HTC G1
Phone Scoop Review
Oct 16, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
Here it is. The "GPhone". The Google Phone. The HTC G1 is the first phone running Google's Android platform. Does it pass muster? read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Great Device, OK Phone
I really like this as a portable computer, however as a phone it is lacking. It has been said before, but.... WHY oh WHY didn't they put a headphone jack on this? I needed to charge the phone and my blue tooth was dead so I needed to use the wired headset.... oops. Cant do both. Why HTC Why..... It is also really bad at voice dialing, it got it right 2 out of 10 times....The battery life is awful and that is after I downloaded power manager. I will also add that it is big and has very limited options for cases, skins and holsters. I have trouble typing with both hands because the chin bar gets in the way.
That said, I do like the operating system, the screen is bright and clear, the touch is very reactive and accurate. The market is great as are the apps. The wifi is quick. T-Mobile is excellent to deal with.
If I didn't get such a good deal on this I would have an iPhone. I will give the G2 a look and see how that does as well.
G1 sorta good, sorta bad
I've had the G1 since they 1st released it in US, carrier T-mobile.
The Sorta good:
Its fast to switch between running applications
It has a full web-browser
The Market Place feature to buy mini-apps is great for free things.
It has google Maps with traffic. (i have the data plan )
full qwerty keyboard.
The Sorta bad:
Ok here comes the rub folks. The G1 is lacking in so many places its almost frustrating.
You can't shut down applications from running in the background, which slows down your phone to a crawl. This is because the the G1 allows multiple apps to keep running in the background sucking up your phones processor, which in turn slows everything down.
Having GPS, Bluetooth, or any wifi option on totally kills your battery life. I can barely last a day before my phone battery indicator starts to turn orange from green. Its a necessity to charge it every night. If I forget or have a long night and don't charge it the battery will fall into the red or I have a dead phone by mid next day.
NO Stereo Bluetooth... You'd think a phone so amazing would have this basic function most touch screen phones out of the box have.
No 2 finger zoom in, + and - buttons that appear on ur screen are your zoom & zoom out. Which is annoying, making you envy the iphone.
NO A2DP Stereo Bluetooth, a basic feature on most touch phones now, but the G1 doesnt have it.
No flash on the camera, and the camera takes like 15 seconds to snap a picture sometimes longer. Seriously. I had to ask a blackberry user to take a picture because they had flash, and a camera that worked well. It's good outdoors in sunlight, bad in low light.
No document editing with google doc's...
I've held onto the hopes that this phone will become better, mostly because of the rumors Google will keep updating the G1 with software like the rumored cupcake update. I'm still waiting, waiting for this phone to be better. But maybe I should have bought better.
The death of Blackerry and Windows Mobile is near!
If you're looking for a phone what shatters Windows, feasts on Apples and Blackberry, and shatters Palm, look no further than the G1 Android from HTC, for T-Mobile. I'm a phone junkie, and moreso, an HTC junkie. I've used the SDA, MDA, Wing, Dash, etc... but this takes the cake.
Cons (few, but still there):
Battery life (thank goodness for a spare wall and car charger, huh?)
Must have memory card in it to use the camera (I always use one, but it still sucks).
The menmory card slot is hard to open, imho.
No hotmail support yet.
Pros:
Clear camera and video (the upgrade for video is in Android Market)
No dropped calls that I'm aware of.
Endless, and unique FREE apps! (Bible, Obama, barcode scanner, etc....)
Chat style texting
Automatically locks, so ya don't call anyone at 3 in the morning.
Awesome with receiving Gmail (WM and BB fail with that).
Can handle the SDHC cards (i.e. 4, 6, 8, 16...)
The Smartphone market can only go up from here. If there's a G2, count me in.
wow...what a phone!
I got this phone in the beginning of the year and compared to my past experiences with t-mobile phones, this one is amazing.
To start i have had the razr v3, nokia 5300, and the tmobile dash.
