The newness of the G1 Android smartphone attracted the early adopters and the curious. Enough of them bought so the initial shipments were sold out in short order. ITexaminer had to wait several months before receiving an evaluation unit from T-mobile. They made the unit available to us for an extended period of time.

The T-Mobile G1 features a full QWERTY keyboard, 3G support, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. As the first Android-based phone, the Android operating system has good integration with Google applications as well as access to the Amazon MP3 Store and YouTube. Today, the choice of applications is limited to about 40. T-mobile says by spring 2009 more will become available. Those new choices will increase the appeal of the G1 smartphone for all types of users.

Since it was introduced, whether everyone likes it or not, Apple's Iphone reset the bar for handset design, convergence of applications with the OS, and serves as what people first think of for touch-screen smartphones.

T-mobile's G1 Android definitely offers some functionality the original Iphone and the current Iphone 3G do not have, including copy-and-paste capabilities, multimedia messaging, a better camera, and Google Street View.

In part three, we will compare the G1 to the two leading enterprise smartphones, Blackberry Curve 8320, and Palm's Treo – using a 755p with Palm OS instead of the Treo Pro with Windows Mobile.

The G1 Android's first impression comes under the heading of different, and more than a few folks said, weird. We took the G1 Android to the Sacstarts meeting. Sacstarts is a group of entrepreneurs lead by Adam Kalsey. That evening, the dozen or so folks who used the G1 said it just wasn't as exciting as their first experience with an Iphone.

Kalsey said that the 5.6-ounce G1 looks sort of like a T-mobile Sidekick that got bigger. The SacStarts folks all liked the big 3.2-inch, 320-by-480-pixel capacitive touch screen which is bright and responsive. However, they had lots of questions about the handset's layout. Below the display is the trackball, with buttons for Menu, Home, and Back, and buttons to pick up and end calls. Volume and camera controls are on the sides of the handset, and the 3-megapixel camera is on the back. Kalsey took the photo below.
  
We achieved 600-to-700-kilobit-per-second speeds in the G1's browser on T-mobile's 3G network, fairly typical speeds for a 3G phone. As of today, we can't use the G1 as a modem for our PC.

3G speed depends on variables like the number of people on the network at a given time, the type of Web pages you're trying to download, and the mysteries of RF transmission/reception. Before buying T-mobile's G1 Android make sure you have adequate T-Mobile 3G coverage in your area. T-mobile has been increasing the number of cities with coverage. They now have nearly 80 cities online and they got rid of their initial 1GB data usage cap, after user complaints.

We also connected to a WPA2-secured 802.11g wireless network without a problem, though the G1 doesn't support T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home system for making calls over Wi-Fi. Overall, the wireless RF reception was decent. The G1's YouTube application will only deliver videos in high resolution when you're using Wi-Fi. It plays the low-res version when using the cellular network, which results in optimized load times. To download songs from the Amazon MP3 store, you need a Wi-Fi connection (same as on the Iphone).

Photos taken with the 3MP camera looked better than 2MP smartphones. However, we were disappointed at the lack of camera options. There is no way to reduce the resolution to save memory and no way to adjust white balance JPEG compression. You can't record video, which even the much older Palm Treo's can. Outdoor photos were washed out and low light location photos often came out blurred without a support. The camera does not handle moving animals or live concert performers very well.

The G1 has assisted GPS. You can confuse the GPS and it sometimes doesn't put you in the right place, or it cannot find your location. When that happened, we got the message, "Your location cannot be determined. We will keep trying but you can also try moving your position."

Google Maps is preloaded on the device with standard map, satellite, and traffic views. In addition, you get Google Maps Street View, and there's a compass mode that provides a 360-degree view of the street by simply moving the phone around. No other phone currently supports this feature.

Google Maps' client is smooth and fast. It uses GPS to find your location and offers driving directions. It also features a "compass view," which shows a street view in the direction you're actually facing. You can use many of the Google mapping features like start-and-finish of a trip, and provides turn-by-turn driving directions.

The music player on the G1 is okay for what it is, and will satisfy most casual listeners. Songs are organized by Artists, Albums, Songs, and Playlists. You also get typical music player functions like shuffle, repeat, and the ability to create playlists on the fly. This brings up listening and the dumbest design decision about the G1 Android.  

In HTC and Google's infinite lack of wisdom, they have a single mini-USB connector on the bottom the handset. This connector is used to charge the phone. This same mini-USB connector with its proprietary shape is where you plug in the 3.5mm earbud headset.

Thus, you cannot be on a conference call and recharge the battery at the same time. The mini-USB connector is protected by an attached cover. We bet that cover will get torn off and lost within three months.

The trackball is not user adjustable. It is too sensitive on many screens and not sensitive enough on others. The touch screen needs user adjustable sensitivity, and the keyboard backlight goes off too soon. All these items need to be user adjustable.

You get about 60MB of available space for apps and data, plus a slot for a microSD memory card; an eval16GB SanDisk card worked fine. We never got the G1 to lock up or crash. However, it did run slower when we had lots of windows open with apps running inside them.

The swing-out QWERTY keyboard is interesting. It didn't give us any problems during our testing. However, anything that moves is subject to increased failures. The keys are very slightly domed and somewhat separated. They're not as good as the BlackBerry Curve keys or the older Palm Treo models, but they're as good as the keys on a Sidekick.

 The “comma” key and the “period” key are oddly placed. Everyone who tried typing text said they should be reversed for ease of use. Our tester with the most handheld gaming console experience said that it only took him four hours to get up to computer keyboard typing speeds.

The T-mobile G1 Android seems okay for someone who is used to a PlayStation console, a Xbox 360 console, or a competing smartphone's pullout QWERTY keyboard layout.

We do not trust the factory, nor other reviewers, quoted talk time for the G1's battery. More on battery size and comparisons to enterprise smartphones in part three. X

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Android review part one