T-Mobile G1 review

T-Mobile G1 Review

Reviewed by: Bonnie Cha, Nicole Lee

Reviewed on: 16 October 2008

Features
Below the display are tactile navigation controls, including Talk and End/Power buttons, a Home shortcut, a back button, a trackball navigator and a Menu key. As with the touchscreen, the Menu button is contextual to the application you're in at the time. For example, if you're in the Web browser and press Menu, you'll see options to open a new window, go to a URL, bookmark a page and so on.

The left spine holds a volume rocker and a microSD expansion slot. To access the latter, you have to push the screen open in order to remove the protective cover. On the right side, you'll find a camera activation/capture button, though you can also press the trackball to take pictures. We actually preferred this method, since the dedicated camera key is small. Plus, when holding the phone horizontally, it's easy to nudge the screen upwards while trying to take a picture.

Disappointingly the G1 doesn't have a standard headphone jack

On the bottom of the unit is a mini USB port where you connect the power charger. Sadly, this is also your only option for connecting a headset, as there's no dedicated headphone jack, 3.5mm or otherwise. Yes, there's a headset included in the box, but you don't get the same comfort and quality as you would with a nice pair of headphones. If you want the privilege of using your own 'phones, you'll have to spend extra money to buy an adaptor. Last but not least, the camera lens -- sans flash self-portrait mirror -- is located on the back.

The first smart phone to run the Google Android operating system, the T-Mobile G1 delivers a number of basic core functions and tight integration with Google's products, including Gmail, Google Maps and Google Calendar. Wireless options and multimedia capabilities are also well represented on the G1, but there are some glaring omissions and restrictions that we'll get to later.

The quad-band G1 offers speakerphone, voice dialing, conference calling and speed dial. There's no support for visual voicemail, but one great convenience is that if you have Gmail, all your contacts will automatically be synchronised to the phone book. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo to a contact as well as a group ID and one of 33 polyphonic ringtones. There's even a setting to send a contact's phone call directly to voicemail every time.

The T-Mobile G1 has a very responsive touchscreen and finger-friendly interface

Bluetooth is onboard but the supported profiles are limited to wireless headsets and hands-free kits. As with the iPhone 3G, there's no love for stereo Bluetooth or tethering, so you can't use it as a modem for your laptop. The latter is a lesser issue for us, but if we can't get a 3.5mm headphone jack, we'd at least like stereo Bluetooth support.

As an alternative to 3G, the G1 has integrated Wi-Fi and it can seamlessly transfer between 3G and accessible Wi-Fi networks. In fact, the smart phone's YouTube application will only present videos in high resolution when you're using Wi-Fi and play the low-res version when using the mobile phone network, in order to optimise the load times. There's an application in the Android Market called iSkoot for Skype, which allows you to make Skype calls via the phone's radio rather than Wi-Fi, but we imagine there will be VoIP clients added to the database.