Review of T-Mobile's Google Android powered smartphone

The famed Google phone is now a reality, having taken form in the shape of T-Mobile's G1, a device developed by HTC and often referred to as the HTC Dream. People have been dreaming of this phone for quite a long time, it seems. Since the open source Android platform was announced a year ago, the industry landscape has changed quite a bit. Even Nokia, having bought the remainder of Symbian from its co-owners, is planning to make its OS and user interface freely available to manufacturers.

Up until now, though, Android  has mostly been a lot of talk. We're here to fix that today. How does the G1 stand up to other smartphones and media centric devices? It has the slick looking UI and a responsive touchscreen display that people crave so much today, but it also features things like an autofocus camera and an honest to goodness hardware QWERTY keyboard. That's a lot to look forward to, but as a 1.0 version device on a brand new OS, there are bound to be things that just don't work as we would hope.

Physical Aspects

From a design aspect, the T-Mobile G1 is fairly simple and plain looking. It has very clean lines, and features no real design flourishes other than the simple bend at its base, where the main cluster of buttons and the trackball are located. That bend in the otherwise bar shaped phone is a bit of an oddity. It appears to offer no real ergonomic or aesthetic benefit, but seems to get in the way of users with smaller hands when it comes time to slide open the G1's 3.2" capacitive touchscreen^(INFO) display to get down to business with the G1's QWERTY keyboard.

While certainly pocketable, the G1 is not exactly a small phone. At 117mm x 55mm x 15mm (4.6" x 2.2" x 0.6") in size and weighing 159g (5.6oz), it is a substantial device. It feels solidly built, and the display's sprung slider mechanism moves it around with a reassuring thunk as it nestles into place.

The miniUSB port on the bottom of the phone has a nicely designed cover, and the microSDHC card slot is tucked away in the body of the phone's bent chin, where it can be opened when the display is slid out. The camera shutter button is a two stage affair, letting the camera gain focus lock with a half press and take an actual photo with a full press. The camera, which resides on the back of the device, looks nice, but tends to get mucked up with fingerprints too easily.

The keyboard is also a point of contention. It is spacious enough, but the keys don't offer enough travel, are not domed enough, and probably would have been best made out of a softer, grippier material. The keyboard works, but it is far from being the best on the market today.

Core Functions

You might not believe it from the T-Mobile G1's pessimistic signal strength indicator, but the phone does a pretty good job of latching on to a signal. In fact, even with the phone reporting a single bar of signal strength, the G1 gave us what is probably the clearest call audio we've heard from a phone this year. The speakerphone is also good, though the inbound audio isn't as good as what the remote party hears. The problem that many people will have with the G1 will be battery life. With fairly light use that includes no WiFi or Bluetooth, the G1 is probably only going to survive a day and a half between charges. The phone is rated for 5 hours of talk time and 5.4 days of standby time officially.