Wednesday, October 22, 2008 |
T-Mobile G1 Review (HTC Dream)
Yesterday it came... my T-Mobile G1. After having used it for a little over 24 hours now I have to say that it definately is worthy of all of the hype. I had the phone fully set up in less than an hour. The interface was extremely easy and made a lot of sense. I had never touched the android emulator and I didn't even open the instruction book -- it just was all extremely natural. I'm just going to go through this one thought at a time.Physical look/feel A lot of people had been saying that the G1 looked too flimsy and unattractive. To be honest, I really saw that point -- until yesterday when I held one in my hands. It's true that its plastic but the phone is built extremely solid. It doesn't feel like it's going to crack on you and the sliding screen is smooth and well built. I also have to say that the phone really does not look as bad as people had been saying it did. I think maybe the photos didn't do it justice? I was a bit concerned leading up to the delivery of my G1 that I would somehow have to route my IMAP accounts through my gmail account (which I don't even use). I was very pleasantly surprised when I found that that is absolutely not the case. It's true that things like your contacts sync with your gmail contacts but the email is an actual real client.... oh, and it's TRUE IMAP unlike what BlackBerry calls an IMAP solution. I am able to access all of the folders in my IMAP accounts and I can use my own outgoing SMTP server which is yet another thing that BlackBerry can't do. There are only 2 things that I miss from my blackberry and these really aren't drastically important. The first is I liked that BlackBerry pushed the email to the device. Now, in using IMAP on BlackBerry it wasn't always an instant push because the BlackBerry servers would only check your IMAP account every 15 mins but the advantage this did have was saving on battery life. When setting up an IMAP account on the android platform, you are given the option of having it check every 5, 10, 15, or 30 mins. This is really the normal way email apps on phones work so its not that this is a bad thing but it does take a toll on your battery life which is important on a device like this. The other option that you had in the BlackBerry email system is the ability to set different alerts for each email address that you set up. This is actually something that I really miss but something I can live without. In all honesty, it's probably something that will have a solution once more and more developers get on board. Battery Life / Power This device consumes a lot of power, no doubt. I drained my battery last night in about 4 or 5 hours of using it -- but that was, of course, constant use. That is a lot less than my BlackBerry Pearl but definately within range for a phone like this. The iPhone doesn't do any better than this. Oh, did I mention that the G1 has a replaceable battery? Carry a few spares and laugh at your friends with iPhones that either run their phones dead or have to walk around connected to an external brick battery. One thing about this phone that is, by far, one of the MOST important things for me in a phone is the USB charging. This phone can be charged anywhere with a standard mini-USB plug. This also means that you do not have to buy 5 new chargers to replace the 5 chargers you had for your BlackBerry.... If you had a Nokia phone, well, sorry.... Welcome to truely open charging. MiniUSB cables are about $2 online and you can find chargers (AC and car) for less than $10. No need to buy specific HTC or T-Mobile chargers. Another thing worth noting is that, as of yet, I haven't been able to locate a place to buy an extra battery. I'm sure that with the 1.5 million units that T-Mobile pre-sold, HTC is putting emphasis on getting the phones out the door. I'm sure extra batteries will be readily available soon. I did see a link on Google Shopping for a battery for $49.99 but it was the only place and I wasn't totally sure if it was the correct battery. Applications Today is the official release of the first Android phone and I've ALREADY installed all of the applications that I need. An SSH client is the most notable need and that was filled by an SSH client called ConnectBot. It does it's job just as well as any mobile SSH client. On the same token I also saw a VNC client (and server!) that is in development. Apparently they work fine already but don't support authentication yet which rules out the usefulness for me at this time. Ready for the cutting edge? There are 2 applications for the Android platform that is straight out of sci-fi... well, sort of. These are Compare Everywhere and Shop Savvy. Both of these programs do essentially the same thing which involves using the camera on your phone to read UPC bar codes off of products and then return a list of the prices it finds for that product both online and locally! Now when you're in a store and see a "too-good-to-be-true" deal, all you have to do is scan the bar code and