My First impressions: Android powered TMobile G1

[amitava82]

*Not my photo.

Finally I’ve got the TMobile G1! Well, I was the first one who said the phone looks ugly and would wait for G2. But then I could not resist myself.. I must say it's an amazing piece of device. I love it! I can’t do a review of this phone yet since I’ve not used it long enough. But so far Android has been rock solid. Here are the first impressions:

1. The display is excellent and very responsive and smooth like the iPhone. Interface is very responsive too. It can do multi-tasking and Copy-paste!

2. Building quality: feels solid.

3. Look: I must admit, I thought the phone was ugly when I first saw pictures and videos of G1. But After holding it in my hand, it’s a different story. I have the black one and it is really beautiful. I was hopping to get the Bronze one but it is too shiny and looks cheap.

4. Keyboard is nice. I never used such small keyboards but it’s quiet comfortable. An on screen keyboard is very much needed. Backlight makes a nice contrast with keyboard

5. The notification bar is great. One of the coolest features of android. It gives me all kinda notifications such as email, IM, download etc at one place. Neat!

6. Browser is pretty fast. I’m on EDGE now and pages load pretty quick. I did a speed test and it’s about 180kbps. The on screen zoom controls are pretty annoying since they show up whenever I touch the screen for scrolling and take good amount of screen space. No flash, java support yet. Again browsing experience is not as good as iPhone due to smaller screen size and lack of multi touch. But I won't say it's bad. It's good not great.

7. Internal memory is a joke. I had about 78MB available when I 1st checked. Now I have about 50MB since Android stores caches in phone memory. Apps cannot be stored in memory card.

8. The roller ball is very responsive. Better than Blackberry.

9. Music player is OK. Can’t comment on music quality since I don’t have a USB to 3.5mm audio adapter. Bundled headphone is as usual, flat sounding. I’ve order one from ebay. No video player as expected. There is one in app store but I’ve not tried it yet.

10. Camera is OK. It has auto focus. I’m not impressed with image quality.

10. Now the (in)famous battery life. I started using the phone as soon as I received it. Battery was at some 60%. Battery died after 4 hours, out of which 3 hours I was on EDGE browsing Internet, playing with settings, mp3 and stuffs. Then I charged the battery overnight (10 hours). So far, up time is 4H:13M and awake time is 1H:21M which i mostly spent in browsing, IM, taking some picture and 5Min GPS and battery says 67%. Not good at all. I wonder how long battery would last if I use 3G network.

That’s all I can think of now. Will post later as I discover more.

Picture: http://picasaweb.google.com/amitava82/G1Images

PS: Phone pictures are taken using laptop webcam Sorry!

[Faun]

so u took the bait
very nice

[Pat]

Congrats man! G1 is a solid device.If it is priced competitively (which I highly doubt) when launched in India, I might go for it

[krazzy]

Awezzum!

As for the battery, give it some time. After a few charge-discharge cycles it'll reach it's full potential and will last longer.

[desiibond]

nice review. how is the availability of apps for this phone?

[amitava82]

Originally Posted by krazzy

As for the battery, give it some time. After a few charge-discharge cycles it'll reach it's full potential and will last longer.

Exactly! Battery life is improving. Its better than first day. And I think most people having battery problem is due to the fact that they keep GPS and wifi on all the time. GPS kills battery like anything. Tomorrow I'll keep everything on and see how long the battery last.

Regarding apps; there are about 48 apps and 16 games at the store. Not much. Its less than a week since the device is out. I'm expecting a flood of apps within a month or so. Another reason is because app store will not be ready for paid apps till 1Q of 2009.

[Pat]

Originally Posted by amitava82

Regarding apps; there are about 48 apps and 16 games at the store. Not much. Its less than a week since the device is out. I'm expecting a flood of apps within a month or so. Another reason is because app store will not be ready for paid apps till 1Q of 2009.

You mean Android Market right ?
Any news on buying one without a contract ?

[Pathik]

Arey. Congrats.. Great buy.

I am divided between getting a G1 or a Nokia 5800 XM as my next phone.

[Pat]

Originally Posted by Pathik

Arey. Congrats.. Great buy.

I am divided between getting a G1 or a Nokia 5800 XM as my next phone.

Tube is nowhere close to G1 IMHO.

[nikhilpai]

Originally Posted by Pat

Tube is nowhere close to G1 IMHO.

I agree. Its much better than the G1 IMHO

[amitava82]

Originally Posted by Pat

You mean Android Market right ?
Any news on buying one without a contract ?

Yeah Android Market

No unlocked phone yet. But t mobile gives unlock code after 90 days. So, one can buy a phone with ($179) or without contract ($399) and wait for 90 days to get unlock code. But the phone can be activated without any cracks/hacks. So, no jailbreaking n stuffs and use all features of the phone except phone functionality.

Originally Posted by nikeel

I agree. Its much better than the G1 IMHO

You must be joking. With a slow ~350MHz processor and resistive touchscreen it's not very responsive. Oh wait, it does not run on Android

[DigitalDude]

gr8 impressions

point 3 seems to be widespread.. G1 is not photogenic i guess

eagerly looking fwd to the next version

_

[dhan_shh]

Congrats dude on your great collection!

