1.5 Days with my New G1

Yesterday, roughly after lunch I received my G1. Time to migrate and move on from my Treo 650. Step 1 un-boxing and activation. Thankfully already being a T-Mobile user, my SIM card (2G not 3G) was ready to go.

Powered On.... and ready to go. It took few seconds to get totally started and to login to Gmail. For those who don't know, if you plan to get an Android based phone, or at least the G1 you are required to have a Gmail account. If you don't have an account, it provides you with an option to create one. But once you've logged in, at least in my case, it automatically sync'd my contacts and my calendar. Surprisingly it only took a few seconds, on some demo's I've seen, it took considerably longer. I guess at this point I should step back a bit and give thanks to the people at GooSync for making it possible to me to sync my Calendar and Contacts from my Treo 650 running PalmOS. So at this point thanks to the joy of synchronization I was up and running. Even pictures associated with contacts on Gmail/GTalk were sync'd.

So on the physical side... the G1 is roughly the same size as my old Treo 650. Roughly the same thickness, same weight, just a heck of a better screen, better browser, better communication. Unfortunately the one current downside to the G1.... a big lack of applications. I've been a Palm OS user since 2000, and I've grown use to the fact that if I needed an application some quick searching and viola, there it would be. Unfortunately Android is too new and the Android Market is still relativily empty at the moment as is the collection at Handango. While I'm not worried that applications won't become available, the question is more of when. I've found a number of apps that are in development stage, many that were submitted as part of the ADC. I've also found a number of apps that look very promising,but for unknown reasons they won't install. So as for applications... so far I've installed The T-Mobile Hotspot Connect client, Bonsi Blast (an addictive game) Brain Genius Deluxe (another game), PicSay, iMap, and iSkoot (for those familiar a great Skype client for mobiles). I also installed one app outside the Market: ConnectBot an SSH client. i'm still looking for a decent IRC client and filemanager.

But overall, the G1 is turning out to be a great device. The primary items I wanted are there. The browser is amazingly good as compared to Blazer on the Treo 650. The native mail client with IMAP and Gmail support work smoothly. Like the Palm, the G1 includes threaded SMS but also includes a builtin IM client that works with AIM, GTalk, Yahoo and MSN.The nicest part is how intuitive it all is, I have yet to open the manuals.

The only down side so far has been the battery life, but then again I have been working it pretty hard surfing the internet and playing a couple games I downloaded off the Market. With the WiFi enabled, surfing is lighting quick, but the battery drain extremely quick. Bluetooth also takes a bit of a toll, but I have yet to pair it with my headset and see the battery life. Thankfully charging is pretty quick. With the USB charger it only takes about an hour to regain most of the spent time.

As for browsing.... works great. Browsing with WebKit is great and makes the mobile web some much more enjoyable (sorry for the ghetto screenshot, still can't figure out how to take screenshots from the G1 itself).

 

So that concludes day 1, and it looks like the first patch may be being released as early as tomorrow. More to come from the G1 as time goes by.