see what the REAL price should be. This one will DEFINATELY save you some serious cash -- and it's just oh so cool to use too. There is also the option of building wish lists and shopping lists in the same fashion. What about Twitter? Of course! I'm currently using an Alpha release of a program called TwitDroid which is phenomenal. It even has the ability to post photos built right in to the application. It's really just like Twitterific on a whole lot of steroids. As far as stability goes, there is some room for improvement but it IS an alpha release. It definately fills the need. Any Cut .... This is a program that you NEED to get. It allows you to put lots of features and shortcuts on your desktop that are not options built into the operating system. I was able to put 2 icons on my desktop, one for Twitter and one for BrightKit, that open up a window for me to type a text message directly to that service. This is insanely convient. Ready for more Sci-Fi? There is an awesome program called Locale which allows your phone to configure it's self based on where you are, what time it is, and a whole list of other scenarios. The program even has a built in ability to post to Twitter. You can let the phone read your location based on cell towers and/or GPS and have it automatically change your ring tone, your network, and a host of other amazing things. There is an extensive list of applications that are available in the Market (Google's App Store) and available online. Installing applications is simple. We're only in the beginning of Android and there are already enough applications to meet your needs and even some that meet needs you didn't even know you had. Messaging The interface for SMS and MMS is really awesome. Messages are threaded by contact which is really nice because you can easily go into Messaging and click on the entire conversation rather than having to click through messages from other people as well -- this is really important if you use Twitter via SMS. A huge step up in moving to this phone from my BlackBerry is that Android is smart enough to realize it doesn't have signal and it will queue messages to be sent whenever it does. This is a HUGE thing for me since I work in a data center that has spotty coverage inside not to mention I drive I66 through an extremely rural area where signal drops frequently. Radio/Signal I don't have any hard data on this yet but I have definately noticed that the fringe areas that I drive through are a lot smaller with this phone than compared to my BlackBerry. For example, there is one notable area near my house where I lose signal and with this phone I was able to drive a lot further into that area before I lost signal. I've also noticed that it seems to have a much stronger signal inside buildings than most GSM phones do. In short, this phone definately has no shortage of radio strength. Browser The browser that comes with the phone is unbelievable. It's true browsing and it supports a lot of extra languages that very few mobile phones do. I was, at first, a little sad that there wasn't a Facebook application for Android but after visiting the Facebook page (not the mobile -- the real one) I realized that there really isn't a need. In fact, Facebook loaded much faster and I was able to do things much quicker than I could on my desktop machine! If speed and real browsing isn't enough to get you it has multiple windows! That's right -- you can now browse multiple web pages at the same time and swap between them effortlessly. This is one aspect of browsing on mobile phones that I always thought was missing. User Interface People said that the iPhone had them at scrolling.... well it's true... The android interface is very easy to use, much like the iPhone interface, but that addition of a keyboard was a much needed improvement. The screen is very responsive and very precise. There is no need for a stylus and moving icons and rearranging things is just as easy as on a desktop computer. The interface is very intuitive and it doesn't take a lot of figuring out, if any at all. It's also very customizable. There is nothing not to love about it! Camera When I started using Compare Everywhere and scanning barcodes with my camera I noticed something interesting.... my phone was making some clicking noises. I eventually realized what was going on. This phone actually has the ability to focus on objects and the clicking was coming from the camera when the application was refocusing the bar code so it could read it. I don't know that I've ever seen anything like this in a phone before. The quality is more than what you would expect from any 3 megapixel camera and it also does quite well despite my nervous hands that always seem to shake when taking pictures. I think about 50% of the pictures I took with my BlackBerry were blurred but that isn't the case so far with this phone. Absolutely no complaints about the camera. I haven't yet seen a way to capture video but I'm thinking that may be an application that comes later. Google Maps