Finally, both of you readers, I’ve managed to steal a moment or two to proceed with this little hands-on experience report. The phone was powered on for the first time, and the network unlock code was entered, so here we go …
The Look
Well, let’s face it, G1 is plain ugly. Butt ugly. A (rather heavy at that) brick. None of the i-slickness there. Not something you’d expect in a lady’s purse, at least not in one of a lady that gives a damn about herself.
G1
You could do better, folks: it’s the form we care about today, not function or content!
The Feel
As stated above, G1 feels heavy. Partly because it really is heavy, partly because it looks like it should feel heavy.
G1 features an plethora of alternative and complementary means of input: four small buttons at the bottom for most often used functions and choices in dialogs, a trackball (aka The Clit™) in between them, a touch screen, and finally, once you slide that screen to the side, a (almost full) qwerty keyboard below.
The four small buttons at the bottom creak audibly when you press them.
The Clit (which is, in contrast to the common anatomy, at the bottom, not at the top!) could be smoother to the touch; it also feels a bit loose at times or (slightly) jams other times.
The touch screen is nice and smooth and a pleasure to touch. Not multitouchable, though, with the G1 software, however, new Android versions should (and as I am told do) remedy this.
The keyboard … well, I’ve always considered a full keyboard a no-go on such a small device, and this one won’t make me change my mind. However in the absence of a better input method for entering a bit of text it should do, and I really can’t decide whether it is better than an onscreen keyboard or not: it saves the screen real estate and doesn’t need a stylus. Also – as opposed to the button quartet – its keys don’t creak. You won’t be doing any ten-digit-typing there, unless you are a very skilled pickpocket: even with only two digits you will need some time to adjust to it – who says size doesn’t matter?!
G1, with open keyboard
The Hard Parts
I won’t talk about hardware. You can read its specs if you care. Let’s just note that the processing power and the memory seem to suffice for the workload that Android imposes on the little machine.
I would, however, like to note that the battery life stated on that specs link is a bit overstretched. Once you start using the phone in the way it’s software lets you – and, let me tell you, you will be tempted to! – there will never be enough juice. We want a nano nuclear powerplant built in!
And now to the part where we expect G1 to excel: software … we’ll start a new post for that, this one is already way too long!
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