PC Magazine: The T-Mobile G1 (Google Android) Is No iPhone

The T-Mobile G1 (Google Android) Is No iPhone
The G1 is nearly devoid of sex appeal. The color choices--black,
white, and brown—are just okay. The screen is large, but the lines are
all wrong. The phone has squarish edges, and even the keyboard seems a
little underbaked. Since the primary reason many people would choose
this phone over the iPhone is the keyboard, you would think it would
have a bit more flourish.

I'm not really surprised, though. HTC, the phone's manufacturer, makes
a bunch of iPhone-like phones, but none of them is an object of
obsession. The T-Mobile G-1 is no exception. I don't imagine that
anyone will see someone holding a G1 and say, "Hey, what's that?!"
Instead, I imagine we'll hear:

"Hey, is that a new phone?"

"Yeah, it's the G1."

"Oh, the Google phone? Hey…"

So there's some sex appeal in the G1 being the first Google mobile
device, but its looks won't set the world on fire.

Today's announcement event was almost a perfect reflection of the
phone: smart, informational, and somewhat reserved. I was glad to see
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page on stage, but they should
have opened the show. They were the highlight.

I loved when Brin—a developer in his own right—revealed, "The first
app I ended up writing is one where you throw your [Google] phone up
in the air and it measures how much time it takes before it hits the
floor."

At 25 Sep 2008 08:48:28 -0700 iPhone 3Gold wrote:

> The T-Mobile G1 (Google Android) Is No iPhone
> The G1 is nearly devoid of sex appeal.


Agreed.


> The color choices--black,
> white, and brown—are just okay. The screen is large, but the lines are
> all wrong. The phone has squarish edges, and even the keyboard seems a
> little underbaked. Since the primary reason many people would choose
> this phone over the iPhone is the keyboard, you would think it would
> have a bit more flourish.



Again, your (or what ever blogger you're plagarizing today) mistake is
automatically assuming every new smartphone released is competing with the
iPhone's style.

Different strokes, as they say.



> I'm not really surprised, though. HTC, the phone's manufacturer, makes
> a bunch of iPhone-like phones, but none of them is an object of
> obsession.


Agreed again- HTC has an incredible lack of style sense. My AT&T Tilt (HTC
Kaiser) is one ugly phone.


> The T-Mobile G-1 is no exception. I don't imagine that
> anyone will see someone holding a G1 and say, "Hey, what's that?!"
> Instead, I imagine we'll hear:
>
> "Hey, is that a new phone?"
>
> "Yeah, it's the G1."
>
> "Oh, the Google phone? Hey…"
>
> So there's some sex appeal in the G1 being the first Google mobile
> device, but its looks won't set the world on fire.



Agreed. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice of phone if my primary
requirement was impressing strangers with my fasion sense. Fortunately for
me, that's not even in my top 50 reasons to buy a particular cellular phone.