There isn't really too much that can be said about this because it's something that you just have to experience. Street view is extremely awesome on this phone and the new compass view is really cool. It's extremely stable and fluent (even on EDGE, which I am). It really is bringing the full version of Google maps to the mobile arena. The Google Maps experience on this phone is really something that you need to see -- it's that good! Other thoughts I think the T-Mobile G1 and Android is taking us closer to the place where we can replace most functions of a laptop computer with a cell phone. The power of this phone is unbelievable.... it is extremely fast -- faster than any phone that I've used before. It's surprisingly stable for all the crap I threw at it last night. I did have 2 spontaneous reboots but that was after I was mucking with an application that obviously had some serious issues. What I think is extremely impressive is that Android seems to deal quite well with faults in applications. It seems to have a real solid ability to kill processes that go nuts and, therefore, prevent the entire phone from crashing. The sound quality is great and it seems to deal with echo and background noise extremely well. From what I've seen of the iPhone and of this phone I would take this one over the iPhone any day (and that's excluding my dealbreakers of being stuck with AT&T and not having a keyboard). I am totally in love with this phone and can't wait to play with it some more. I honestly find it hard to believe that we are only on the horizon of the Android platform. It's truly exciting to see what the future brings. Labels: android, g1, google, htc dream, review, t-mobile (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 |
Maybe T-Mobile does care
After all of the stuff that happened today I decided about an hour ago that I was going to call T-Mobile and cancel my order for the G1 and then when my contract was up I would get the Android phone that should be hitting sprint soon and move my service over to them. I went ahead and called to do just that and customer care transfered me to the customer loyalty department. I pleaded my case and we talked for about 30 mins and, while she explained her point, I still was not happy about the fact that the press conference promoted the $179 price. She looked into a lot of things and said that because the G1 is a pre-order it actually isn't even in their system and they can't do anything with that phone as far as ordering..... so we got creative.The end result? Let's say I'm pleased as punch (whoever said punch was pleased.... anyway) at the arrangement. Currently I have a $49.99 myFaves plan with 600 mins so we played with that. She switched me over to a $39.99 myFaves plan with 1000 mins and she also deleted my blackberry internet service and readded it with a 30 day free option. So how does this work out. Well, the blackberry internet swapping is getting me about $20 off my current bill and then if you figure the 2 year contract that I am now in and I'm saving $10 a month on that then that comes out to be $240. Over the next 2 years I will have saved $260 because of a phone that I paid $300 for..... So basically I'm paying $40 for the T-Mobile G1. I think I can honestly say that I heart T-Mobile again! Labels: customer service, g1, google, gphone, htc, htc dream, t-mobile (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
T-Mobile G1 = Good / T-Mobile = eh?
With all the anticipation of the T-Mobile G1, formerly HTC Dream, formerly the "G-Phone" and I couldn't wait for the press conference today. While watching it I was completely floored by how intuitive this phone was. I became more and more pumped about it and finally, it was time.About 20 mins ago I completed my order for my G1 and I got my confirmation and the invoice that would be charged to my next bill.... $333.... What?! They said in the press conference that the price for existing T-Mobile customers would be $179. Why was I being charged $299?! I called customer service and they told me it was because I was not eligible for a full upgrade until Feb.... Huh? Oh, it was because I signed on to a 2 year contract in April of 2007. But wait... I didn't. When I went into the T-Mobile store I SPECIFICALLY paid the extra money for my phone in order to get only a 1 year contract. Now the burden is on ME to prove that. This isn't all that shocking because the store that I dealt with (In Dulles Town Center, Sterling, VA) were complete idiots. They screwed up every single aspect of my account and apparently they even snuck something else shady by me that is now costing me more than $100. I've always dealt with T-Mobile customer service rather than going to stores since that time but just setting foot in the store as my first experience is STILL haunting me. But here is the kicker.... A friend of mine is being charged $299 for her phone as well.... and she is only a couple months from her 2 year contract being up. To me I think this is an EXTREME mis-representation. If a