T-Mobile G1: Android Insights
Luckily, I'm a member of the selected few bloggers who got one of the first T-Mobile G1 phones here Austria. While the device is already available in Great Britain and the UK, the market launch in Austria will take place in 2009, but there's no specific date yet. During the next weeks I'll blog about my experiences with this new geek toy – for starters, here's an unboxing-video:
The first thing that comes to mind is a comparison with the iPhone – but I must say quite frankly that I could never use this phone, as it the lacks the keyboard I need though badly. That's why I'm currently using a T-Mobile HTC MDA, which suits my mobile e-mailing needs much better. Luckily, the G1 has a built-in keyboard as well (the hardware is actually manufactured by HTC) which works quite well. Google doesn't focus on entertainment, there's only 256MB of built-in memory – it's all about the operating system: Android is open source software. Instead of implementing a “single-point-of-software-sale” model (hello iStore), big G is relying on the creativity of the developer community. The number of available apps is quite low, since the device is so new – but this will probably change rapidly. I'm positively surprised on first impression, but I have yet do sync the device with my pc and try some apps.
One phone to bind them all
mobileblogger.at will go online soon – all postings will be aggregated on this site, and while most bloggers run German sites, there will also be some English reviews. Max, Michi, Luca, Peter, Helge, Robert, Martin, Georg and me got our phones yesterday. The official Feature-PDF is available on at T-Mobile US, I'm looking forwarding to testing the G1 under real live conditions – of course I'll keep you updated.
A new year has just started and I'm happy to invite all my readers to datadirt's first blog carnival: I'm curious about the new hardware you bought during the last year. Which shiny piece of technology is your favorite gadget, and which not-so-shiny one disappointed you? Feed the inner geek, write about satisfaction and disappointment. I'm sure that most of my readers experienced both scenarios, so let's just share them and spread the knowledge :mrgreen:
Combining amplified speakers with a slick and elegant touch-screen display sounds like a brilliant idea – in theory. But I do not even want to know about the fun Logitech's engineers had when declaring this piece of unfinished work: “Hey, we know that the touch-screen is not working well – who cares? There is not API or software anyways.” But that's not even the worst part: the speakers use USB to transmit music, which is not such a bad idea after all for laptop use, but the big big problem is this: as soon as the speakers are connected, every kind of internal or external soundcard is deactivated. Now ain't that great? I tried using the line-in, which renders all the additional touch screen functions useless and decreases the sound quality quite much. Since the product is way too heavy to qualify as a mobile laptop speaker, there's not much us for the Z-10 in my opinion. The sound is not that bad for speakers of this size – but the money is much better spent on a pair of JBL control speakers.