iPhone 3GS from AT&T. Free Shipping
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 364 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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1 out of 2 people found this review helpful
3.0 stars
"It's not what you thought it would be."
Pros: The Market is a good idea, and it has a number of smart wireless options. Screen is beautiful and browsing is relatively fast. Solid construction, and I like the semi-sticky finish. The rollerball is very useful.
Cons: No HotSpot@Home, no video, keyboard is tough on big hands, no Graffiti and no stylus, no editing Word or Excel, GPS has no turn-by-turn. Button usage confusing at times, and multimedia messaging doesn't work like it should -- sends you to website.
Summary: I could not agree more with c|Net's assessment of the device. HTC, T-Mobile, and Google made too many hardware compromises here that make the device suffer. The "chin" concept makes it look weird, without question. The keyboard is laid out well, but the keys are too small for me. The capacitive screen is not going to make large men happy -- your fingers are too big, my brothers -- and it gets old, fast.
The speakerphone isn't loud enough, but when I'm in my car it paired up with the Sony MEX-BT2500 easily and it sounds terrific there. Bluetooth ops work well.
WiFi was very smart, smarter by far than any version of Linux out there: it doesn't even ask you for TKIP or AES, just the basic security profile (WEP, WPA, WPA2) and from your SSID and password, it just connects. Solid, 54Mbps withtin 100 feet of my Linksys WRT54GS.
The omission of HotSpot@Home bothers me. This was a great phone to help sell that service for T-Mobile.
The camera is basic, has a near-two second delay on shutter, and consequently your shots will fail a few times. The lack of video just adds insult to injury.
Battery life is mediocre to poor. My Nokia 3650, albeit doing much less, lasts 24 hours turned on. Your G1 will last six hours turned on. Keep your device limited to 2G connectivity unless you need it, or keep it jacked in and avoid drain altogether. (There should be an app called "JackOut" that automatically configures your G1 to shutdown radios other than the basic cellular one, when you remove the USB cable.)
The lack of a ROM-based Word/Excel application bothers me. The keyboard lets me compose email, but not text I would want to edit on a desktop? And spreadsheet is the most useful application of the past twenty years, how is it not here in some variant? Missed opportunity to showcase OpenOffice or someone's alternative to Excel.
So, would I keep it? Y'know, here's the thing. If someone offered me a Palm Pro right now, I'd swap in a second. I don't need an Android phone if it isn't going to have what I need, day one. this ultimately means I still need my venerable Dell Axim x50v to get some work done remotely, and my dream of ditching two devices for one has died after only 48 hours.
-R
T-Mobile G1 (black):
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