T-Mobile Android G1 Cell Phone

We decided to fully explore our 3G mobile device options, and review T-Mobile’s Android G1 cell phone. Overall, we were impressed by its features, considering the device is fairly low priced. However, there are some kinks with the product that we hope are resolved through the new Android G2, which was just released in August, 2009.

Hardware

The phone itself is fairly attractive, with a matte finish, soft to the touch feel, and grip-friendly curvature. The keyboard relies on a swivel-flip motion to access, and produces a fairly loud snap when opened.

The Android G1’s keyboard keys aren’t raised quite high enough off of the surface for easy-touch typing; we also found the keys to be a bit small. However, the keyboard is backlit: you can text in the movie theater. Unfortunately, we found that the miniUSB cable gets in the way of the keyboard. You won’t be able to type very easily while the phone is charging.

With five buttons on the mobile device, ‘Call’, ‘Home’, ‘Back’, ‘Power/End’ and ‘Menu’, we found the key commands to be fairly straightforward. I wasn’t overwhelmed by any new commands. However, the home button is separate from the power/lock button. Unfortunately, we pushed the red button – by instinct – to shut down an application, and we ended up locking the phone. I was a little frustrated.

Multiple control options are featured by the G1. The mobile device has a trackball, touchscreen, and pull-out QWERTY keyboard.

Our initial impression about the Android G1 touchscreen was that it is very easy to use. It uses capacitive touch – no stylus – and we love that. However, we did notice that every once in a while, the touchscreen didn’t respond to our finger touches. The touchscreen’s visuals are bright and crisp, text was easily read without my granny glasses. Our one complaint is that the touchscreen requires you to use the menu button quite often. This requirement is a little tough to get used to; when we are in Internet Explorer our first inclination is to touch at the top of the screen to show the URL. Instead, you need to use the menu button.

The Android G1 does not have a headphone jack. You will have to purchase a proprietary USB adapter, which isn’t included with the mobile device.

The Android G1’s battery really only lasts one day. We discovered that the Gmail account will open up your internet browser every time our account received an email. If you do a lot of data browsing and use the apps fairly often, you may require a re-charge every four hours or so. Fortunately, a charge seems to take only around two hours.

Operations

Phone call quality was fairly great using the Android G1. Unfortunately, the screen times out after 10 seconds or so. Since we were trying to punch in credit card numbers (for the Amazon MP3 Store), bringing up the screen again and again proved to be an irritation.

Texts are arranged in a unique way: per contact, in text threads. This was really useful when we were trying to prove to our daughter that she had failed to correctly tell us how late she was going to be – we just pulled up her name and found the related texts.

The G1’s camera is fairly basic, and similar to other cameras on HTC devices. It does have an autofocus capability, however, which was a nice addition to the mobile device.

The Android’s speaker is fairly loud. All music and media have to be side-loaded and read off of an SD card. The phone comes with a 1GB SD card.

Applications / Data Browsing

The Android’s Wi-Fi service is comparable to other mobile devices; it picked up all of the local connections that our other 3G phones did. The 3G network does get some speed during browsing, and we were impressed.

The G1 offers Google Apps, including Gmail, Google Talk service (works within the IM app), and Google Maps. The Google Maps Compass View is one of the coolest applications we’ve found so far. When you point the phone to scroll around the Street View, the accelerometers predict where you’re going to point the phone.

We were also very pleased with the phone contacts section that ended up syncing with Google’s Gmail contacts. It gave us an extra place to backup our phone book, in case something happened to the Android G1 operating system. We liked how you could scroll through your contacts quickly using a bar on the right hand side.

Instant messaging is a snap with the G1. The Android supports AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live (MSN), and Yahoo!. The IM program offers background notifications, which allow you to switch to other apps yet still get incoming message notifications delivered to you at the top status bar. We loved this feature – it felt like using a PC with minimized browsers that show you when an instant message comes through.

With the Android G1, you can purchase new applications using the Android Marketplace. There, the storefront is organized into Games and Applications, with sub-categories such as Lifestyle, Productivity, Shopping, and Tools.

The Amazon MP3 Store is accessible through the Android G1, and is incredibly easy to use. If you have an existing Amazon account, purchases are one-click simple. You do have to be connected to Wi-Fi in order to download media.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Overall, we were impressed by the amount of features included with the T-Mobile Android G1 device. Based on its fairly low price, we recommend the Android, and can’t wait to see what the G2 will offer.

Lana Owens, explains how cell phone subscribers can make the best use of
free best cell phones. Like you Lana Owens wants to be a better and more informed mobile user of free android t-mobile phones