gPhone

[Chekhonte]

The physical keyboard is a selling point for me as well. From the video it looks like the sidekick lx keyboard which is fantastic. I'm still waiting to see how much their plans cost.

[aardvark baguette]

I just took a second look at this. Seriously, when is the last time they made phones this thick? Its like 5 iphones thick!

[Chekhonte]

yeah, the physical keyboard does add a lot of girth.

[MexicanDragon]

I just took a second look at this. Seriously, when is the last time they made phones this thick? Its like 5 iphones thick!

Its actually only 36% thicker than the iPhone 3G. 16.7mm vs 12.3mm.

That isn't substantial at all considering the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is 17mm thick and the HTC Touch Pro is 18.05mm thick.

FYI, the Blackberry Curve is 15.5mm thick. My current phone (Blackberry Pearl 8120) is 14mm thick. I have it in a Seidio hard shell, and find it too thin without it.

I'm thinking that the G2, if released on T-Mobile, is going to be of a different design and incorporate a 3.5mm jack. I'm tempted to believe there wasn't room on the G1 to fit the jack. I think its a mistake they'll remedy in the next hardware revision.

The ExtUSB port is going to be a bit of a mistake on this one. I may need to reterminate my im716s to ExtUSB instead of having an adapter.

**BRENT**

[blessingx]

There's an emulator (upper right corner link) if anyone wants to try the GUI:

http://tmobile.modeaondemand.com/htc/g1/

[MexicanDragon]

Got a G1 in the mail yesterday... got to play with it a few hours last night (its the wife's). Should be getting an iPhone (1st gen) soon... its interesting... some things very nice, some... coulda used work.

I think the OSis good, and once the hard launch starts up and the developer community starts addressing some shortcomings, I think it will be a good bit better.

**BRENT**

[Hopstretch]

Yeah, the OS is the real story and once they get that sorted all sorts of good hardware will follow. Can't wait, if only because I hope the prospect of serious competition will keep the pressure on Apple to improve their platform as well.

[MexicanDragon]

arstechnica didn't seem to have the phone as long as say, engadget.

I read over their review... seem to only compare it to the iPhone.

Its going to be compared to that for a long time, but its a pain sometimes. I'm going to have to get my hands on an iPhone and G1 at the same time and live with them both side by side. I'm a big texter (~10,000/month) and do a lot of internet and a reasonable amount of e-mail. From my experience with the iPhone keyboard, I'm REALLY going to like the G1 better.

I'm really interested to see Opera Mobile on the G1. I loved it (as much as you COULD love browsing) on WM5... the G1 platform should be much better for that.

Anyways... its 3:20am. I'll be spending most of the day with the wife's G1 tomorrow... should get a better feel for it. I'll get back here in a day or so with more on it.

BTW... I haven't been bowled over by initial impressions of the iPhone or the G1. I think the iPhone is a MUCH slicker package, but the G1 has a few things going for it that I'd take over the iPhone any day.

FWIW, I don't hate Apple at all... I just really dig cell phones, and the iPhone just didn't impress.

**BRENT**

[blessingx]

I'm really interested to see Opera Mobile on the G1. I loved it (as much as you COULD love browsing) on WM5... the G1 platform should be much better for that.

I really can't imagine Opera Mobile comparing to Mobile Safari. For all the Opera Mobile hype, I couldn't believe how far behind the UI was when I recently played with it (though I'm sure it's a major advance compared to WAP, etc.).

Really interested in Android, but not the G1. May pick up an iPhone and revisit Android at the end of the two year contract. Hope they both push everyone else. Just wish the G1 reviews would stop about all the 'potential' and instead review the phone. We all know Android can be great. We'll see if Moto, HTC, Sony, etc. screw it up.

[MexicanDragon]

I really can't imagine Opera Mobile comparing to Mobile Safari. For all the Opera Mobile hype, I couldn't believe how far behind the UI was when I recently played with it (though I'm sure it's a major advance compared to WAP, etc.).

Really interested in Android, but not the G1. May pick up an iPhone and revisit Android at the end of the two year contract. Hope they both push everyone else. Just wish the G1 reviews would stop about all the 'potential' and instead review the phone. We all know Android can be great. We'll see if Moto, HTC, Sony, etc. screw it up.

I think you're thinking Opera Mini, not Opera Mobile. Opera Mini, I just don't get the hype. Tried it on my BB 8120 and hated it. My experience with it was on the WM5 platform vs the standard Pocket IE (which is wretched).

