After some consideration, I finally decided to get the T-Mobile G1. It’s the first phone to run Android, the open-source mobile platform developed by Google. So far, the phone is running decent. It’s not mind-blowing (although nothing ever really blows my mind) but not disappointing either. Apps market is pretty great, easy to use and the apps available are quite neat. Everything in the market is free so far, paid apps are coming Q1 09. The hardware is great, HTC never disappoints. The touchscreen is very responsive and trackball is smoother than I thought. The Android interface is intuitive and aesthetically pleasing. The keyboard can takes some getting used to, but overall the keys are easy to press and nicely spaced out. The biggest and only downside for me is that the phone doesn’t support A2DP so far, hopefully the feature will be implemented in the near future.
Most people compared the G1 to the iPhone 3G. There wasn’t much of a comparison for me. Tactile response and a full QWERTY is a must for me. I also appreciate being able to perform basic tasks such as copy and paste, or change my own phone batteries (Can you imagine going for days without your phone while it’s on its way to Apple?). The idea of being stuck with no hardware options, having Apple as the sole decision maker and source for support, only one app store, completely tied to iTunes, (the list goes on) just isn’t appealing. Being part of and supporting a new and evolving open-source project is much more exciting and worth my money.
The hard decision for me was deciding between the X1 by Sony Ericsson and G1. The X1 runs WinMo 6, has a higher resolution, A2DP, and generally looks a lot slicker. However heavy hacking is required for it to run Android, and it probably doesn’t integrate well with the hardware. The X1 is also about $1000, twice as much as the G1. Oh well.