claudio rivera

so, i got my g1 wednesday morning and i’ve been playing with it pretty much non-stop since then.

• it’s not bulky or ugly, like a lot of reviews and even pictures made it out to be… it’s smaller than a sidekick and even a hair lighter than one

• flipping the screen up is a little intimidating at first… the spring is really strong, and it lands into place with a pretty loud crack… again, it will be another sidekick-like trademark sound that you will hear a lot
• 3g service is pretty decent… i lost it a few times and got edge, which was still ok, especially on mobile optimized web sites and such
• gps was great, with a view of the sky… it pinpointed me at a bus stop, and i even walked down the street about 25 feet and it followed me right along… indoors, i’m not sure if it’s by design or not, but it brings up the gps icon and it chugs away and never finds your exact location
• shortcuts are similar to sidekick’s and can be customized… i find myself using shortcuts and the trackball more than the touchscreen
• the camera is weird… first of all, i don’t know if the camera button is supposed to open the app or not… i feel like i’ve accidently hit it, and a while later, the camera pops up… going through the apps menu and clicking camera brings it up right away… i don’t know what’s up with the camera button as a link… maybe i’m just crazy?… anyway, the camera is decent, but not great… the autofocus is great, but it takes really long exposures, which result in blurry pictures… to be fair, i haven’t had a chance to take pictures in sunlight
• i will admit that two-finger gestures like pinching are killer apps for the iphone… zooming in works fine on the g1, but it’s not nearly as convenient as the iphone
• the marketplace was supposed to have a ton of apps, but they took them all down earlier this week, due to security issues?… however, they quickly started reappearing, and by the time i got my g1, there were about 14… now, there are about 40, not counting games… all apps are free, so far… i’ve heard that paid apps will be available early next year…
• the aim app has been bumming me out… it runs in the background and alerts you to new messages, which is rad… but, it also logs you out, randomly… taking with it any conversations you had going… i’m not sure if that’s an app flaw or an android flaw… it would be nice if it at least stored conversations on the phone, so even if you lost service or if the aim app lost priority in android’s ram, it would still list your chat history
• over the air, automatic synching with gmail/contacts/calendar is sweeeeet
• again, i don’t know what part of the phone is to blame, but memory optimization/prioritization needs some work… most of the time, the phone flies… but, every once in a while, depending on what apps you have open, it can take up to 3-5 seconds to change screens… i wish there was a way to “close” apps
• phone call quality is great
• touch screen is great
• the keyboard is great… the keys aren’t raised, so typos happen for me… but, hands down, better than iphone typing
• trackball is great to use, but it’s textured, which i don’t like… i miss the sidekick trackball
• battery life is typical for a smartphone with a big display and a touch screen (about 12 hours of pretty much non-stop use, including 3g and wifi), but it’s shorter than i’m used to… i may need to start carrying the charger around with me
• tunewiki is a killer app
• hold down the dial button and voice dialing pops up… say “call home” and it pops up a dialog “call home?”… hit ‘ok’ and it dials… pretty nice for driving, i’d imagine
• hold down the home button and it brings up your currently running and recently accessed apps (like alt-tab/command-tab)… niiiice
• back button ruuuules… everything you do goes into a history list of sorts… say you’re writing an email and you get a text notification… you click on the notification and it shows your incoming text… on the same screen, maybe you send a text reply… well, after you type it, you can hit the back button and it’ll go back to your email! say, before you went back to your email, you opened up youtube… you hit the back button and it goes to your texts… hit back again and it goes to email… very nice for when you forget what you were doing, when you got that text… haha

overall, i love it… its flaws aren’t that bad… and it’s wayyyyyyyyy better than my old sidekick… haha

but, what i’m really excited for is what the community will bring to this phone… there are lots of things missing, but programs will get written for everything… yesterday, there was no video player… today, there is… last week, there was no exchange synching, today there is… that’s the beauty of this phone… anybody can develop programs for it and there are no restrictions! even with t-mobile saying “pretty please, don’t write apps to tether your phone to your laptop”, there’s nothing in the android sdk to stop someone from doing it… haha… same with skype…

so, i’m very excited for the next 6 months or so, when more people start developing more killer apps!