I know a few of the reviews are reviewing hardware and software separately. I think this is probably the way to go. There seems to be be quite a few misnomers out there about the G1, though. I talked to a buddy with a 1st gen iPhone and was talking about from the specs the iPhone should destroy the G1... of course, his information had the G1 with a 200 MHz processor... had to inform him of the 528MHz dual core qualcomm.

The G1 fell short of my expectations form factor wise, but is still a powerful and interesting piece of kit. The chin is more intrusive than I'd hoped when typing, and there is a SERIOUS need for a T9 or SureType virtual keyboard in the portrait mode to pop out quick texts. I have a buddy who dismisses the device as a daily carry since he can't use it one handed. He's out on the road for his job all day driving from site to site, and he's got to have one handed operation. There are plenty of apps missing from the base install G1 wise, but it kinda gives you the blank slate you need for when Android gets to say, lesser powered flip phones sans touch screen. They keyboard, once you get used to the hand position, is actually really good. I read the reviews, but I think its actually better than what most people are saying. The sides of the keys are almost flush, yes, but the center of them is raised in a slight dome... I thought it was quite nice, actually. The inclusion of the 5th row dedicated number key is INCREDIBLY nice. Yesterday I carried a 3 row qwerty, a 4 row qwerty and a 5 row qwerty. The dedicated row was one thing that people really commented on when they used the keyboard.

For a good review (I read the arstechnica review, and noticed that they lived with the G1 a very short time, not long enough to give a "review" IMO, just "initial impressions".) Check out: T-Mobile G1 review - Engadget

**BRENT**

BTW, Reks... if there is an afterlife... it won't be Steve up there, it will be John Moses Browning...

just a little FYI

[blessingx]

I think you're thinking Opera Mini, not Opera Mobile.

You're right. Sorry about the mix-up.

[blessingx]

Looks like there's an iTunes Apple Remote/iPenq-like app for Android (at least in theory):

Android Itunes Remote: iTunes Remote App for Android Looks Fantastic

[manaox2]

The blackberry storm just got a final price and release date by Verizon. Its probably going to be the big iPhone competitor this season I think.

BlackBerry Storm Gets Release Date, Price -- BlackBerry Storm -- InformationWeek

[laxx]

Foobar remote please.

[MexicanDragon]

Hey guys... I am rocking a G1 full time now, and have an iPhone I'm going to start using tomorrow (after I get it activated/jailbroken/blahblahblah). If you have any questions about the G1 you want to ask of someone who has one, lmk...

@manaox2: I plan on heading out on the 21st and taking the G1 and iPhone to the vzw store and check out all 3 side by side... may be able to take some pix with my Glyde while I'm there... we shall see...

**BRENT**

[manaox2]

Hey guys... I am rocking a G1 full time now, and have an iPhone I'm going to start using tomorrow (after I get it activated/jailbroken/blahblahblah). If you have any questions about the G1 you want to ask of someone who has one, lmk...

@manaox2: I plan on heading out on the 21st and taking the G1 and iPhone to the vzw store and check out all 3 side by side... may be able to take some pix with my Glyde while I'm there... we shall see...

**BRENT**

Have fun, just don't bring much money with you into a Verizon store.

[MrSlacker]

Hey guys... I am rocking a G1 full time now, and have an iPhone I'm going to start using tomorrow (after I get it activated/jailbroken/blahblahblah). If you have any questions about the G1 you want to ask of someone who has one, lmk...

@manaox2: I plan on heading out on the 21st and taking the G1 and iPhone to the vzw store and check out all 3 side by side... may be able to take some pix with my Glyde while I'm there... we shall see...

**BRENT**

dude how many phones do you have???

[blessingx]

Looks like they're finally shipping with a headphone jack adapter -

T-Mobile G1s now shipping with 3.5mm headphone adapters included - Engadget

[MexicanDragon]

@slacker... a few

Ok... I have lived with an iPhone and a G1 side by side (2 lines, not switching back and forth), and then took them in on Thursday to a VZW store and popped the cherry on the Storm demo... got it for an hour (no one else knew it was out for display yet, it was just for private sale people). Anyways... After an hour with the phone, against the iPhone and G1, here is what I wrote up about the phones on another site. If you want to know anything about how the 3 phones compare, lmk and I'll give you my thoughts. :

My local VZW @CC was selling one every 15 minutes... I spent an hour with one yesterday, and about 10 minutes today. I had cash-in-pocket to buy one. I made three trips to the store today, the final time with my BB Addict wife. I had the iPhone and G1 (and pearl and Glyde and her Curve) with me. I walked out without buying it... three times.

