Some of you are probably aware that I had ordered a G1 phone sometime back. The phone arrived in one piece in a large UPS box flummoxing my family members. When we opened the box however, we realized that 90% of the box was empty. The remaining 10% had the G1 – The Android Dev Phone.
Since I already have an iPhone 3G, the primary user of this phone would be my cousin. He didn’t have GPRS enabled on his Airtel SIM card and G1 wouldn’t boot until you supply your gmail id and log into it (Or you can create a new one.) Quite dumb I would say but it didn’t spoil the party because GPRS activation with Airtel took hardly 2 minutes. We were able to log into the phone to see our Email and Contacts already set up. It pulled the data from the Gmail server.
Before I forget…
1. Yes, you can forward messages.
2. Yes, you can send MMS.
3. Yes, there is Copy Paste.
All set for killing the iPhone? Read on…
The surprising omission in G1 is the PC interface. The phone has no such interface. When we connect it to the PC, it shows up as a removable drive. How to install Applications? How to upgrade the firmware? Absolutely no clue out of the box. Yes, the phone has a lovely Google app preinstalled though and a search on Google solves most of these issues anyway. Maybe that is the idea!
My cousin had no clue how to transfer the contacts list from his MS Outlook to this phone. Finally he found a freeware application to upload those contacts to Gmail and then let G1 synch those contacts with the phone. Unconventional but it worked!
Following are my personal observations on the phone.
Touch Screen: If you are an iPhone user, you will instantly recognize the difference. It is not as responsive as the iPhone. You have to apply a little – a tad little – extra pressure and the response time is frustrating. You touch the screen and you wait for the phone to respond. If you are scrolling through a big list, you swipe your finger down and stare at the motionless screen. Then all of a sudden the scrolling starts.
Also the touch screen functionality is kind of limited compared to the iPhone. For instance, to zoom in or zoom out, with an iPhone you just have touch the screen with two fingers and spread them farther or nearer. The G1 has no such trick. It shows a Zoom In button and a Zoom Out button on the screen. You have to repeatedly touch those buttons to zoom.
Accelerometer: The phone boasts of an accelerometer but the native OS version that comes with the phone doesn’t support it. If I change the orientation of the phone, the display does not change. To get to the horizontal orientation, I have to slide open the keyboard. This is not a big issue because I am sure a firmware upgrade will fix it.
Keyboard: One of the pain points of an iPhone is that it has no physical keyboard and using an on-screen keyboard can get a little tricky. G1, on the other hand, has a nice keyboard that slides in and out smoothly. The layout is pretty much in line with the standard QWERTY computer keyboard. However, even if you want to type a single letter – you need to slide out the display and use the keyboard. There is no on-screen keyboard at all. This is a big problem because the sliding mechanism is prone to wear and tear. If you have to slide it out every time you type a message, I am not sure how long it will last. The build quality of the phone is excellent though. Again, a firmware upgrade can fix this issue by providing the on-screen keyboard as well.
Another pain area: There was no dictionary!
Camera: There is a 3.2 MP camera but the quality is so poor that my E61i with a 2MP camera outscores it completely. Also the camera has a dedicated button on the side of the phone unlike the iPhone where the “click” is also a touch. This button has to be pressed physically and most of the time it results in a shake. This can also be fixed by providing a touch interface.
Aesthetics: Contrary to the reports, I found the phone to be extremely pleasing on the eyes. It feels solid and the sliding mechanism is “cute” to quote my wife. I love dedicated Call and Call-End buttons. The track-ball is a nice addition. Battery life is not as good as the iPhone (which itself is quite poor!) but I expect a better performance when the next Android version rolls out.
Final Word: All these are my first impressions. The phone has a lot of promise and is let down only by the software that runs on it. I am sure, given “open” nature of the OS, the phone is bound to get better in no time and offer a great alternative to the iPhone. I am excited by this phone and I look forward to developing apps for it. All we need now is a proper Android Store and an easy interface to download apps from it – like the iPhone App Store.
Price: Including shipping and taxes: $571.
My rating: Thumbs Up. 3 out of 5. Not yet an iPhone killer though.
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