Hands on with HTC\'s Google phone

Tag : Computer Phone Call
The applications on board are by far the coolest feature of thehandset, especially Google Maps Street View , which on the handset, allows a person to view a snapshot of anentire street scene at any of several U.S. cities.
I chose 42nd street in New York City at the Avenue of the Americasfrom Google Maps, and once the information downloaded from ChunghwaTelecom's mobile network, I was able to view the street on thehandset's screen. It's cool.
There are three ways to navigate a street scene with T-Mobile's G1,or the 'Dream' as HTC calls it.
The funnest was to hit the "compass" function on the handset andmove it around by hand. You pan the G1 up and view the screen as ifit's the LCD viewfinder on a digital camera, and you're looking atbuilding tops or into trees. Pan down and you can see if anyonedropped some coins on the street. Pan around for an entire 360degree view of the street from where you are, including taxis,buildings, or a guy walking down the street eating a sandwich.
I can't think of any useful reasons to use Street View -- GoogleMaps is enough to get you where you want to go -- but it sure isfun.
The other two ways to navigate on Street View are by using thetouchscreen to look around or the trackball at the bottom of thephone.
Google is still expanding the Street View database to include morecities.
The applications aspect of the G1 may make it one of the mostexpandable handsets around. You can already find fun and usefulprograms from Android, many of them free. And applications are easyto find and download.
An icon on the desktop of the handset sends you right to an Androidapps page, where applications roll across a panel at the top of thescreen. You can use your thumb on the touchscreen to make the panelmove left or right for more choices and then tap an app's icon tochoose it.
I picked ShopSavvy because the demonstration of it looked fun and I wanted to see itin actual use.
Bargain hunters will love this program.
ShopSavvy turns the G1's on-board 3-megapixel camera into a pricetag scanner. It starts to scan immediately when ShopSavvy is on, noneed to snap a photo or anything. Just run a red line in the middleof the viewfinder over a barcode and it scans the information.
It took me a few tries to scan the barcode of the book, 'Execution'by Larry Bossidy, which was one of the few things at HTC's officewith a barcode. But once I got it, it only took several seconds tonavigate to a site with a book review and other information, aswell as suggestions on where to buy. It costs US$21 new ateCampus.com, or $2.50 used at Half.com, while the retail pricelisted inside the cover of the book itself was $27.50.
The ShopSavvy application only took about 40 seconds to download. Ialso downloaded Pac-Man, which took about 33 seconds.
The handset itself feels good, solidly built and with beautifulscreen quality. Even when you flip up the screen to reveal theQWERTY keyboard below, it's quick and smooth in a way you can tellit won't break easily.
Flipping up the screen, by the way, is the only way to turn theview on the handset screen sideways. Unlike other handsets thatturn the screen view sideways when the handset is held sideways,the G1 only turns the screen view sideways when the QWERTY keyboardis showing.
I can't say I was wild about the handset's overall design. It's abit thick and industrial, especially compared to HTC's last majorrelease, the Touch Diamond , which is beautifully crafted.
But unlike the Touch Diamond, which is made of a clear plasticthat's a bit slippery, the G1 has more of a rubberized feel foreasier handling.
The face of the G1, when the QWERTY keypad isn't showing, is mainlythe touchscreen, which looks like it's about 3-inches, with fivenavigation controls at the bottom, including the trackball in themiddle.
Navigation on the touchscreen was smooth and the software respondedquickly to tap commands. The trackball, also worked well, but tooka bit of getting used to.
The keypad was easy to use, even with my big thumbs, but I didn'thave a chance to actually type out a message. I did make a phonecall, which was easy to do and the voice quality was clear.
One warning to sound out to anyone interested in the G1 (Dream)handset is to take care on your choice of mobile phone serviceproviders.
The only service provider today is T-Mobile and some fine print on their Web site betrays a stingy allowance on data services: "Ifyour total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, yourdata throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to50K bps or less."
For a handset designed for the Internet, with so much downloadablesoftware applications from Android's Web site that are heavy ondata usage, as well as music downloads from Amazon and onlinevideos from YouTube, it seems likely users will need more than the1G-byte allotment.
More likely than not, other service providers will launch a versionof HTC's Dream as well. They may offer better terms.
T-Mobile's G1 will first be available in the U.S. on Oct. 22 for$179 with a two-year contract and subscription to a limited dataplan for $25 a month or $35 for unlimited data access.
T-Mobile will release the G1 in the U.K. in early November andother European markets in the first quarter next year.
The G1 is currently only available in English, but translation intoother languages is already underway, an HTC representative said. Itwill take six months for the handset to be made available in nearlyall languages.