G1: My New Mobile Fave

I got my new phone by Google--the G1 which is manufactured by HTC. T-mobile invited their subscribers to get this new phone which is supposedly a competitor of the iPhone and was launched just today.

I don't own an iPhone but somebody in my family does. I thought I would love the iPhone but I guess I'm not such a big fan of the touchscreen-keyboard-less-kind-of gadget like the iPhone. I prefer the Blackberry 8320 better than all phones I've ever laid a hand on because I prefer the touch of little keys and the precision that comes with every input.

It was quite a sensation to be the first to experience a new gadget which offers the easiest browsing experience--that's the G1 promise under Google's flagship.

I thought it may be worth to try and see for myself what this phone can offer.

Before I continue, let me tell you that one among the discriminating factors that make me decide whether to have a particular phone over another is my mobile dilemma of being in a dead zone basically when I am at home. This problem was addressed promptly with T-mobile's hotspot at home service and since I've been enjoying the service, I didn't want to part with it. Thus, it would be so hard for me to change to a non-hotspot@home-enabled phone.

So the G1 runs on a breakthrough OS called the Android and with the 3G service made available with it, browsing and downloading stuff from the internet should be a breeze.

I didn't have much time to play around with the G1 but here's what I think.
It's a nice phone. Design-wise, I like it better than the iPhone. It has a 3megapixel camera, but it doesn't have video capture capability just like the Blackberry 8320. I don't know if I can customize the ringtone, but I'm really looking forward to be able to manipulate that part of the equation since it is so boring to stick to the ringtone that comes with the phone. There's always an essence of personality when you are able to set your favorite song or melody as your ring tone. Anyway, for now, I'll say that I haven't figured out how to do that yet but I'll work on that task and let you know later.

Hotspot@home-enabled? I don't think so. Even after I connected the G1 to my home network, it still registered a no service indication with the signal bar and that's really a major disappointment. That implies one thing. I can't make a call or be reached when I am at home if I take G1 as a mobile replacement. My mobile access, in other words, is cut off while I'm on my dead zone at home.

I like the way the G1 phone opens up with a keyboard underneath so you can easily type in your search terms, etc. when you are browsing the net. The keys are too small though for big hands but I like the way G1 feels on mine.

The one thing that sets G1 apart from other phones is the operating system that lets you launch applications so easily at a very efficient speed. There's a bunch of mobile applications that you can download for free that may keep you busy for a while like iSafe, cab4me, compareeverywhere, shopsavvy, picsay, imeem and so much more to enhance your mobile life.

The touchscreen, keyboard and the trackball combination provided on the G1 is basically the best user-interface combination in a single phone. It allows easy manipulation of browsed pages, text entries and paging down or up of the phone's screen. I'm delighted that G1 designers incorporated such capability in the phone.

I'm still playing around the G1 phone. On the sidelines, I'm actually enjoying the barcode scanning capability made possible through combining the G1's camera with two shopping tools (you can have either or both)--compareeverywhere and shopsavvy. It's fun to know that you can actually find out where to buy what at how much by picking out the cheapest price among a comparison that is automatically displayed or generated after an item's barcode is successfully captured and scanned by the phone's camera.

Try this. Take the G1 to your bathroom. Open your cabinet of toiletries. Launch either ShopSavvy or CompareEverywhere. Scan the barcode of the item. Enjoy a new discovery and enjoy it for a while because I know that you will be tempted to scan everything that has a barcode in it. Good luck!

Luckily for me, I have two numbers subscribed to T-mobile so I don't have to be completely incommunicado at home if I have to continue enjoying the G1, at least for now. A hotspot-at-home enabled Blackberry plus G1's new innovation is keeping my mobile life a little exciting these days.
What about you?