company "gives" you free phones when your contract is up in order to renew you with them then what percentage of T-Mobile's customers are actually NOT under a contract. So when you say in your press conference "T-Mobile customers" you are incorrect because really you should say "A small percentage of T-Mobile customers" since that is the better story. I'm upset on a variety of levels with T-Mobile. Last night I considered not getting the G1 simply because I was concerned about locking myself into a 2 year contract with T-Mobile.... and now I have to be worried that maybe I made the wrong decission? Don't get me wrong, I am excited about the phone and can't wait to get it.... but each month that goes by I get less and less excited about T-Mobile. UPDATE: I'm now hearing rumors that NEW customers are ordering the phone and getting the $179 price..... But according to the press conference ONLY existing customers are able to order the phone now.... Way to treat your CURRENT LOYAL customers! This is very upsetting and they had BETTER fix it. Labels: $299, cellular, customer service, g1, google, gphone, htc, htc dream, phones, t-mobile (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Saturday, March 15, 2008 |
<3 T-Mobile <3
I know that I have been pretty critical about T-Mobile at times but I just want to let everyone know that that really has been more in the same fashion of a friend doing something that upsets you but a stranger could do it and you won't care. Now, I don't like the ordeal that Robert Dotson's office created but I really have to say that I do absolutely love T-Mobile. Tonight was no different. I talked with an awesome tech support rep who actually interacted with me rather than "boss me around" and just tell me what to do. Actually, I have *never* had a bad experience with T-Mobile's customer service. They are also the company that I think pushes the limits beyond the normal by innovating new ways of doing things. But anyway, T-Mobile had to transfer me to BlackBerry themselves about 40mins ago..... And I'm still on hold. RIM doesn't make me so happy - but that's another blog post :) Labels: blackberry, customer service, mobile, phones, t-mobile (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 |
Is T-Mobile broke? (And I don't just mean Twitter SMS)
I just attempted to place a call and received "Call Failed" .... I tried multiple phone numbers with the same result. I rebooted my phone, and the same thing occurs. I do, however, have data services such as web and email but phone services and SMS is completely dead. I also have a backup T-Mobile phone that I popped my SIM card in and it shows the same results.Worse yet.... I just had a friend call my phone number and she received "That number is no longer in service"...... Oh... and to top it off I call T-Mobile and they are closed until 6am EST?! (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Thursday, December 13, 2007 | ||
T-Mobile violates Net Neutrality? (Blocks Twitter)
Update: Apparently the email address for the customer service executive is rdotson@t-mobile.com and not rbotson like I first posted.Update 12/14 @ 3:34pm: Twitter has confirmed that there is an issue on the satisfaction page (link below) but they don't indicate what the problem is. No one that I have been in contact with has heard anything from T-Mobile other than what we were told by customer service (that they are blocking twitter and/or they don't support short code) Update 12/14 @ 4:58pm: I have received this response from T-Mobile. Very Upsetting Update: To follow all of my posts related to the T-Mobile/Twitter issues, please click here For the last few days I have been unable to send SMS messages to the Twitter service from my T-Mobile cell phone. This evening I decided that enough was enough and I called T-Mobile. I spoke with 3 different reps and would not let up until I got an answer for why this was no longer working. Finally I spoke with someone in Customer Relations and she felt strongly enough about this that she got a tech on the phone. After waiting for the tech to research the issue they came back with a response (and the rep I was spoeaking with was as outraged as I was). Their official response was that T-Mobile does not support third party messaging services and the reason why I am all of a sudden unable to send messages to the Twitter service is because their system "caught up to the bug." I specifically asked if this meant I should expect to never be able to send to Twitter again and the answer was yes. I explained to the rep about Net Neutrality and, to be honest, she had been outraged from the start. She completely agreed with me that this was an example of T-Mobile picking and choosing who you can and can't use with your T-Mobile SMS. I also explained that I paid for unlimited SMS messaging and not selective unlimited SMS messaging. She, again, agreed. The rep and I collectively agreed that this matter needed to be heard and she opened a "Voice Forum" request with the ID of 0623630. For reference to