HTC G1 Cell Phone

Google and HTC has come together with a pretty solid phone.  The first time i touched an HTC phone was with the "Shadow" which was my last phone.  The phone had a wonderful interface with windows mobile but lacked touch screen functionality and a few other things.

The new G1 has come a long way.  The moment I heard "HTC" and "GOOGLE" in the same sentence with "CELL PHONE" I immediately knew i'd be buying something reliable and well made and engineered.  I've seen these phones go for $200-350 (got mine for a non-contract price from t-mobile for $350)

Let's start off with the basics... the phone is not enormous, but of course, as a smart phone is larger and thicker than a normal phone but the good thing is that the screen is large and viewable and CLEAR.

The basic design of the phone works much like a sidekick and the screen slides out to expose a keyboard that you can type on. 

A few other things most people don't bother to really take a look at is the physical engineering that went into the phone.  Small, simple features that make it so neat. The mini SD card slot is built into the SIDE of the phone and the corner latch is hidden under where the screen flips out, protecting it from exterior problems.... the USB cable slot is in the bottom of the phone, so if you happen to need earphones it's hanging down, not from the side, making the life of your usb cable longer as it isn't bending wires inside and slowly causing shorts.  If you look on the bottom of the phone you'll notice a small plastic "bump" near the lense of the camera.  This is so the phone always sits at a very slight angle so if it moves across surfaces the lense isn't scratched.  This means you can wipe the fingerprints off and that's about all it is exposed to, no scratches from sliding it across a table.  This means that pretty much your lense stays intact without needing to replace it.

Also, unlike MOST camera phones the lense cover is built INTO a replaceable piece of your phone that you can buy so if it does get damaged, you can replace the casing.  Most camera phones have it built into permanent pieces of the phone.

Also... the way the phone is slanted (a slight v shape, sideways) if you lay the phone face down, you won't scratch the touch screen and the buttons also are protected.  They actually bothered to design the phone PROPERLY.



Now the technical features....

Touch screen is great and all, but some of the touch screens i've used, such as windows mobile devices were limited.  You just touched it that was it...

The nice thing is that you move through 3 screens.  You have the main screen, swipe it to the left you have another on the right, swipe it to the right a new one is on the left... so you've in essence got 3 "desktops" on your phone.  The better part is that you can hold your finger over icons and it moves them into a "draggable" state meaning that you can move the icons around on the screen to literally customize your phone.  You can go into the main menu and pull programs out to put them on your main screens, or drag them away and "toss" them in the "trash" (drag them onto the little arrow sign on the main screen).  This means you can literally take the main portions of your phone and make the programs you use the most available to you where you need them.  This is a very nice feature.

A few other cool things i've noticed is that the main programs that it comes with are well versed.  For instance google maps is nice because you can add the address of your people you know into their phone contacts and look it up in google maps and even use GPS to get there.

You can actually use MP3 songs off of your music library for ring tones.  No more BUYING ringtones... use your own.  And it SOUNDS GOOD! Yes, they ACTUALLY used a GOOD sound chip!

The text messaging is ingenius because the way it is made is to list it by contact... not as a giant overflowing inbox.  So if i carry on a conversation with jane i can go to "jane" and see all of her messages between myself and jane.... if i want to talk to bob i can touch "bob" and see all of his messages between myself and bob.  And they're SEPARATE so if i get flooded with a bunch of messages i don't have to sift through them.  Even better is i can delete message by message or an entire THREAD of messages from one person.

The alarm clock function is more than i could have asked for.  I always wanted one that could use a CD to play music, rather than the "EE EE EE EE" i wake up to every morning.  I also wanted an alarm clock that could have MULTIPLE alarms (most have 2 or 3 if they're really expensive), but google and HTC even covered this... you can now make MULTIPLE alarms, choose the ringtone, and to top it off you can have as many as you WANT (not to say you need 50 alarms.... but you could if you want to) so organization is nice and no more using my old alarm system.

The browser it came with on the internet is set up a lot like "firefox" for those who are familiar with it in the sense that you can do what is known as "tabbed" browsing.  You can have several open browser windows.  You can see them one at a time.  I could for instance be on google.com, yahoo.com, and even my bank... and i can bounce back and forth between them.  this is a very cool feature and works effectively and efficiently. 

The calendar is great because it works much like microsoft office in the sense that you can create appointments, days, alarms, reminders, etc..  this is nice for business purposes, personal purposes, anything really.

There are a ton of more programs on the phone, i could go over them all but honestly i could probably write a book on them... so let's get into the next interesting feature... the marketplace.



Marketplace.... think of it like a store.  There are free programs and there are programs you can buy.  I have configured my phone to do everything i need!  I have now downloaded programs that check my stocks and stock prices, information on the weather daily (now i know when it's sunny in the office and i am missing a good day to go on a motorcycle trip!) downloaded a program called "shopsavvy" which lets me scan barcode labels and find the BEST price in the local stores nearest to me and online, bartender for recipes on my favorite mixed drinks and even a wifiscanner for when i'm at the airport. 

The most powerful thing about the G1 is that not only does it COME WITH powerful features and programs but you can download NEW ONES that make it literally able to be customized to your liking.

Oh and it has youtube so you can watch videos on the internet.... (just throwing that as the cherry on top)




But of course no product is PERFECT so guess what!? It's time for the things that are not perfect....

Battery life - Numero uno.  It's a smart phone.  It's tied to your email, your internet, wifi, a vivid screen with a lot of hardware inside that tiny atom bomb of wonderful technology.  The new firmware update actually made it a LOT better.  So your phone will survive DAYS in standby... but if you use it a lot DAILY? it will need charged by the end of the day sometimes sooner...

GPS - not 100% accurate.  It's close... but not quite as good as a true 100% bred GPS.  My $100 Garmin is more accurate than the G1.  But hey... it's within my block, sometimes several meters, but not always.  Firmware update made it slightly better but not insanely better.  But it "works"...

Butt dialing.  Unfortunately if you don't have it in the case it is prone to butt dialing if you forgot to exit the phone applicaton and your pocket hits it just right.  I've dialed people a few times when i'm in a hurry, oops! But hey that's ok... you can LOCK the phone and use passwords to eliminate this if you want...

The camera is nice, but doesn't adjust the shutter speed properly always, meanings you'll sometimes need to learn to freeze like a statue to get a non-blurred picture unless it's broad daylight.

No root, this is good and bad... 1 because you are more secure... but 2 it sucks because a lot of the wonderful unix commands you WANT to use you can't use.  For those who want advanced access... if you do use root you run the risk of messing up your phone and future firmware updates may not work. 

The vibrations are fairly suttle.  They work great and all but if you're on the road and it's on silent you probably won't notice it's going off.  But that's better than phone that is vibrating so bad you feel your leg will fall off when it rings.




Overall? This phone still gets 5 stars from me because it has so many features, is easy to customize, is great for personal AND business use and can be as simple or complicated as you really want it to be.  Call someone, text, instant message, or email someone at any time... it's like having a computer in your hand.