I believe it has 192MB RAM,is it possible to monitor 'memory leak',if any?

Does it support A2DP?

How is 'Android OS'? Any application you have tried?

I think it will take some time for India to have this gr8 stuff?

Plz post more news about your experience!

(P.S: This link looks interesting: http://www.fixya.com/support/p983981-htc_g1 )

[oval_man]

congrats buddy,

iphone 3G is utter failure in India,only very few takers!
Bberry bold also only very few buyers?!

Airtel & vodafone will never make a mistake of bringing such costly mobiles immediately,just now they are recovering?!

How far these things true? (stolen from a Forum)

" " Android G1: Mine arrived two days ago, on the 20th. I'm in the dfw area and I've had about 24 hours of actual hands on experience. I have to say that although it's shiny and pretty and all that, I'm quickly becoming bitterly disappointed.

EMAIL:
1. The phone refuses to notify me of new incoming email messages. I have two spop accounts set up, and although the "notify" and "check every 5 minutes" boxes are checked, the phone neither checks every 5 minutes nor notifies me when it does check and finds mail. Based on my mail server logs it manages to check in once an hour on average, and it doesn't do this on any predictable schedule. To get my mail I need to open the mail app, and open my inbox, at which point it logs into the spop server and gets new messages. So far I have not been "notified" of a single email message

2. There is no way to manage more than one message at a time. I cannot select multiple messages for deletion or quickly perform any action on multiple emails.

3. I cannot copy text from one message into another.

4. I cannot select email addresses out of an email message and add them to my contacts.

The mail app needs serious usability work

Instant Messageing:
1. Four times in the last 24 hours I have gone to either YahooIM or AIM to find that the phone has logged me out.

2. Both the Yahoo and AIM apps aren't synching with their respective servers. Users who are available appear as not available on the phone, AIM messages from the server that notify me for example, that I'm logged in multiple times do not appear on the phone.

3. The phone does not notify you when friends become available or log off. Other features that you'd find in any other IM program (pidgen, adium.. whatever) are absent here. I cannot, for example give my friends different notification sounds.

The reliability problems give the phone a kludgy feel when it comes to IM. I don't know if people are getting my messages or vice versa, so I end up asking them if they got my message, sometimes they do sometimes they dont.

SMS:
Sms is much more reliable than the other communication options. The thread/chat interface is nice too. Since I've been using the phone all of my SMS messages have been delivered, and only one message that was sent to me has yet to arrive (sent 12 hours ago). Perhaps this is because sms is using the traditional cell phone networks instead of 3g? The phone notifies you of incoming SMS, but I can't give different friends different ringtones.

WIFI
I can't seem to get the phone to work with any of my wifi sources, (home, office, sprint EVDO+cradlepoint). The phone will connect to the AP, and has negotiated everything from WPA2-PSK to open security, and has been configured statically and dynamically via dhcp. Once connected to an AP it seems to not have any connectivity at all. Web pages give the built-in error page, the mail app throws connection errors etc..

Overall:
It's a pretty phone that isn't working well. I think some of this has to do with tmo's relatively new 3g network, and some of it has to do with the brand-new OS. I'm not sure what to say about the UI oversites, it should be far more feature-full than it is, IMO the actual functionality is beyond spartan. It's great that it plays youtube and has a touch screen and all, but first and foremost the g1 is a communication tool for me, and right now my rock-solid sidekick is kicking it's ass in terms of being able to talk to my co-workers and friends. " "

Gods must be Crazy!

[amitava82]

I believe it has 192MB RAM,is it possible to monitor 'memory leak',if any?

It has 192 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM

Does it support A2DP?

No stereo support.

How is 'Android OS'? Any application you have tried?

The reason I bought G1 is because of Android. There are few announce here and there which I believe will be resolved by firmware updates in near future. But over all the OS is solid. no freezing, hiccup or anything. Runs smooth. I've tried couple of apps and games from market. I like the ShopSavvy app which scans barcode and compare price online. Pretty cool!


1. There are some issue with POP/IMAP access. OTA update will fix the issue. I've not received mine yet.


2. As I said theses small nuisance will be fixed in near future.

3. I can. Just select text, menu > copy and then paste anywhere you want.

4. Nope. But you can copy it and paste to your contact.

5. yes it does. I'm hopping someone/company will come up with better mail client.

The mail app needs serious usability work

IM:

1. Yes, same here. Another small bug.

2. No idea. I use Y! and Gtalk

3. Its a mobile client. I just expect Voice support in Gtalk

WIFI:

Wifi works without any issue. I've got 1800kbps in speed test.

Overall:

Well, it's a complete new platform. I don't expect it to be completely flawless. Being early adapters we have to suffer some of its problems to make it perfect in near future. The beauty is that being opensource, these problem will be fixed lot sooner than any other platforms.

[max_demon]

Originally Posted by amitava82

7. Internal memory is a joke. I had about 78MB available when I 1st checked. Now I have about 50MB since Android stores caches in phone memory. Apps cannot be stored in memory card.

This Phone is Not For Me , i have about 1 gigabyte of apps on my phone