T-mobile G1 with Android

I thought I would be a tech geek today and speak about the T-mobile G1. I am not going to go into all of the finer specs you can easily read from a more techy website or T-mobile. I am going to go into a few tidbits that thought were cool and share a few experiences.

First, my dad bought the phone in Costco on Saturday. He was told that he had to get the data plan to access the Internet and use the phone. "Really?!" I thought. So we tested it out. My dad bought the data service with the phone and found he could use it like he should, after all this is what the rep said. We then removed his sim card and replaced it with my pay-as-you-go sim card. Would the phone work? You bet!! We made phone calls and even successfully browsed the Internet using wifi. My suggesting now is to play with the data for the 30 day trial period, then cancel and go back to the original plan.

So what does this mean? Well, you can have your friend who has a T-mobile data plan put their sim card into your new G1, activate the phone, then replace your sim card and you should be good to go..assuming you have some other T-mobile service.

Second, one would think with such a cool gadget you could do cool things like read a pdf or word file. Well, not so fast. In order to read a word or excel file you have to view them through google documents. We tried viewing a pdf that way and had no luck. Using an online pdf viewer was hit or miss since flash enabled apps (like http://www.pdfmenot.com/) don't work either. We were able to view a pdf using http://view.samurajdata.se/. A little app called MultiReader 1.0 for the Android system may work; we just never got around to it.

Wifi was great. Opening files was another thing altogether.

Third, The camera is nothing short of abysmal. Sure it is 3mp, but has limited functionality. It does autofocus, but does not zoom, record video, have color correction, etc...

Finally, the battery is not long lasting especially while using wifi. I guess this is no surprise. Its a good thing Android is quite peppy so that time is not wasted. Although the folder arrangement could use some work. All in all, this could become one awesome machine once apps are made to utilize all of its cool features (camera, gps, wifi, integration with google, phone, keyboard, etc). I am definitely for this amazing machine despite its minor flaws.