In our T-Mobile G1 review, we open up the new Google Android OS and see if it deserves all the hype. Check out our in-depth look.
Review summary of the T-Mobile G1:
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 The T-Mobile G1 may not have the visual panache and artistry of Apple's UI, but in terms of navigating the phone's myriad and diverse feature set, Google has created an interface in Android that is fun, intuitive and quite powerful. The new Google Android 1.5 "Cupcake" update brings even more parity with the iPhone, and some cool new tricks to the party as well. The phone offers convenience beyond belief without redundantly stacking menu items on top of each other. The apps included with the device, and some of the apps we've downloaded from the Google Market, are fresh and in many cases surprisingly unique. From the Google Maps Street View that creates a virtual world with the built-in compass and accelerometer to the Amazon MP3 store that offers DRM-free downloads to the Compare Everywhere app that scans barcodes and finds local deals on popular products, the T-Mobile G1 offers capabilities and developer access beyond any handheld device we've seen. The new Cupcake update might not push potential customers over the edge, but existing users will be delighted with the onscreen keyboard, the new video recording capabilities and clever UI enhancements, like the desktop folders and the improved look all around. The Google Android OS and the T-Moblle G1 aren't perfect, but they're better than most systems out there, and for an open source OS, they're a fun way to experience what's to come in the world of multimedia smartphones. Release: May 2009. Price: $180.
Pros: Excellent, fun and intuitive new interface design from Google. Solid messaging and Web browsing options. Surprisingly good camera.
Cons: Dull hardware design. Serious reception problems hurt voice quality. Lacks many necessary options, including business e-mail and video player.
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Full T-Mobile G1 Review:
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Hardware design - Good
The first thing we consider when we test a touchscreen phone is whether the hardware can keep up with the interface design. In this regard, the T-Mobile G1 is perhaps the most responsive phone on the market. The touchscreen responds to the slightest flick and tap, and the screen was very quick in switching orientation from portrait to landscape mode when we opened the keyboard. The phone even bested the Apple iPhone 3G, our favorite touchscreen performer, in terms of screen response. With the newest version of the Google Android software, the so-called Android 1.5 "Cupcake," the screen is capable of auto-rotating, but it seems this feature is rarely implemented, and the screen usually won't switch orientation just by tilting the phone.
We're not in love with the T-Mobile G1's hardware design, though perhaps the clean, rounded corners speaks to the friendliness and simplicity of the interface beneath. It isn't a cool looking phone, though it is a unique QWERTY slider in that only part of the top slides out and upwards. It doesn't have a lot of dedicated shortcut keys, though it does have a dedicated "Menu" key that always opens up an application's menu, and a "Home" key that will take you to the standby screens (short press) or open a box filled with recently used application icons (long press). Still, the phone just isn't, dare we say, cool. When you whip out your T-Mobile G1, most people around you probably won't recognize it for the Google phone, and even fewer will feel the desire to touch and hold it, as audiences often want to take hold of our Apple iPhone.
The keyboard will be a serious problem for many users. The buttons lay nearly flush against the bottom of the slide, with very little travel or tactile feel. At least there were plenty of keys packed into the 5-row keyboard, which had its own number row and a full complement of symbol keys. There is now an onscreen keyboard that came with the "Cupcake" update, but this is a pretty disappointing software QWERTY, especially compared to recent HTC efforts, like the keyboard on the new HTC Touch Diamond 2. It uses haptic feedback, but the keys themselves were fairly small, and the keyboard isn't especially attractive. On either the hardware or software keyboard, HTC hasn't ported some of their best ideas, like the way the keys on the T-Mobile Wing (also an HTC device) will activate their respective symbols when you hold them down. On the T-Mobile G1, holding a key repeats the indicated letter ad nauseum, which is the silliest thing you could do on a handheld device.
Interface - Very good
Google's Android interface on our T-Mobile G1 review unit is simply brilliant, with plenty of ideas that are new to smartphones. Almost every icon and indicator on the screen, even the background itself, can be tapped, held, pushed and pulled to some effect. When a new message comes in, instead of trying to tap a tiny icon in the status bar, as Windows Mobile and Palm OS will have you do, simply drag down the status bar itself and it creates a notification window, with a preview of incoming messages. Want to change the wallpaper? Just hold your finger on the phone's desktop, and a menu pops up. Within applications, there was almost always a menu that would appear when we pressed the "Menu" key, and if our intended option wasn't there, we simply held our finger down on whatever object we were manipulating, whether it was a song title, a contact name or e-mail subject, and the option presented itself. Overall, it was an intuitive and surprising experience, leaving us feeling that Android is possibly the smartest of the smartphone operating systems.