I know the demo I played with had 4.7.0.61, and the 4.7.0.65 software wouldn't come through OTA and they didn't have a chance to update it in-store... too busy selling phones. I didn't check my corporate store, but the VZW one didn't have a line, you could walk up and buy it. Most people didn't try it out, they just bought it. If I wouldn't have played with it for an hour, I would have bought it too. Its buggy. Its buggy as hell.

I have been living with the iPhone on one line, and the G1 on my other t-mo line for a little while, so fairly used to both. I've also had my Pearl since summer, so entrenched in BlackBerry. The keyboard, I thought, was more accurate than the iPhone, but the SureClick (is that what they call it?) mechanism keeps you from typing as fast as you can on a curve or pearl. The browser is greatly improved over previous BB versions, but it was still not up to what I was hoping. I would have bought it had it been 80% as good as webkit browsers, but I think it was closer to 70-75%. Not QUITE good enough.

I wanted it to be good enough... I wanted there to be a GREAT Verizon device, but it just falls short. There were some other very buggy things, such as flipping from SureType to QWERTY within an e-mail/SMS, it wouldn't register the full change, and there would be artifacts left over of either a partial keyboard or partial screen left over.

Its not for everyone, but neither is the iPhone or G1 or Touch Diamond or Touch Pro. I liked it, but just couldn't justify it. The wife LOATHED it. She wanted a G1 since she first touched it. First impression of the Storm... just hated it.

There were a lot of "business professionals" I saw come in and out and just buy the thing. I think some BB fans are going to eat it up, but it will take a little getting used to.

I still think its the best touchscreen phone Verizon has out right now (until 2 weeks from now when the touch pro comes out). Feels good in the hand, the all aluminum back just feels sexy, and looks the part too.

I think Verizon is going to meet their quota, and I figure will extened their exclusive out for a few months, I expect 4-6 total, but no more. If fuel prices stay low, and people feel ok about spending a little more loosely, I think once tax refunds come out they'll pick up some fence sitters, but I figure it will be open to others in early-mid Q2.

Even having the iPhone and G1, I kinda wished I had the Storm with me today, but the Storm not having wifi, even with its killer network (which loaded web pages quite fast, btw... Rev. A is nice), is a deal breaker for some, and a slight dissappointment to others (like myself). I could have dealt, though.

I think I MAY be biased for T-Mo, and even being a big BB fan, I'm thinking the G1 is really the device to have right now. I was walking around the mall and got hit up by all the kiosks trying to get customers. A few of them sold T-Mobile, and none of them had played with the G1. They were all VERY impressed. I had the iPhone out on the counter too... and really, no one has really been "ooh, an iPhone!" except my 15 year old sister-in-law. I let her play with it for a bit... she gave it back after 4 minutes, she didn't like it.

**BRENT**

[blessingx]

Could you give a few more details on your preferences between the main models?

[MexicanDragon]

Sure... I'll say a few, and if you want specifics, lmk.

For messaging... SMS and E-Mail... I prefer typing on the G1, hands down. The lack of a landscape keyboard on the iPhone really is a letdown. When I'm in texting/email mode, I'd really prefer a fuller keyboard. The Storm does both (QWERTY in landscape, SureType in portrait). The iPhone's keyboard's predictive text really is VERY good, but I have spent a LOT of time on it since I've had it, and I'm still having a hard time with accuracy. Much of the time its still not getting what I want. The G1 keyboard isn't perfect by any means, though. The colorblindness factor comes in to play on the Bronze one (and possibly the white one, the only one I haven't gotten my hands on yet). The alternate symbols are translucent orange (yielding to the backlight behind them) on a super light colored bronze-ish silvery colored keyboard. I can barely see these, and its a pain. However, there is a dedicated number row at the top (with desktop corresponding symbols, takes the pain out of having to look up where an ampersand is), a dedicated @ sign along with the alternate on the 2 key, a dedicated period and comma key. These come in incredibly handy for those of you who like to use proper grammar/emoticons. The keyboard is a bit flush, but the centers of the G1 keys are raised a bit with placement markers on the F and J keys... familiar much?

