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Full Review of the T-Mobile G1 Android Device

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gadget-lust-is-a-powerful-force dept.

palmsolo writes "Want to see the biggest and most in-depth review of the T-Mobile G1 Google Android device from a person who has been using it for a week? Check out over 260 photos and 5 videos of the device and just about every screen of the Google Android OS. Find out how well HTC, T-Mobile and Google did with this first-generation device." I played with one for a few minutes and found it a solid unit. It feels less polished than the iPhone, but the screen and keyboard are great. It'll be a real test of Open Source to see what happens with the iPhone App Store's closed system vs. Android's open one.

5 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Open source a selling point? by anomnomnomymous · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In all the ads/product reviews I've seen so far, none has mentioned that it's build on an open source framework.
    Whereas people will of course be plucking the fruits of the (free) apps that will be developed, right now it's not a selling point that makes any impression with the 'normal' user.

    I hope that, once released, there will be a place where all the apps will be collected (maybe accessible from within the phone), otherwise I don't think that people will -ever- know about the existence of such apps.

    --
    When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
  2. Re:Less Polished by ThinkingInBinary · · Score: 5, Informative

    Im still slightly in the gray about the open-ness of the android platform. Everywhere I've looked has said that Android is open but the official website under "Will Android work on [insert phone here]" Only gives the SDK emulator rather than an HCL.

    So, Android needs to be ported, like any OS. Mobile phones, in particular, have very specific hardware. If you tried to put the OS from the G1 onto another phone, you'd need to add drivers for the other chips on it, especially things like the cellular baseband chip, and the hardware for things like audio input/output, LEDs, etc. It's sort of like RockBox in that it requires a large chunk of work to be ported. They initially ran on only one device, but, over time, gained additional compatibility.

    --
    ttuttle is a rankmaniac
  3. Partial list of apps in Market by jsharkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    A few people have put together a list of all the apps observed in Market to date.

    I'm sure this will flood with even more over the next week when they open the developer portal. Oh yea, and I reverse engineered the iTunes remote control protocol and released an Android client GPL'ed: http://dacp.jsharkey.org/

  4. Re:Not quite so open by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) Some phones will lockdown the kernel, some might allow you to replace the kernel.

    2) Android drivers are open source, but vendors might throw in binary blobs (particularly for cell phone functionality).

    3) They use their own custom GUI toolkit and display -- not X, not GTK, not QT, not swing.

    4) The app store, sdk, etc are built for java. If you have a phone that isn't locked down, you could probably put native code on it, with some work.

    5) Also, they use a custom jdk (and libraries), so the java apps have to be built specifically for android

    6) Android is the distro. The app store is the package manager

    7) The app store will be able to check for updates to installed apps

    8) Debian can be used on some ARM and SH-based smart phones.

  5. Re:Then how do you feel about the G1? by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google have already discussed this. The bluetooth stack simply wasn't ready in time, so they removed it. There will be full bluetooth support soon.