With the recent Cupcake update, Google has tightened up the user interface, but the changes seem more like a bit of spit and polish than a real interface overhaul. The Android OS 1.5 update makes the phone feel more complete, with more animations between windows, and a few neat tricks. The desktop can now contain folders, which are an easy way to group together items like bookmarks, contacts and applications. You can also place active Widgets among the icon on the 3-pane, panoramic home screen. These widgets can control other apps, like the music player, or offer their own information, like the various weather widgets available. Third party widgets are already appearing in the Google Market.
Calling - Very Good
If you thought there were problems with reception on the Apple iPhone 3G, remember that AT&T operates a much larger cellular footprint than T-Mobile, and be very afraid. We had serious reception issues everywhere we went, whether we were in New York City or the nearby New Jersey suburbs. We weren't surprised to have trouble with T-Mobile's nascent 3G HSDPA network, which isn't even a year old, but we were shocked when we lost even simple cell phone reception in Morristown, a large suburban town 30 miles from New York. Call quality on our T-Mobile G1 review unit was fine. Though we did detect a slightly metallic tinge to voices, our callers reported no trouble hearing us. Still, reception was so bad that we had trouble running our battery tests, as the phone cut out numerous times in the 6 hours we spent trying to wear the battery down. Even that 6 hour number seems suspicious to us, and we're sure that when HSDPA reception improves to the point of being reliable, we'll see it drop by a couple hours.
For calling features, the Android OS is powerful and intuitve. Contacts were downloaded directly from our Gmail address book, and we count ourselves lucky that we've been maintaining a Gmail contact list for some time. Otherwise, there's no way to synchronize contacts with a PC or other online address book until a third-party developer creates a way. Remember that mantra, it will come up often.
The T-Mobile G1 packs all of our favorite calling features from the get-go. The speakerphone was loud, though not as overpowering as we like. Speaker-independent voice dialing was accurate in all of our tests, grabbing names easily from the address book or dialing numbers as we called them out. With the recent Android Cupcake update, the speech recognition framework is now available to third party developers, so we're hoping to see even more use of the speech recognition capabilities as new apps are developed. The T-Mobile G1 manages exceptional control over conference calls, allowing us to join and then splinter individual calls from the party as we saw fit.
Messaging - Very good
We've already hammered the T-Mobile G1's keyboard enough (pun intended), so we won't dwell on this problematic issue. In terms of messaging, the new software keyboard does provide a nice option, but we usually stuck with the hardware keys. The software keyboard did a nice job of autocorrecting our mistakes. For the hardware keyboard, though, we wish the T-Mobile G1 would do a better job fixing our mistakes as we make them. Still, the T-Mobile G1's text editor can cut, copy and paste, while the Apple iPhone 3G cannot, so we'll give credit where it's due. With the latest Android OS 1.5, there is even a user-customizable dictionary, which came in handy adding all the proper names we tend to use often.
For e-mail and Instant Messaging, if you're already a Google user, as we happen to be, you're in luck, because the T-Mobile G1 sets up these accounts automatically as you complete the setup process. Even if you don't use Gmail, though, the T-Mobile G1 will do a fine job setting up POP and IMAP accounts, and had no trouble with our Yahoo address. IM clients are also available for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, and the phone can maintain open chats in simultaneous protocols. SMS messaging was also very easy, and the phone had no trouble attaching our photos and sound files, or creating new audio recording to be sent immediately as an MMS message.
Music - Very good
The T-Mobile G1 comes packed with an Amazon MP3 store app, but Amazon holds no exclusivity over this phone. In fact, because the platform is so open, another MP3 store could open at any time, and we expect to see streaming media apps like Pandora make their way to the T-Mobile G1 soon. The Amazon store gave us some trouble and lacked real instructions or settings to adjust our Amazon one-click account, but we somehow managed to settle the problems on our desktops and got the store working smoothly. Once it works, the Amazon store offers full-bitrate, inexpensive and most-importantly unlocked music downloads, including full-album queues. It isn't as pretty as the iTunes music store, but it offers a similar selection at a better price under much better terms.
The built-in music player is also pretty good, though not very advanced. The T-Mobile G1's music app offers basic playback controls and playlist creation, but lacks a dedicated EQ or any cool features, like a visualizer or mood-sensing software. Still, as with every app on the phone, it wouldn't be too difficult for a third-party developer to step in, and at the time of writing we're already seeing apps like TuneWiki step up and offer more music playback features, in this case downloadable lyrics for songs. To its credit, we like the way the default player will jump to YouTube or the Amazon store if you hold your finger on a song title or artist name. It's a nice bit of integration you won't find on other smartphones.
Because these music options are so interesting, we're especially perturbed that there is no headphone jack on the T-Mobile G1. Like the HTC Touch Diamond, the T-Mobile G1 only uses a mini-USB port. The included headphones do not offer an adapter to use your own cans, either, but instead simply pair a headphone and microphone combo with a mini-USB plug. Any HTC headphone adapter will work with the T-Mobile G1, but this means hunting down more accessories, and more awkward dongles. It's a serious omission on HTC's part, and we're bothered that this seems to be the direction the company is taking in their recent smartphone designs. The new Android 1.5 Cupcake update brings stereo Bluetooth connectivity to the T-Mobile G1, which helped a little. Connecting our Bluetooth devices couldn't be easier. The T-Mobile G1 is smart enough to guess the simple PIN codes these devices use, and was able to pair with all our Bluetooth peripherals without bothering us in the process.
