Mike Southby

My G1 is not a phone.

That may sound like a strange start for a phone review but bear with me; the G1 is a small computer that happens to have reasonably good phone functions.

Almost every review of the G1 which you find on the internet compares it to the iPhone.  The main difference highlighted between the two is that the iPhone has a more consistent experience (Apple have always been very good at this given the hardware and software are designed to run together in-house) compared to the G1 which whilst very good, at times feels a little ‘beta’ in comparison.  Whilst this is a fair point, sometimes the beta tag has its advantages, like giving you cutting edge technology and features even if not quite ready for mass market yet.

Using the G1 is a satisfying experience hardware wise.  Despite the criticism of its aesthetics, it fits nicely in your hands (well it does mine anyhow, if you have particularly small hands you may find it a little large but this is true of many new phones) and feels solidly built.  Sure, the hinge will always be a weak point, but any modern phone can be damaged easily.  And, while Apple is all about minimalism, HTC is all about function; so, you get a touch screen, buttons, a full keyboard and a trackball.

The trackball is particularly useful.  Despite having a full touch screen, I find myself using the trackball far more often when browsing or selecting menu options, as it is just faster and more precise.  The keyboard is also quite nice, though I must admit that it’s not as much of an advantage over the iPhone as you may be lead to believe.  Any phone text-entry format is less than ideal and requires getting used to – a physical QWERTY keyboard will be slightly nicer and have a less steep learning curve, but I don’t think for example it is much quicker than even T9 if you are used to that.  For one, the keyboard is quite small to type with.  The main advantage of the keyboard ties in with my opening point – this is actually a small computer in disguise.  For regular text entry the keyboard isn’t that special, but for entering symbols and numbers it’s much better than any phone I have used previously save for my Nokia E90 which was fab.

The G1 is all about Android.

Already there are many Android apps out there, and I have no doubt that we’ll see more and more as time goes on.  There’s the official market (much like Apples App Store) and several other stores popping up offering useful apps brought about by the fact that anyone who wants to can just make an .apk file and distribute it as they see fit.  That’s the beauty of Android.  For a developer, Android is an appealing platform – it’s open yet able to be used for profit, centralised yet resistant to rules and censorship.  For the G1 specifically, the main limitation is that you can only install apps to the internal memory.  This forces you to pick and chose what apps you actually want, and to go with apps that are smaller as well.  This may seem annoying, but it’s not that bad – if apps are that big chances are they are pretty badly written anyhow (remember apps can still store their data on the memory card).  The internal memory still allows you to install maybe up to 50 apps so it’s not all bad.

Living with the G1 as a phone is a pleasant experience, the core functions work very well; the phone itself, working with contacts, messaging and calendar are all very well catered for and work better than I was expecting.  The quality of calls, both for me and the person on the other end are on par with the best Nokia have to offer.  The screen too is a vast improvement over previous HTC devices (I have owned a few previous Windows Mobile incarnations).  If I was to pinpoint one area where HTC could improve, and this is a big one, it would be battery life.  Using the phone for a variety of tasks throughout the day, the battery will need charging every night, nowhere near the time claimed between charges, but then I have never owned a phone that lives up to its promises in this regard.  Is this a problem though?  Well yes and no really, for me it’s not a huge problem as I have a charger at home and in the office with a charger available in the car should I be running out of power.  I just find it annoying that in this day and age manufacturers will not (as opposed to cannot) put more effort into battery life.

So, should you go get a G1?  It depends – if you’re a gadget lover (and live in a area with decent T-Mobile coverage), then yes, it’s good hardware, a great platform, and a lot of promise for future development.  If you just want a normal phone though, you might be better off looking elsewhere.