Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 12:00PM Yesterday, we posted a review of the G1 from T Mobile. Jamie also had a chance to play with the phone prior to taping Root Access. Here's his first impression thoughts on the device. Oh, and you may notice the G1 creates considerably more buzzing than the iPhone on our microphone system. Sorry about that...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 7:06AM The quick review? No need to trade in your iPhone. The longer review? Well, first kudos to T Mobile for sending a review unit to an Apple-centric site. It would've been easy for them to pass, but clearly they're proud of their product, and there are some things they can be proud.
The best feature in which the G1 bests the iPhone is camera quality. Still photos look far better on the G1. Beyond that though, and it's hard to tell whether this is the phone's fault or the Android OS, but navigating is clunky. The biggest issues come from the home button, back button, menu button, clickable scroll wheel button at the bottom of the phone. Apple has shown that you only need one button (and maybe another for copy and paste).
It's not fair to compare the phone to the iPhone, as it's not so much a competitor, as a phone doing its own thing, its own way. Take it or leave it. It's good enough that many G1 customers who were thinking about leaving to go to AT&T for the iPhone could change their minds. I don't think many people will be trading in their iPhones for the G1 though.
We'll get a better sense of what the Android OS is capable of in the upcoming slew of other Android-based phones just around the corner.
Here's the full video review: