and these will work just fine with the phone, at least if the push technology works as promised. In fact, we use many of these services ourselves, but we still rely on Exchange for our business contacts and appointments, and Apple's iCal for our personal stuff. Since there will be no desktop client to synchronize the T-Mobile G1 to our various PCs, how can we expect to access these PIM tools? Wait for a third-party developer, of course. Or, we could learn how to build it ourselves, which seems to be a sly ulterior motive in Google's plan.
Otherwise, we're also still skeptical about how far T-Mobile is willing to let this party go. How badly will T-Mobile crack down on unauthorized use of the pipeline for various Web-based apps and services. T-Mobile has already explained that Amazon won't be the exclusive store for the G1, just the first to launch. Will we see video conferencing on the device? Peripheral support? The kind of deep access to the system that Apple forbids on their iPhone? And how will T-Mobile deal with hackers when the SIM lock on the phone is broken? T-Mobile and Google have about a month to come up with the answers to these questions, because the phone is going to make a loud splash when it hits the water later next month.
Price and availability
The G1 will be released on T-Mobile's U.S. network on October 22 for $180 with a two-year contract. It'll be available in all T-Mobile markets nationwide. An unlimited data plan will cost $25 per month, while unlimited data and messaging will cost $35 per month. A voice plan is required for all configurations. The G1 will also be released in the UK sometime in November 2008, while the other T-Mobile markets in Europe will get it in Q1 2009. Countries include Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and the Netherlands.
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