Love Hate
Ewan at Mobile Industry Review has posted his 16 things I Like about the G1 and i pretty much agree with him. I haven’t been as excited about a new device like this since the original iPhone. I could probably add on another 16 things i Like too. But instead ill list the negatives.
Battery life - par for the course - and what you pay for in terms of OS speed, great 3G speed and lovely big screen, etc. At least with the G1 I can get a spare battery / or bulky extended battery/cover combo.
The Device Hardware. It’s not a patch on some other HTC devices in terms of bulk and overall design. The screen isn’t true to the device when open - see below. The device needs to be open for a high percentage of use - which makes it slightly ungainly and awkward.
Heat generation - again comes with the territory - iPhone 3G and HTC Diamond both generate similar hand warming experiences.
Camera - HTC don’t do cameras. every HTC phone I have used has had a very poor camera - and this one suffers from a similar issue with the cover actually degrading the camera performance - be it form finger prints or just the materials used.
Video recording - like that hollywood blockbuster it should be coming soon, but already I missed it this weekend when playing with my kids. I had to run and dig out my N95, which i couldn’t find - so ended up using my lumix.
Video playback - its a joy on the iPhone, its pretty good on the N96. Its close to useless at the moment on the G1, but when core comes out that should be addressed.
MP3 - it seems to drain the battery very badly playing back MP3, and support for album art, file transfer is limited. on par with nokia’s current efforts - well behind iPod erm I mean iPhone.
Non cloud syncing. Its a pain to transfer odd the images - without physically removing the memory card. All that usb mode crap is hidden away.
Finish - again a love / hate - the soft touch almost rubberised paint on the black one - make it stick in your pocket when putting in and out - combined with the overall bulk - its more of a coat pocket than jeans pocket phone - which for me is a bit of a negative - esp when the weather improves. I suspect the smooth white version is a little easier getting in and out of jeans.
Little things - the usb flap is a bit unnecessary, no 3.5mm audio - and no stereo bluetooth - show the devices lack of a music / video focus.
Camera button - is badly placed - they way you hold the phone to steady it means that as you press the button - your thumb ends up pushing up the screen and stopping you pressing the button - though now I know I can use the roller ball instead its not such an issue - I have stopped using the dedicated camera button all together now.
No virtual keyboard option - which means unopened/single handed usage is impossible.
No multi-touch - ok no one has it but apple. But its sadly missed in maps.
oh I’m really loving it really - and as I said I could probably write a list twice as long that evangelising the positives.
