You can call it whatever you want: the T-Mobile G1, the HTC Dream, the gPhone, the iPhone-Killer, the phone-that-will, but it doesn’t matter as they are the same (well… for some of them, it depends on how you look at it) phone that is the first to fun the Google Android Platform. Yes, this is the result of collaborative work from T-Mobile, Google, and HTC to make this iPhone competitor smart phone.
Image from Engadget.Com
The phone is currently only available for pre-order on the T-Mobile Website and will be launched on October 22 at $179 with a 2 year contract ($399 without). Here’s a quick spec list (from Engadget.Com):
- HSDPA 1700 / 2100 plus quadband EDGE
- WiFi
- 3D graphics acceleration
- 3-megapixel camera
- 256 MB integrated storage, 1GB microSD card included
- Android Market for on-device app purchases
- Amazon MP3 app for on-device music purchases
- Push Gmail support with full HTML client
- Bluetooth (but no A2DP)
- Google Maps with Street View
- No Microsoft Exchange support
- No desktop synchronization — it all happens over the air
- 350 minutes talk time over 3G, 406 minutes over GSM
- 402 hours standby over 3G, 319 hours over GSM
An interesting note about the Street View is that the built in accelerometer makes it seem like a “window” into that area (see video)
The 3.2 inch touch screen has a resolution of 320 X 480 pixels. The full QWERTY keyboard beneath the screen does seem a thousand times easier to use than the iPhone’s virtual one and will be a major appeal point when people are comparing the two. The G1 also has tight integration with the Google suite (Search, Gmail, Youtube, Maps, Talk, and Calendar). The home screen is customizable (to a much higher degree vs just location on the iPhone) and is extended to the left and right which are accessible by swiping. While the iPhone has the Apps Store, the G1 has the Android market, and instead of the iTunes store, we have Amazon.Com’s MP3 service.
You can see how the device has borrowed characteristic from the iPhone, but luckily kept away from the bad things about the horrid Apple device. It DOES have copy and paste (thank you Google) and multimedia messaging. Also, there is no “multi-touch” but that’s a small thing.
Amazingly, according to Engadget, the phone is being sold out really quickly. (though an update says that you can order them again) If you are interested, you can pre-order it here.
In the future when the phone does get released, I’ll post up a full review on the phone and my own thoughts about it (as long as I can look at the G1 at a T-Mobile store)