24 Hours with the Android Dev Phone 1™

schwa — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:42:15 +0000

Unboxing so not porn worthy. Developer unit came in a plain white cardboard box.
Initially thought it was smaller than my iPhone 3G. Then I realised I have a 3rd-party case on my 3G. I’d forgotten how slim the iPhone really was. G1 feels like a brick in comparison.
Slightly rubberised feel to it is good.
OMG NEW PHONE SMELL! (After about 18 hours the smell has all but gone)
Getting the rear case on to insert the battery and SIM card is a major pain.
The Mini USB and MicroSD covers are almost impossible to open if you have no fingernails.
Mini USB for charging and syncing is a huge win. I hate the iPhone/iPod USB cable with a passion.
No mini headphone jack – headphone has a mini USB plug on the end. WTF people?
I was led to believe the phone would feel cheap and poorly made. While it isn’t iPhone quality it feels pretty sturdy considering it has a flip screen.
AC Adaptor is just a generic brick. Apple spoils us with their industrial design.
Activation didn’t work out of the box. I failed to find a cardboard insert with the phone describing how to configure the phone’s APN for activation (did google it myself though).
Once activated it somehow managed to fetch all my contacts. Which surprised me because I didn’t think I stored any contact information on Google. Need to investigate.
The camera is so much better than the iPhone’s camera it is not even funny.
Built-in digital compass is really nice.
Hate hate hate hate the keyboard. At least it is backlit. I like the “fire and forget” autocompletion on the iPhone. I love having a keyboard while the screen is in portrait mode.
I hate flipping out that damned keyboard every 2 minutes.
90% of the time when I flip out the keyboard I accidentally mash the volume control by mistake.
Volume controls are too soft and will be too prone to being accidentally mashed anyway.
Not found any use of multitouch yet – but doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Only found a single app using the accelerometer (3rd party Texas Hold’em game). Every other app bases screen orientation on whether or not the keyboard is flipped out.
Turning off the G1 is silly – 4 or 5 steps
Dedicated camera button is silly again – and not re-mappable AFAICT.
Too many icons in the status bar. I don’t know what 1/2 of them mean.
There are just 3 installed widgets – not found a category in the store to find new widgets.
I like their “finder” more than the iphones. But both seem underdeveloped.
The browser is shit. You really get used to the double tap and multitouch features of Mobile Safari. I don’t use Mobile Safari too much (preferring dedicated apps) but it towers over the Android browser.
The E-mail app is functional – but plain. Cannot swipe to delete mail. To delete mail you seem to have to read it first. Ick.
In E-mail “message mode” so much screen real estate is taken up with buttons. This is the best Google can do?
Composing e-mail is plain. Again hating the keyboard.
Built-in calculator is so incredibly shit. This is definitely a huge 3rd party opportunity (whether it is intentional or not is another matter).
So far the flipout keyboard (and lack of onscreen keyboard) is the single biggest problem.
Vibrator is really cheap feel. dont know how to explain it.
Camera seems to have some kind of autofocus, while pointing it it clicks and refocuses, could be software I guess.
installing an app warns you about what features it uses: e.g. camera, your location, network, your contact info etc. Which is REALLY nice.
Dumb! Doesn’t have GPS turned on by default. Have to dig down silly menu system to find it. You would think the Maps app would prompt for it.
Barcode scanning works well with G1 (3rd party app). Would be impossible with iPhone.

That’s all I have for now. More coming.

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24 Hours with the Android Dev Phone 1™