G1 – Give A Five
The G1 (a smartphone based on Android system, highly integrated with Google web services, a.k.a. HTC Dream) has been with me for a week. After upgrading to the Cupcake (1.5 version of the Operating System) and adding Pinyin input yesterday, I finally can say the phone works really well.
Design / Feel
The phone doesn’t feel very plastic to me. The back-lid actually looks like rubber which offers some buffer if you drop it on the ground (I dropped it once on the street, it didn’t hurt too badly). With the QWERTY keyboard on the side, it feels a bit thick but works for me. One thing I don’t like is the trackball – it’s too small, seems G2 has a better offer.
System / Performance
It runs really fast. I have used iPhone for a week. Apple added lots of fancy animation effects that drag down the performance. G1 focuses on getting things done. The home screen is highly customizable – adding shortcuts to apps, frequent contacts, music playlists and all types of widgets. The notification system provides quick access to your emails, SMS, missed calls and downloads. You can never miss a thing with that design in place. The touch screen doesn’t feel as good as iPhone / iPod Touch. Sometimes you have to tap / swipe twice. It doesn’t have multi-touch capability without hacks, but I don’t think it’s a big miss. You need to manage the battery life. I normally disable bluetooth, GPS and WIFI to get longer operating hours. But again it’s manageable and it recharges pretty quickly.
Call / Messaging
These are the core functions as a mobile phone, and G1 works really well. I use it for several calls both in US and China. The longest one lasts 90 minutes. It was clear and not dropping at all. You can easily access other functions (SMS, switch to another call, web browsing, email, etc.) while calling.
Messaging (SMS) was designed like a chat (without the fruity chat bubbles on iPhone). You can track the conversation easily. The sidekick keyboard doesn’t have a good feedback for me. The on-screen one also needs some learning time. The Pinyin IME (said as Google Pinyin mobile version) is really smart. Not sure if it syncs with the desktop version but it has my name as a phrase already.
Apps
The phone offers incomparable integration with Google web services (Gmail, Maps, Contacts, Calendar). It actually requires a Google account to get the first run (you can bypass with 3rd party hacks). Contact synchronization is an awesome idea which allows you keep the contact information on Google “cloud” – not only phone numbers, but also email and IMs. You can easily choose the communication protocol to get in touch with people from there.
The Gmail app has nothing surprised me. It’s a full-fledged gmail implementation comparable to its full version at gmail.com. It runs smoothly in the background, with new mails will popup in the notification area.
The phone supports many IM protocols. I use Google Talk most often. It tries to give IM and SMS a uniformed look and feel, but you still have to get into different interfaces. Sounds like Palm Pre will move the needle on this one.
The WebKit based web browser is no surprise as well. It is generally fast except when loading large / complicated web pages. Normally I don’t expect it as a general-purpose browser. It’s a mobile browser in my eyes.
The Android Market offers over 4,900 choices of apps. Honestly speaking it is far from the same level as Apple’s App Store. The Mac cult attracts a great deal of high-quality designers / developers, building a sound eco-system around iPhone. I can tell it will be a long way to go and Google is pushing hard on this one.
Multimedia
Music management is not too bad. It works as a USB storage of mp3 music files. It understands the tags and album covers I added from iTunes. Chinese encoding still remains a problem for now but doesn’t bug me too much. Sound quality is not something I care too much. It’s MP3 anyway. Somehow I miss the operating mechanism of iTunes-iPod sync, but you can argue it’s not favorable in terms of convenience and “freedom”.
Camera / video: not tested yet. But I would they basically work.
Summary
The best thing of G1 is the development community behind it. This includes Google and other big names, but also the hackers and geeks that constantly roll out innovative ideas and implementations. I am giving the phone a 5 out of 5, and looking forward to the next release of Android update as the developers learn (possibly will go with Gx as my phone of choice).
