Screaming Penguin

I just haven't had time to do a proper review for the "Android dev phone 1" I got a while back, but a few people have asked, so here goes the stripped down stream of consciousness version. It's an unlocked HTC Dream (aka G1) running Android 1.0. I am an AT&T subscriber/customer. The unlocked phone worked fine out of the box (plug in your SIM and go), but it doesn't work with AT&T 3G (different frequency than the regular G1 carrier, T-Mobile). It does support all the 2G data technologies as well (which means EDGE on AT&T) but I haven't experienced the 3G-ness. The Good Even without 3G though, my overall impression is very positive. I use the WiFi support 98% of the time anyway, so the 3G hasn't been an issue (just about anywhere I go nowadays, it seems, has WiFi, I need to get out and hike more I guess). It switches between WiFi and GPRS/EDGE seamlessly; I haven't had any issues with networking. The screen is quite nice. It's a 3.2" 480x320 touchscreen. In general a bigger screen would be better, but the quality is excellent. Very clear, responds well to touch controls. Less obvious interactions such as the speed of a finger swipe are taken into account in the base apps, and it works well (fling through your contacts quickly, and so on). Though multi-touch is not officially supported, it is reported to work in some ports and there is no technical reason why it's not there (the rumor is that a patent issue with Apple is holding it up). At any rate, I haven't missed it, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing. The browser is good. I am not a big mobile user, but it's 1000% better in that department than the Blackberry I had a few years back. The Android browser is WebKit based (of course). It runs GWT applications fine, though you do have to zoom on some of the widgets to be able to click on things (expected). It does not currently have Flash support, but that is purported to be on the way. It lets you zoom around pages a few different ways, re-orients fine, uses foreground and background "windows" instead of tabs, and works as I would expect. The fact that it has removable storage in the form of a micro-SD card is a huge plus. It's really great to be able to transfer any file I want and use it like a removable drive, and to be able to swap in and out SD cards (supports up to 16GB there I am told, comes with a 1GB card). Audio is decent for a mobile device. I don't use the external speakers much, but they are audible if you want to play a movie or music and have the people in the immediate area hear it too. To get music and movies on it, you just plug it in via USB and drag what you want there. Great. The dev phone doesn't have a built in Amazon MP3 app, but the consumer version apparently does. The platform itself is the biggest benefit. Having an open platform that is pretty easy to develop software on, and that multiple vendors/companies/individuals support is great. It is still early days for Android, so it's not perfect yet (Bluetooth support is still spotty, some of the APIs are clumsy), but people seem to forget that it's a long race - and it's pretty amazing that it's this good this early. The apps I use the most are the browser, Gmail, Twidroid, YouTube, and Chess. There are a bunch of others I use less often, but still are good (Weather Channel, Facebook, Maps, Compass, Bartender, RestaurantFinder [the one I wrote, I hate the "Rah" one]). Some of the stuff people have done combining all the sensor data, including accelerometer, is amazing. Things like the Tricorder. I am not a big Trekkie, so I don't really know what a Tricorder is, but all the stuff is this combines, even though it's a novelty, is impressive. The Notifications mechanism is fantastic. It's unobtrusive but informative via the top bar. You use a touch slide to see all your notifications, and dismiss as you see fit or dive in from there. Email, twitter, messaging, calendar events, any anything that wants to, all use the same mechanism - it becomes intuitive and super fast to use quickly. The Bad It's not all roses. The Android Market where you get apps is very hard to navigate. You have to scroll on and on with only 10-15 apps or so on a screen, and a limited number of categories. Recently they put up some more online support, so you can browse off of your phone, but it's still just hard to find and keep up with stuff. Also, recent bugs concerning upgrading applications have caused some pain for users and developers. The battery life is pretty bad. I get 6-8 hours or so, but I have to disable GPS, Bluetooth, and 3G (it even trying to do 3G drains it, whether the network supports it or not, it appears). With the GPS on it only runs a few hours it seems. One plus on the battery front is that it's just a USB connection to charge it. I thought this might be annoying at first, but it's been great. Just about anywhere I go I can find a USB plug to use (and they work whether or not a machine is on). Also, standalone USB transformer/plugs are a commodity. Having a non-proprietary charge plug is nice. The GPS itself is very flaky. I haven't looked into the details at all, but it seems like it must be a fairly weak receiver (hardware issue, not Android problem). It needs clear sky view for sure, good weather, and even then it takes some time to acquire. My handheld Garmin works much better. I guess that is to be expected, but it's a bit of a downer when you want to build GPS aware apps. That said, the network provided location facilities are decent, and the APIs let you easily switch between providers. The camera is lame, even though it's 3.2mp (again hardware). Yes, it works, but it's very slow, and difficult to get clear shots - pretty much par for a phone camera. Though it is nice that it has a camera, so that you can incorporate it into apps, etc (Shutter Speed helps it a bit too, but it's still just not a real camera, of course). Onboard memory is a bit slim (192MB, I think), and it complains if you install a large number of applications. That is a bit of a drawback, but truth be told I doubt many people hit that wall (I installed a ton, just to see what people were doing with Android dev). The Ugly Overall the hardware is sub-par. Beyond the battery, GPS, and camera, I don't like the HTC keyboard mechansim. I do like having a keyboard separate from the screen, but after a few weeks of use this one has gotten a bit, how shall I put it, creaky. It's not the keyboard itself that is creaky, but the mechanism to flip it up or down. When you are on regular phone calls, if it moves in the slightest, you hear it. That's bad. This isn't an Android issue of course (and more devices are on the way), but it is a big G1 gripe for me.