by Frank McPherson, author of How To Do Everything With Windows Mobile

 
So I signed up to buy a T-Mobile G1 on the first day it was available, and it arrived today, giving me the benefit of playing with it about 10 hours before folks can buy one at a store. Obviously, I have had very little time to explore so these are my very first experiences with the device.

I did not understand the instructions for removing the back cover, and I think that what you have to do is exactly opposite to what you need to do, which is to lift the release tab and then push the back to the right vs. "peel the back cover off."

The screen is freakin great. I know that people with iPhones and HTC Touch Diamonds will not see the big deal, but I am coming from a HTC Tytnn II and a T-Mobile Shadow, and the text looks like a picture and is crisp and clear. Very nice.

I had some trouble with the initial set up as there was communication problems with Google. Actually, I think the problem may have been network connectivity. I first tried setting the G1 up in The Cave, which is in the basement, and had no signal. It would have been really cool if Android recognized that and offered to connect to a Wi-Fi network. Instead, I went upstairs and tried signing in about five more times before it finally seemed to work.

No surprise, 3G is not on in West Bloomfield nor anywhere else in Detroit AFAIK. Now the wait is for when T-Mo turns on 3G, I will be anxiously checking the status bar at the top of the G1 to see if is enabled, but I believe that won't happen until November.

So far after a very brief period of typing some text messages and a couple of emails, I am not liking the keyboard. The keys are a bit hard to find, but I am finding the real problem is that unlike my Tytnn the keyboard isn't the full length of the device and the bottom "button bar," where the send, home, back, and end buttons reside, gets in the way on my right hand. Clearly I need to hold the G1 differently. It amazes me that given HTC has much better slide out keyboards on their Windows Mobile devices that they would chose such a bad keyboard for the G1, and I am guessing Google made that call to make it similar to the Sidekick.

The G1 doesn't appear to have any better cellular radio strength than my Shadow, as it barely gets one bar of signal in The Cave. I had hopes that I might get a bit better signal. I know that my signal strength in The Cave has more to do with T-Mobile's frequency than anything. My Tytnn II is on AT&T and it gets four bars of signal in the basement thanks to being on the 850 Mhz band. I am sure that if I put my AT&T SIM in the G1, and the G1 was unlocked, I would get more bars in the basement.

Labels: 2008, android

posted by Frank at 7:49 PM

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