Laurent Kretz

I had the chance to use the Google phone G1 for a week, kind of crash-testing it to make up my mind.

The HTC is a really cool phone, but today, a week later, I’m happy to get back to my Blackberry Curve. However, I am not sure whether it’s because I am disappointed with the G1 or if it’s just because the Curve is unsurpassed …

It’s now been 24 hours that the Curve is back in my pocket, and no I don’t miss the G1!

Here are some reasons (unordered) I might not get the G1:

•  The battery sucks big time. A day max. If you listen to music, watch a few videos, use wifi, half a day…
• The phone is big, really thick. Not cool for in a jeans pocket …
• The keyboard keys don’t have enough depth or emboss, you have to look at it when you write,
• It’s slow. I expected it to be slick fast, but it’s slow. People tell me it’s faster than the iPhone, but I don’t have this feeling ….
• Configuration is lacking. There are of course basic options, but no enough. You cannot change the font size for instance, and half of the google apps take way too much screen space …..For instance, Gmail only displays about 8/9 emails of your inbox when in portrait mode.
• Alarm doesn’t ring if you’re phone is on vibrate or silence. That’s completely dumb… and got me to be an hour late at work ;)
• When holding the phone to write on the keyboard, you have the big button part under your right thumb and it’s really not comfortable!
• The accelerometer is useless, as almost none of the apps use it. To change the orientation of Gmail, the browser, contacts, …. you have to get into the menu and sub-menu to flip the orientation.
• 3G is not that fast …
• The camera takes ages to focus and take a picture.

Ok, part of the disappointment is due to the phone, part of it to Android platform. However, I did have higher expectations…

It does have very valid point though: the wheel to navigate is super useful, the buttons that are helpful, the touch screen works well, the browser and webkit work really really fine, and the keyboard is complete with shift and alt keys, so lots of possibilities and shortcuts.

I think I expected the G1 to play in the productivity category (led by blackberry) more than in the entertainment/personal category (led by iPhone). At the end of the day, the G1 is in neither one: not enough cool to be the iPhone (too big, smaller screen, slow) and not productive enough to be the blackberry (display, keyboard).

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