JC - Technology and Stuff

By now everyone has seen all the pictures, read the early reviews and probably are totally confused as to whether to buy a T-Mobile G1 with Google phone. In this article I will try and give you my unbiased view of the product. As always, I must point out that T-Mobile is my employer, but I am a consumer, just like anyone else.

Most everyone has tried to compare the T-Mobile G1 with the Apple iPhone. That is their choice, but I think is a mistake. The two products, although having a lot of similar features, are very different devices. One is a closed and proprietary device and the other is an open and evolving platform for the future. It is on that basis that I am writing about the T-Mobile G1 phone.

So first things first. Unboxing the device was not a wow experience. I wasn’t expecting a wow experience however. I was expecting a phone and a phone is what I unboxed. I have been using mobile phones since the mid 1980’s (and at that time the word ‘mobile’ was debatable!) and quite simply I could not live without one now. I have also been a Blackberry user since 2004 and so now I must have email too. I also spend my life on the Internet and so a phone with a great Internet browser was also something that I really wanted. I am not a big music listener, nor YouTube watcher, but I do text a fair bit too. It is on this premise that am writing about the T-Mobile G1 phone. It is a phone I bought (with my own money at full retail price by the way) because I wanted to use it. For no other reason (except of course to spread the T-Mobile love to others!).

So as I was saying, I unboxed it and assembled all the pieces and followed the instructions on how to put in my SIM and battery, etc. I pressed the ‘on’ button and waited while it went through its startup. This was a pleasingly short process (less than 1 minute) compared to the 5 minute plus affair of my Blackberry Curve. Good start. The phone asked me to enter my Google account details which I did and very soon afterward I was up and running. Simple.

The fun started at this point as I really had no idea what I was doing. The T-Mobile G1 is not a regular phone at all, it has all these bells and whistles and looks just like a computer desktop when it’s started up. I hacked my way around for a while figuring most things out, but at some point I will have to really read the owner’s manual in some detail. An example of why is as follows: This morning my wife had left me a voicemail at some time. Of course my phone notified me and I simply pressed the notification and it dialled my voicemail for me  - clever. I then listened to the voicemail and got the normal response of ‘press 7 to delete this message’. I looked down at my screen but there was no ‘7′ to press, my display just showed I was on the phone to my voicemail! I’m sure I could have probably just hit the ‘dialer’ button and then a numeric pad would have appeared, but in the heat of the moment I wasn’t thinking. All the phones I’d ever used before always had the numeric pad available at all times. I panicked and opened the keyboard and pressed the ‘7′ on that. Thankfully that did the trick and deleted my voicemail. Little things that I will have to relearn in order to get the best experience from my new mega-phone!

Anyway back to the plot. I went through all the standard apps and pressed all the buttons and was suitably impressed. The phone did everything it claimed to do - and did it well. Gmail is a breeze. The calendar works well. I even managed to set up my Yahoo! email account too. The only thing I am missing is my T-Mobile corporate email. Hmm. There’s something wrong here. I’m in a quandary. I don’t know whether to just go without that email (which after years of a Blackberry might be a little difficult), to set up my T-Mobile email as a POP account, or to wait and pray that Exchange synchronization comes quickly. I’ll probably make a decision over the weekend. Of course it also means I don’t get my calendar appointments (at work) any more either. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet either (Update: I managed to sync my Appointments from Outlook straight to my Google calendar via a clever piece of software - Google Calendar Sync -, so now I actually do have my work appointments on my T-Mobile G1).

Several reviewers have complained about the GPS and its lack of accuracy. I have to say that so far I too have had mixed results with this. GPS positioning functions but so far every time it has identified me as being about two to three blocks from where I actually am (Update:- Actually I discovered that this is due to the fact that the G1 is locating me via WiFi and Cell Towers and NOT GPS. I have not to date managed to get a GPS lock). Both times I have been inside though so I’ll try and make a point of trying this again over the weekend from outside somewhere. That aside, the maps and all associated functions work really well. It’s just like being on the Internet version of Google Maps.

I love the implementation of the T-Mobile G1 keyboard. The hinge is strong and feels good when you open it up. Sending emails and text messages ‘just works’ and is actually a better experience than on my Blackberry Curve. The fact that I get HTML enabled emails too is wonderful. Now I can choose to see an email just the same as if I was on my PC, something that the Blackberry Curve also struggled with. I’ve not opened up any attachments yet - something else I will test out over the weekend.

The big question for me was the browser. Would the T-Mobile G1 browser experience be what I expected? In a word - yes!! Every site I went to displayed flawlessly. I tried to edit documents and spreadsheets in Zoho but that didn’t work - I didn’t really expect it would - I just wanted to see. Maybe that’ll be something I’ll be able to do soon when Google Chrome is officially on the T-Mobile G1. As advertised there’s no Flash or PDF support, but I’m sure that’ll come along soon too. The important thing to remember here is that nearly every regular website you want to go to is now available in full color, zoomable, and wonderfully presented ON A PHONE!!! What do you want for your money? With the T-Mobile G1 it’s so easy to forget that at the end of the day you are just using a phone. I keep forgetting this and expect it to back up my hard drives, browse my networks, make my lunch, etc. No, this is just a phone on steroids, not a PC or PC replacement. But the line is getting very blurry.

So, these are the first impressions. I’ll write more over the weekend.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Home, Technology, Thoughts, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.