I've been living with my G-1 now for about 4 days. On the launch day when I went and picked it up, I suffered the frustration of not being able to sign into my Google account. On this phone, that means being locked out of it completely.
Its ingenious that on launch day, when they're bound to have a heavy load on the 'system', (whichever system that may be) that the handset is designed to not let you use the phone at all, with the small exception of dialling the emergency services, without being able to sign into your Google account.
After this initial frustration, I'm glad to say that I'm loving the Android experience. As every review under the sun has explained, the software is really quite lovely, but the hardware is a bit pants. I'm afraid to say this is very true.
The build quality of the phone feels poor. I have a particularly annoying quirk on my phone where the back cover doesn't seem to fit perfectly snugly and if I press my finger on a certain place, the cover buckles ever so slightly. This is a problem I feel which is inherent in having a plastic back cover which isn't rigid - and clips which aren't really substantial enough to keep a firm hold on the grooves they slot into.
Despite these small annoyances (the kind that are responsible for many a divorce and I'm sure a few people going nuts) - I really do enjoy this phone.
The small notifications you get from texts, e-mails and IM's are almost addictive and so far haven't failed to make me smile when they appear along with the charming little alert noises which are preloaded onto the phone. I may not always visibly smile, but the times I'm not, I'm smiling on the inside.
The App marketplace, although without a lot of what I would call necessary filter options and no decent browser based counterpart (the online marketplace is a bit rubbish...), its still entertaining. About 10 new apps or updates are posted daily (so far), and that type of activity is enough to make you go back to it once, if not a few times a day to see what new apps are available.
A lot of people are complaining however, and quite rightly so, that at the moment, apps can only be saved onto the phones ridiculously small 128Mb internal storage. T-mobile have apparently said that there will be a fix for this in the near future, allowing people to store apps onto their SD cards - but with the phone having only been available for a few days and people already encountering space issues - it really does seem a bit daft that there wasn't more done to avoid this situation.
In fact there are a lot of things wrong with this phone.
But somehow it makes me happy. I've got an ipod touch and I've used an iphone before, and neither of them make me feel the same sense of glee that I'm given by playing with this phone. It does help that the 3G speeds on the t-mobile network seem to better those on the 02 network - a quick test in the office today between myself and 2 colleagues who have iphones proved as much. My download rates were between 1200-1400kbps - and the iphones were getting about 600-1000kbps which does result in a noticeable difference when browsing. All of us were getting full reception by the way.
My verdict on this piece of kit is: Buy. A lot of people talk about better android handsets being released in 09 etc - but if you're all about hyperconnectivity, then you're better off getting this now - and simply upgrading when a significantly better handset comes out. Just because more handsets will be released in 09, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be better.
I once heard a really insightful bit of philosophy which I'll share with you now:
"Life is the time you spend waiting for stuff which never happens"
This couldn't argue my point any more concisely. Technology is always advancing at a ridiculous pace - so you can either keep waiting - or you can enjoy it as it grows. Of course... this depends upon your disposable income. If you find yourself having to eat waffles for dinner, then your name may well be Kenny, and someone called Cartman might really hate you. If this is the case - then you should probably find some offline hobbies which are free - like running and such like.
Below is a quick vid of me doing an unboxing. It was done a bit hastily and on the fly which is why its a bit lame - but its there nonetheless.
-tobeconfirmed-
1 comments:
yeah boyee!
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