Pros:
-amazingly beautiful huge responsive screen
-keyboard, although it takes a while to get use to, its very nice and spacious
-android market-found everything i want and more. Awesome games (love pac man and bonsai blast) and apps (couldnt live without backgrounds, astrid, and the oi apps)
-music- loud, clear, easy to use
-calendar, use it all the time
-screen unlock pattern is so cool
-notification window
-amazon mp3, DRM free downloads
-i like the dialer function, you have the dailer (keypad), contacts, recent calls, and fav contacts all in one place
A couple small cons:
-camera could be better
-a bit of a lag sometimes getting back to the home screen after using an app
-no task manager, nothing to close apps
-battery life, once you drain the battery a couple times once you get the phone, it lasts about a day on edge and no gps
-maps, can never seem to locate me.
-the slide mechanism wears after a while and now its a little to easy to slide the phone
-i hate the headphones that came with the phone, its way toooo long.
-waiting for video recording
All in all this is one big step into the future. Its way better than any of the phones I have ever had. And with the coming R33 update and hopefully cupcake it will get better.
Impressive phone
The G1 is a really good phone and if you are hooked into (or on as the case may be) Google, then this is the phone to have.
PRO:
Good phone quality
Great features (wi-fi, 3G, etc.)
Keyboard (who likes that T9 stuff)
Great screen
Applications coming out daily (most are crap but a few are good)
CON:
Battery (big con)
Volume key is right where I use my finger to hold it while texting
3G not in many places (sometimes not even in 3G territory)
Ringers have low volume
I really like the G1. It gets my google mail faster than my blackberry did. Sound quality on the phone is good. Keyboard is usable. Screen is great.
The battery would hardly last me one day. At the end of the day it would always be below 50%. Bought the extended battery from Murgen (2400mah) and problem solved.
I often hit the volume key while texting because that is right where my finger rests to hold the phone.
Ringer volume is on the low side. There have been times where I never even heard it and nothing else was going on around me.
3G isn't very prevalent yet and even in 3G territory I will still sometimes fall back to Edge (never happened with Verizon and their ev-do).
Th applications are fun. I check for new ones daily and there are some really good free ones out there. You have to shift through the crappy ones to get to the good though.
Overall a fun phone and one that I will keep for awhile.
BETTER THAN I EXPECTED
I Had being waiting to get my hands on this phone since September, and finally I got one three weeks back, and boy am I happy with it, I did an extensive research on it, for 3 months and it still amazed me. Most of the complains that I have read from reviews can easily be fixed down-loading free apps from the Android market, and many other complains from people who don't understand that they are buying an all in one phone that for it's size it can not be a professional everything, but it kicks behind doing all of what it does.
One of my co-workers bought an Iphone (very restricted), and another a Behold, we play with the phones daily, and by now we all agree that the G1 is the better of all three (they have tried to trade to get a G1).
I personally recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a fun functional and multi-tasking phone, unless you're the kind of person who complains because you don't fully understand or try to figure out things.
PROS; great apps to make it your own!!!
CONS: for every 100 pros, 1 bad thing,
Overall a nice phone
Overall I like the phone. Coming from the Wing I had a lot to get adjusted to. I pre-ordered the phone and it arrive early than I expected which was a plus. I saw some said that the phone was big, but the Wing was big AND heavy
Pros:
Great Camera although it doesn't have zoom
Love the touch screen
Google Maps
Android Market Apps are amazing
Trackball works well
Love how you can save your most used apps to the desktop
Sound quality is amazing
Email feature is great
Attention grabber
MicroSD card slot
Comes with a SD card even though I kept my 2g from my Wing
Great speakerphone
Cons:
Battery life sucks
The case it came with was horrendous
Cannot beam files through Bluetooth
No stero Bluetooth
3G is not available in my area yet and I live in Nashville, TN(thats more of T-mobile's issue though, not the phone)
No video capture
No task manager
No virtual keyboard
Tends to get quite hot while charging at times
Great phone!
I hear everyone complaining about the battery life my phone's battery is fine as long as I'm not on the 3G network all the time. So if I'm not surfing the web or downloading something I am running the 2G network there is no need to run 3G all the time. and the phone will last me all day with no problems. The one thing I agree with everyone on is the no on screen keyboard but, they have an update that will fix that problem. overall this is hands down the best phone I have ever had, and I've had them all from Sidekicks (everyone thats been made) the treo's to blackberry's. The HTC G1 blows all these phones out of the water without question.