The controversial "chin" design on the G1 is intrusive while typing... for about a week. I did get a couple hand cramps in the first few days, but that is gone. If you pick one up, don't give up just yet.

One handed typing, however, its iPhone, Storm, G1... for now. If you're not looking and typing one handed, I may would go with the Storm and its SureType portrait mode, but it'd be close. The G1 is a 2 handed phone for right now. I'm hearing there will be a virtual keyboard coming out for it around January. That should be interesting, as my gripes with the landscape messaging on the iPhone are inverted with the lack of portrait messaging on the G1.

MMS... I'd have to go G1 (for now), BB Storm (will be better after a few glitches are gone) and iPhone, well... you know all about that.

Copy & paste... I'd have to give that to the G1 right now. Between touch/long presses, the keyboard and the trackball, its hands down G1. The "multitouch" of the Storm, when I tried it, was OK in theory (which I knew), and sub par in execution. The iPhone... well... maybe in version 3.x. (natively, at least).

Browsing I give a SLIGHT edge to the iPhone. The multitouch gestures (pinching) are really putting it over the top over Android's zoom button system. The G1 browser is webkit (not exactly "Mobile Chrome" as some have opined), but isn't quite as polished as Safari... but its easily 95% as good. If you haven't spent tons of time with the iPhone browser (or iPod Touch over wifi), then you will be INCREDIBLY happy with the G1 browser. Scrolling on the G1 is slightly choppy compared to the smoothness of the iPhone (where some of the 5% comes from), but the G1 renders faster, don't have to worry about the white and blue grids. It seems the G1 is limited to either 8 or 10 tabs, I'm not quite sure what the iPhone limit is, or if there is one... but something to put out there. The G1 does offer more options under Menu in the browser, however. The iPhone does do a better of making a page fit the screen, now that I do a little more back-to-back comparos (of this site). Still sticking with my 95%.

One more thing about the G1's browser. It defaults to portrait mode when closed, and landscape mode when the keyboard is opened. It doesn't use the accelerometer. There is an option to lock it in landscape mode, which I do.

The Storm's browser was almost not worth mentioning. The text was more difficult to read than in webkit, the image quality was a few steps below either webkit browser, no inertia when scrolling (page will only move as far as your finger, even if you try to flick, it won't work. If you're used to scrolling with the trackball, and scrolling, and scrolling, etc... you will feel at home). The browser is the best browser BB has ever done, but I agree with one of the blogs on this one... they should have just licensed Opera (much like Samsung did with the forthcoming Omnia on VZW. WM 6.1 shipping with Opera Mobile installed... beautiful). It would have opened up their team to fix the other bugs with the touch layering instead of launching a buggy product (on both Vodafone and Verizon).

But yeah... I concur with some of the bloggers... its no great revolution OS wise... its just an update of the previous 4.x BB OSes, with a layer of touch on top of it instead of scroll wheel.

That's all I have time for right now... if you want to know something specific, lmk.

**BRENT**

[MexicanDragon]

Ok... so some news broke yesterday of someone making a G1->iPod Dock, well... working wiring diagram, I guess. No one seems to have put it together in ExtUSB->iPod plug/adapter/whatever, but if a couple of you DIY guys take a look at these couple links, I'm sure you could tell whether or not it'd be hard at all. Looks like they have charging working out of the speaker dock... heh... nice.

Hack connects T-Mobile G1 to iPod Dock | WebNetta

HTC Hermes USB connector pin config

I'm about to throw down for an ExtUSB->3.5mm adapter, since it's pretty much been confirmed the early adopters aren't going to get them. The ones shipping out the past month have all gotten the adapters. I'm not sure if they're the short cable ones, or if they're the 2ft long ones with (possibly) a mic and/or volume control, maybe a mute... something like that. There is also one that splits for a 3.5mm jack and another ExtUSB jack for simultaneous power/charging and audio out.

I'm not sure if it can do video out or not (the wiring diagram is from an older HTC device, different than the G1, but possibly a help), but that could be interesting for use with some of the iPod docks out there.

**BRENT**

[blessingx]

Nexus One, The Google Phone, Captured In The Wild (Picture)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/technology/companies/13google.html

Will say more soon.

[kelvinz]

[Hopstretch]

Nexus One? I see where this is going.

"I want more battery life, fucker!"