T-mobile G1 review 10/14/08 and SHIPPING INFO

[Undert8726]

Hey Guys,
I just got back from my local T-mobile store and low and behold, the manager had a T-mobile G1 which he was more than happy to let me take off his hands for the better part of two hours. First off, let me say that any questions comments or concerns you may have are welcome because this guy wants me to go back and play with it more once I get out of work. Keep in mind this is all with a black G1, I also got to see and hold the "Bronze"

Build Quality: This thing is NOTHING like it looks online. It does not retain the clunky, pre-build look the online pictures show The "chin" won't bother you a single bit. You can barely tell it is there. The phone feels super solid. My fiance has a t-mobile wing but I have the Motorola Rizr and we both felt very comfortable holding and using this phone. It is made for everyone. The touchscreen is overly responsive. It does get a little smudgy but you cant tell unless the screen is off. Vibrate mode on the phone also makes the phone respond to touches with vibration so it is almost like a form of tactile feedback

The Keyboard: Again, the "chin" will not bother you a single bit. They keyboard felt like an old friend. I have never used a phone with a full qwerty but I was still very comfortable with this. The search button works perfectly regardless of what application you are in.

The Trackball: THIS was important to me. The online pictures make the trackball look like an old mouse in the middle of a laptop keyboard. It is the opposite. It feels much like the trackball on a Blackberry but less "loose". it was very responsive and made navigating easy though it was a little too touchy for my taste when on the web.

Notification Screen: This worked like a charm, it was so nice to have everything on one simple convenient spot. I DO NOT know how I dealt without this before

3G: I am presently in San Antonio, Texas. We are blanketed in 3G coverage. This phone never blinked. The browser ran faster than my wifi at home when connected to 3G. Program downloading took mere seconds (though there was like a 1 second disconnect between when I clicked download and when the notification came up). Texts, emails, mms etc took literally seconds to make it from the G1 to my fiances wing.

The Market: There are very few programs on the market so far but I did download the typical shopsavvy and pacman both of which were absolutely wonderful. Shopsavvy took a bit of getting used to and only returned online prices (probably because I was using an off the wall cd which most stores dont carry). Pacman was just like the arcard with the use of the trackball or onscreen navigation both of which worked great.

Battery Life: Here is where this phone will upset some people. The manager charged it in the morning at 3 a.m. (had it at 99%) and it was down to 90% by ten just sittng by itself. I played with it from 10-12 more or less using 3G heavily, compass mode on google maps, every battery intensive process you could think of (probably) and I knocked the battery down to about 55%. He just called me on it a while ago and said it was down to about 30%. One thing behind this may be that he has had the bluetooth on all day (about 7 hours), on top of the playing with the phone. End point, with bluetooth, gps, wifi, and 3g enabled the phone will last roughly five hours.

Call Quality: This is where this baby shined. I have never heard a phone that sounded so clear. I may as well have been standing right next to the person as the calls were loud, and crisp. The speakerphone/music speaker is the first that I would say is actually ok to use and expect for it not to sound like somebody yelling from the bottom of a well.

All in all, this phone is absolutly amazing. Everything about it is great. One thing I did forget. Heavy use made the phone "warm" as did the charger (as per the manager). It did not get ridiculously hot but you could feel the temperature difference. My friend, the manager, also said they were witholding the stores shipments of G1's until the day before so they are doing one of two things, 1. holding them at the nearest distribution center and sending them out the day before or 2. next daying all phones out. He said he had called for a customer and was told that they would be next daying out everyones phones on the 21st but who can be sure.

Hit me up with any questions, comments or concerns. I know it is near launch but it never hurts to know.

[sushi420]

Very sweet review!
Glad to hear the trackball is not as 'loose' as the blackberrys but still similar. I was also worried it'd be like the rubber mouse on a laptop

[Undert8726]

Yea, It doesnt actually stick out like the blackberrys. It is almost flush with the phone and works great. you can actually click down easily without scrolling to another icon.

[ergibson83]

Nice post dude. So did you get a chance to play with the camera? How is the resolution?

[heyitsnan]

Thanks for the review.

[leshawnte]

This is great I just called the t-mobile store by job and they have it on display and I am going there when I get off just to play around with it for a few minutes. I was thinking the same thing about the next day shipment but I am going to check UPS on-line tracking on thursday and friday just to see. If you get a chance can u find out if they are going to add the 3.5mm adapter. I have seen few blogs about this.

[insight spinner]

great post, thorough review. thanks!

[Undert8726]

Played with the camera a bit, pictures were a little slow to take (no worse than the wing) but what was amazing is they looked good and when you zoomed in on them they kept looking good. The only "problem" with the camera is if you move when the screen goes blank it sometimes captures the movement (I spoke to a google rep on a forum who said this should be improved on update 1.1 which they are already compiling information for)

[Undert8726]

As far as I hear and saw, there will be no 3.5mm adapter in the first set of shipments due to the inability to make that many that quick but they will come with the phone later and we should be able to request one from t-mobile after the launch, or just buy one from the android community store.

[bizarro_stormy]

awesome post.

how was the brown one? is it really dark in color? nice looking?

again, thanks for the insight. I cant wait.