Android G1

nemowolf · June 17th, 2009, 09:29 PM

Anyone use of these? I am looking to switch carriers as the cost of keeping Verizon is just ridiculous now. If you happen to have one can you give me some impressions and what to expect/not expect out of it?

paul9 · June 17th, 2009, 10:04 PM

Don't expect a lot of battery life.

You should try the Android SDK. It has an emulator you can try some of the apps out with.
I love my G1, but it does have some quirks, like poor battery life and poor Bluetooth functionality. Newer models may be better.

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ShyguyXPC · June 17th, 2009, 11:44 PM

LOL, Nemo, check back a few pages in the F@H chat thread for this week.

(was asking about them, and commenting on the iPhone a few days ago, and asked Karma about his that he uses)

KarmaKiller · June 18th, 2009, 12:04 AM

First off, they are in fact great phones. I find new uses for mine all the time. They have tons of apps to choose from in the market, lots of "fine tuning" you can do.
As paul said, the battery is the worst part about it. BUT, there is a app that cost like $3 in the market that will help you out on that. It made mine last several hours longer. (it just disables the extra stuff on the phone you probably won't use)

As far as the bluetooth functionality, the only thing I've tried to use mine for is to sync up with my car radio, and it does that now after the cupcake update. So really I have no quirks there, but I don't use bluetooth besides that.
The camera would be the other bad thing about the phone IMO. It doesn't take the best photos. But I have a nice digi camera anyways, so that didn't matter to me.

Honestly, I've played with a lot of the phones on the market, and nothing was as "snappy" and responsive as the G1's GUI. It is really smooth, much better then any windows mobile OS I've used. I personally like the way the menu/settings is setup. It's pretty streamline IMO.
All in all, the only phone I'd probably trade this in for is the HTC touch diamond, or the G2.

nemowolf · June 18th, 2009, 05:40 PM

Karma, how do you find the cell service? Are you finding that the calls come in clearly and have no issues with dropped calls? What about texts? Sometimes i will get a text like 12 hours after it was originally sent, not often but sometimes.

I really appreciate your honest opinion. Something that i read on the Ars review was that the build quality was "cheap" and it didnt seem to have the solid build that some other slider phones had. Wobbly screen. Does yours have the same problem?

Only thing i would honestly do at this point would be to sync my headset for uses with bluetooth as i dont have anything else that uses bluetooth. I do have a dongle for use with a bluetooth keyboard mouse at work so i might try to sync it that way.

Whats your real use time for the battery? It says 5 hours talk time for the battery, i never use the phone for that long at a time but i do tend to only charge my current phone every couple of days. I might be concerned if i am having to charge it daily or sooner.

@Shy; I am going to review the thread and see if i can find it.

KarmaKiller · June 18th, 2009, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nemowolf

Karma, how do you find the cell service? Are you finding that the calls come in clearly and have no issues with dropped calls? What about texts? Sometimes i will get a text like 12 hours after it was originally sent, not often but sometimes.
I've never experience a dropped call at all with this phone or T mobile for that matter. Texts never take anytime to go through, but I've noticed sometimes it takes a bit for the pics to get sent/received.
For the very first time ever, yesterday my phone totally didn't ring at all, just made a beep and said I had a voice mail. IDK if it was a fluke or what, but it's the only time that's happened to me.
I really appreciate your honest opinion. Something that i read on the Ars review was that the build quality was "cheap" and it didnt seem to have the solid build that some other slider phones had. Wobbly screen. Does yours have the same problem?
Actually I think it's kind of funny you mention this. IMO, this is one of the better built phones with a slide out screen. I looked at a sidekick, and man that thing was flimsy. The screen on the G1 is not loose at all, or doesn't wiggle around. It's very solid IMO, much better then some of the other phones I tried out. Both mine and the g/f's is quite sturdy.

Only thing i would honestly do at this point would be to sync my headset for uses with bluetooth as i dont have anything else that uses bluetooth. I do have a dongle for use with a bluetooth keyboard mouse at work so i might try to sync it that way.
Like I mentioned before, the only time I've ever attempted to use bluetooth on the phone is to sync with my car radio, and that worked with no issues. I can play the music I have on my phone through the car stereo.

Whats your real use time for the battery? It says 5 hours talk time for the battery, i never use the phone for that long at a time but i do tend to only charge my current phone every couple of days. I might be concerned if i am having to charge it daily or sooner.
Well your probably gonna have to charge it everyday. I charge mine daily, normally at night when I'm in bed. In my experience, with a "normal" daily use, The battery is about dead by 8-9PM, I unplug it from the charger about 7am. But, the more you play with it, the faster it dies. If you have wifi, gps, bluetooth, etc, all turned on, your gonna be sucking down the battery. That's why I suggested the market app. It will disable all the for you, control the brightness of the screen, just the small things to make the battery last longer.
Also you can pick up an extra battery from the web for about $20, or get the larger battery for I believe $35. I don't know how much longer it lasts though..
@Shy; I am going to review the thread and see if i can find it.

nemowolf · June 18th, 2009, 08:37 PM

Awesome. I will have to hit the store on saturday and see if i can get a quick demo from the folks in the store and see what they have to offer. I am not so inclined to pay 150 bucks but it would be worth it if i can get more services at the same price im already paying.

I will let you know what I end up deciding.

paul9 · June 19th, 2009, 09:55 PM

Pretty much in agreement with everything K said. I tweak a few settings for extra battery life, Usually charge it overnight, every night. Mine doesn't often run completely flat, but I do spend a lot of time on the web with it. T-Mobile is pretty good service-wise in the U.K., rarely any dropped calls or late arriving texts. GPS is the major battery hog, which is unfortunate, as there are some really fun GPS apps out there, and even just allowing the Google homepage access to your GPS co-ords can be helpful.
The Bluetooth wasn't any use for transferring pictures, sounds and other files between phones, which is what I miss from that, but I haven't tried since the Cupcake update. It is fine with a BT handsfree car set, though.
Don't get the white version of K's phone, that is the one I have (I refused to wait an extra week or two until they got more black stock) and the keyboard on that one is harder to read when it illuminates. The black one doesn't look like it would have that problem, which comes from the gray colour of the keys on the white model.

thephilosophizer · June 19th, 2009, 11:50 PM

Yeah I will add in on the bad battery, but the battery is only kind of bad. Thing is, that if I use it like I would use a normal phone the battery will last for a couple days, but when you are web browsing and running apps continuously, the battery does drain.
The build is not as sturdy as the iphone. Especially because it has the slide out keyboard. There are sometimes when it can feel a little bit flimsy, but it isn't really a problem.
But it has so much awesome stuff. I shoved an 8gb microSD in there, got all the room I need, and it's hot swapable (this is actually another somewhat significant problem: apps can only be installed on the internal memory, not the card; it doesn't take too long to run out of room and need to uninstall some unused apps).
The slideout keyboard is great for when I need to punch out emails for work, and the newly added soft-keypad is great for essentially everything else.
All in all, the more I use the thing, the more I like it. I ordered mine on the release day, so I have had some time to try it out. And, I have had more than a couple people with iphones think twice after playing with mine.

KarmaKiller · June 20th, 2009, 01:02 AM

hehe, not to mention the phone is cool enough to actually emulate a Iphone.

Oh and also a tip for those that don't know it already, if you power off your phone once a day, it really helps with battery life. It shuts down all the open apps you may not realize are open. I've been doing that for a month or 2 now, and I've noticed the difference.