Although outwardly not as aesthetically pleasing as the iphone, the T-Mobile G1 is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
It's body may be a little more "corporate" looking than that of it's ultra stylish competitor, but the G1's slightly smaller size and shape actually give it a more pleasant feel in the hand and pocket.
Unlike the iphone it also has a sleek, slide out , backlit qwerty keyboard for those who find this type of text entry quicker and more comfortable.
The newly developed Android operating system is visually and operationally fantastic and in many ways feels similar to that of Apple's Mac OS.
Operationally the G1 allows the user to customize their desktop in the same way as the iphone, with one-tap icon navigation to all of the users chosen applications. These great applications are instantly downloadable from the Android market. A large number of them are free, while the buyable apps cost on average between £1-4.
Thousands of apps are available including the in-built fast access to Googlemail, standard Sat-Nav software, or a "radar" device which gives you a wonderfully Bond like radar screen intended to guide you back to a car parking spot, but would would be equally as useful in taking you back to your camping spot at a festival. An in-built YouTube app gives you instant and tailored access to your favorite YouTube vids. A cost-cutting shopping app allows you to scan a product's barcode with the G1's camera and have it tell you the cheapest place to find that product, while a guitar app allows you to actually strum the screen and hear guitar chords in surprisingly good quality.
But the hands down winner on the apps front, and one that will have iphone owners green with envy (as it's not on the iphone), is the Google Maps app with compass sensitive Street View. This has been the talk of all the recent dinner parties I have been too as I show off my G1 to all my friends.
This app allows you to find your current position using GPS and then will give you the standard Google Maps option ie. Map, Satellite or Street View. Now hear comes the truly amazing bit, which makes it's use on a phone infinitely better that that on a standard desktop computer. When you engage Street View on the G1, instead of navigating the streets as you would with a touchscreen, the G1's built in compass will in real time display the street view you should be seeing in front of you (the images are obviously not in real-time though!). If you are standing in your house and point it left you will see down your road to the left.. Point it upwards and you see the sky. Point it facing your house and you''ll see your front door!
Text messaging works in a similar fashion to gmail with texts from grouped as "conversations" from the same contact on single screen. Entry can bee from a touch soft screen or the slide out keyboard.
The camera is fairly good and standby time is good for a smart phone of this nature, needing to be charged shortly every couple of days or so, providing talk time usage has not been too great.
All in all apart from it's rather conservative look the G1 is a definite competitor to the iphone with a few exclusive tricks up it's sleeve.
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Advantages: ermm... very big screen easy to watch youtube... and the games are addictive.. esspecially snake3d Disadvantages: not alot of gagets, faulty
juiney123 21.06.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
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