the people reading this, the rep that I talked to had the ID of 3828493. One thing that I do want to request is that if anyone calls in to speak with someone or emails customer service, please do not speak negatively towards the rep that I spoke with. She was extremely helpful and very instrumental in getting the ball rolling. Also, if you want somewhere to send an email, please use rdotson@t-mobile.com. It would be really great if we get a lot of people to write in or call in and explain the issues with their decission and how we object to any move that a company makes towards chosing what we can and can't do with a service we pay for. Hope to see you on Twitter from T-Mobile soon! :) Labels: net neutrality, sms, t-mobile, tmo-vs-twit, twitter (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 |
There are a lot of issues with the SK3 for me.... Now, I will admit that the SK3 is a great phone for the non-geek and someone who is attached to microsoft's nipple. It has a lot of cool features to it -- and the $20 a month for both unlimited data and unlimited text messaging is awesome. The problem is that the people that rely on the additional services that a "smart phone" offers will gain absolutely nothing from the SK3. Basically, if you don't realize you can check email and surf the web on the phone, the SK3 is going to be amazing.... but if you understand the technology, the SK3 will do nothing more than piss you off. And the biggest complaint of all - no IMAP support! Ok, yes, the "box" says that it support IMAP but all it can do is download messages from your inbox. It does not talk back to the server and mark messages as read, read folders on your IMAP server, or even store sent messages on the server... It is 100% pointless as an IMAP client. Oh... and get this one... a new feature in the sidekick 3 that wasn't in the sidekick 2.... a USB cable! But wait.... all the USB cable does is allows you to use your SK3 as a card reader. Yup... no syncing or anything via the USB cable... just copy your mp3's over to your card so you can listen to them (and I mean listen - not use them as a ringtone because that would mean you wouldnt buy their 20 second version of the same song for $2) Bluetooth? Yea... if you use a headset it works.... but forget doing anything else with it... it ONLY supports headsets -- absolutely nothing else. No file transfer (not even to the SD card), no modem use.... NOTHING. It's nice to see universal protocols adapted so that they will only work with one feature.... it's incredible. Did I mention it doesnt work with Mac OSX and doesn't have IMAP support? The most upsetting thing about all of this is that the sidekick has so much potential but the problem is that, like so many other corporations, the belief is that you have to cripple things and force people to buy them -- thus making the product absolutely worthless. I set up my T-Mobile account because the SK data plan would have saved me $40 a month... any other phone with T-Mobile really (afaik) won't save me much, if any, money at all.... so I guess I'll be sticking with Cingular a while longer.... maybe I'll end up with an iPhone? Well, the issue with that is whether or not it will have an SSH client or anything else useful..... for now I'll be using my Nokia -- from yet ANOTHER company that refuses to interact with anything other than Microsoft's nipple but at least has enough sense to let there be some back doors and loophole's that those using Macs and Linux can actually function. Labels: apple, mobile, nokia, phones, sidekick, t-mobile (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Friday, April 13, 2007 |
Sinuses suck... add an EXTREMELY stiff neck on top of that and you have for a very uncomfortable experience. Aside from that, tonight I got a Sidekick 3 which, obviously, also means that I'm switching to T-Mobile. The device may not be the best for me regarding functionality but by going with the SK3 I get unlimited data and unlimited SMS for only $20 a month... plus the competing price plan on T-Mobile vs Cingular has an extra 200 or maybe 300 mins.... It basically boils down to saving $40+ per month so within just a few months I'll make up the cost of the early termination fee plus I'll sell my Nokia 9300 on eBay which will probably put me around breaking even for the phone. My rant with the SK3 is primarily that it doesn't support IMAP. Ok, so it can download messages via the IMAP protocol but it will not communicate with the server telling it when I delete a message, read a message, reply, etc... It quite honestly is stupid and it is a severely hindering thing for me... but sometimes it does just boil down to cost... for $40 a month, I will find some creative way of doing what I need to. It's very time for bed now.... Labels: cingular, mobile, phones, sinuses, t-mobile, wireless (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
(C)2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved
BibleBoy's Blog by Bob K Mertz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