Video - Mediocre
With the new Google Android 1.5 update, the T-Mobile G1 gets its own video playback software, in a roundabout way. There's no video player, but if you navigate to the Gallery app, you can select MP4 and 3GP videos from your microSD card and the player will play them for you. Sometimes. Some of our more complex, higher bitrate MP4 files wouldn't play, but videos formatted for the G1's 480 by 360 pixel screen played nicely. We still wish there was a more formal video player. YouTube works very nicely in its own app, as it should, since Google owns YouTube. Still, this isn't a substitute for a full fledged, robust video player. We've tried third party options like Meridian or Video Player, but none of these could handle the range of video formats we require.
Web browsing - Very good
The T-Mobile G1 isn't using the new Google Chrome Web browser, but the browser on the phone is simple and effective nonetheless. With the new Google Android Cupcake update, the Web browser has been updated to use the latest Webkit and Javascript engines. It's a faster experience than before, and, while not quite revolutionary, offers a modest improvement. Complicated pages, including our own image-heavy homepage, came through with no trouble, and the responsive touchscreen made browsing through pages a snap. Even better, Google has an accelerating mini-map that you can open to fly through extra-long pages, like the New York Times homepage, with ease. There weren't any features on the T-Mobile G1's browser that you won't find elsewhere, so don't expect Flash or even Google's own Docs Web app to work properly. But for straight Web browsing, the T-Mobile G1 was a solid performer.
Location-based services - Very good
For GPS navigation, we've been using TeleNav's turn-by-turn navigation app with some success. The app is available for a fee, with a subscription to cover the mapping software. It isn't the prettiest navigation option we've used, but it definitely works well. There is even a speech recognition component so that we didn't have to type directions or search terms, we could speak them instead. This worked about half of the time, depending on what we were asking for.
While we liked TeleNav, and admit it is the only real turn-by-turn option on this phone, with the G1, its easy to get the feeling that turn-by-turn directions are beside the point. The phone has numerous other impressive tricks up its sleeve. First there is the Google Street View. The T-Mobile G1 will not only load up a Street View image, it will also navigate the image using the built-in accelerometer. Lift the phone up above your head and the Street View image aims skyward. Even more unique is the built-in compass. In Street View, this means that if you physically turn around with the phone in your hand, the view on the screen will match your action and actually turn around to show you the other side of the road. It's an amazing effect. We're not sure it's useful, yet, but the feature is rife with possibilities.
Some of the location-based services already available from third-party developers are truly astounding. While the Apple iPhone seems content to offer nice social networking and dinner recommendations using that phone's GPS, the T-Mobile G1 has some truly innovative apps available. Our favorite is probably Locale, which can remember your location and change the phone's profile when you go there again. So, set the phone to recognize your local movie theater and it will automatically turn itself to silent mode so you don't disturb your fellow patrons. Set it to recognize your office and it will change the alerts accordingly. It's a simple but effective app.
Camera - Good
Perhaps the biggest surprise for us with the T-Mobile G1 was with the quality of the phone's camera. This is one of the best cameraphones we've ever used, and it produces images that are even better than many of the name-branded lenses attached to Sony Ericsson and Nokia phones. Colors were rich and vibrant, perhaps a bit too saturated but to a pleasant effect. The auto focus also helped significantly, and details seemed sharp in most images. We're usually very critical of cameraphone imaging, but the T-Mobile G1 is the real deal, and it produces images with its 3-megapixel sensor that we can finally call print-worthy.
Flowers
It wasn't just the eye-popping red in this picture that impressed us. The individual petals are distinct and detailed, as well.
Staring dog
The dog was unfortunately over-exposed in this bright daylight shot. But we're almost willing to forgive, considering the detail in the blacktop road and the blades of grass.
Self portrait
Colors looked great in this shot, though we were a bit blurry. Still, judging from the image, it looks as though the autofocus simply concentrated on the pine needles behind us, which came out more clear and distinct than we did. A self-portrait mirror would have helped. More camera settings would be even better.
Fall foliage
More fall foliage
Two foliage shots that show off just how much color the T-Mobile G1 manages to eke out of a scene. The blues in the sky are almost too rich, but we'll take them, considering how sharp these images look.
The Google Android Cupcake update also finally brings video recording to the T-Mobile G1. This was more useful for MMS messaging, as the phone records in a low resolution (CIF), 3GP format, and not in MP4.
Price and availability
The T-Mobile G1 is available now for $180.
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