ChrisCotter.net

I woke up this morning excited. Today was Android day. Carrie and I drove to a T-Mobile store to check out the new G1. My first impression was very good. We walked into the TMo store and first thing we saw was a very nice looking display with two of the G1’s sitting there.

The first thing I noticed when I picked it up was just how light it was. It looks like it should be much heavier than it really is. So we finally had a pair of these mini Linux boxes in our hands after a month of waiting.

After I picked it up and looked at it carefully, I opened the slider up just see if it was as sturdy as the XV-6700 from HTC I used to own.

The slider felt even more sturdy and smoother than the 6700 I had previously.

The screen was very sensitive. I just had to barely touch my finger to the screen to get it to do what I wanted it to do. I had concern for the button bar blocking the QWERTY keys. This was not an issue at all. I found that typing on thumb board was easy. They keys had a click to let you know that they were pressed. They were much easier to use than my BlackBerry Curve keys are because I have big fingers.

Next thing I had to check out was Google Maps. This was one of the things I have been curious to see. The built in compass was interesting.  As I turned, the compass had a hard time determining what direction I was facing. I think this was because we were in the store with a lot of people and had a big security cord stuck to the screen itself. I doubt the compass had been calibrated also.

There was Street View right there. The built in GPS, or maybe the tower positioning, found us and we zoomed right in to see the very store we were in.

I tried the Barcode Scanner application next. One of the things I do not understand just because it seems like poor judgment on T-Mobile’s part, the demo barcode was so small and long that the G1 could not even focus on it. Like I said, that was a T-Mobile thing. This barcode tag was far smaller than most other tags you find on other products.

This was a screenshot of part of the applications menu. The Android Application Market was really limited at the time. This really was not an issue since today was the release day.

I really had to dig down into the menus to find out what was at the heart of Android. In one of the menus, they had an entire tag named “Kernel Version.” There is was! The G1 is running Linux Kernel 2.6.25. I was so happy to see that. There was also a credits tag that displayed the credits for the developers and organizations that made Android possible. It scrolled just like the credits at the closing of a movie does.

I have heard Ryan Block say a few times that this is a “geeks device.” I do not think that is totally true. There were people of all ages, including a lady, maybe 50, who had heard of it, came to play with it, and loved it. I think Ryan’s comment on that comes from being a iPhone user/fanboy.

I would have loved to take one home with me. Unfortunately I did not have $300 up front (still under contract) to buy it. I am saving my pennies now. I am definately looking forward to getting one soon.