Last week at the Google I/O Developers’ Conference, I was lucky enough to snag the hottest phone money can’t buy (at least, not for a little while). Google may not have an iPhone killer yet, but if this little piece of awesomeness is any indication, they sure are trying.
Powering up the phone takes about 30 seconds. I was greeted with the I/O DevCon logo before seeing the familiar Android shiny splash screen. As a Ubuntu user, I’m used to wait times, and I have never owned or used an iPhone so I’m not sure what to make of the initial loading. Now we’re at the home screen, a typical clean look with a few icons from the Applications tray thrown down there. It also had a Google Search bar until I elected to dump that. Why? Because you can’t switch to landscape mode on your home screen and typing in portrait mode is annoying. That’s my personal opinion and not indicative of the phone itself. I like as much space as possible for typing.
The soft keyboard replaces the rather bulky keyset from the previous phone, allowing for this model to be much slimmer. Holding down the Menu button for a few seconds will pop up the soft keyboard during virtually any task. All of the apps that came standard with the phone (browser, messaging, Google Maps, etc) have multiple ways of accessing the keys. The keyboard itself is quite sensitive, but one is easily accustomed to it after using it a few times.
The browser itself is a thing of beauty. All of your controls are accessed by pressing the Menu button. Pressing the Search button will allow you to type in either a web URL or a Google search string. While there is no Flash support yet, Java works, and all YouTube videos are playable through a built-in app on the phone. Last I heard, Adobe planned to have Flash available for Android by next year.
But what about music? Adding songs has never been easier — plug the phone into a USB slot and the computer sees its SD card as a portable hard drive. No need to sync up with your computer, no formatting your library every time you go to plug into someone else’s. Any MP3 (I’m sure there are other formats supported as well, I just don’t use those) from any computer can be transferred to the phone quite easily. After plugging in the phone, you simply open the Notifications tray at the top of the screen, where you will see that you are connected via USB. Mount and you’re good to go. Just don’t forget to unmount before unplugging! Also, some apps do not work while mounted. You can dump pictures to the card as well, to set as phone book photos or wallpaper later. Want to buy more music? Amazon Music app at your service.
And the apps, ohhh the apps. I’ve already downloaded the free Barcode Scanner and Metal Detector apps, as well as the Flashlight (white screen, brightness automatically kicked to max — surprisingly useful!), WikiMobile, NBA GameTime, imeem Mobile, Ringdroid, Terminal Emulator (more on this one in a minute), Compass, gStrings chromatic tuner, deciBel, AndFTP, and Hi AIM; and of course some ultra-novelty and game programs like Light Racer (Tron), LOLcats (an app that lets you browse through the I Can Haz Cheezburger site libraries, including the namesake, FAILBlog and others), Mario Simluator (Jump, and it makes Mario jumping sounds), Newton’s Cradle, The Schwartz Unsheathed (Virtual Lightsaber), a Glen Quagmire soundboard, a Daft Punk soundboard — you get the idea.
Setting up WiFi is easy, although for some reason I have yet to get it to work. I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with the phone itself, though, because I can’t get my home computer to connect wirelessly right now either. But yes, WiFi capability is built-in: press the Menu button or open your Applications Tray and click Settings. From here you can change all sorts of things, but for WiFi just click the Wireless Controls tab. It’s pretty straightforward from there. The T-Mobile sim card we received gives us 30 days of phone service with unlimited data transfer. Thus far, the fastest connection I’ve had was when I downloaded some files from a folder via AndFTP at 63KB/sec. Not bad for a phone!
I do have an issue with the camera, and that is that I have yet to find a way to adjust for lighting. Aside from that it is easily the highest-resolution camera I’ve ever had on a cell phone. Camcorder is nice, especially because it doesn’t have any kind of maximum recording time. You can fill your whole damn SD card with one video if you want to.
I was sure I’d have something bad to write about battery life, but the juice lasts anwhere from 8 to 12 hours before the battery inidcator goes yellow, depending on your personal usage tendencies. I have yet to fully kill the battery from a normal day’s use. With the ridiculous ease of use and functionality, access to a full encyclopedia via WikiMobile, WiFi connectivity, and the number of apps and Linux ports being made, I think we could probably call this The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but the G2 sounds good, too.
David Teter ranks the HTC Magic running Android, aka The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, aka the G2, a 9 out of 10. Give me a better terminal emulator for the soft keyboard (my Enter key doesn’t register), lighting controls on the camera and Flash compatibility, and I’ll probably never stop using this thing. The iPhone Killer? Time will tell.
This article was originally posted at Semantic Seed. Semantic Seed was established in 2008 by the founders of Urban Technology Ventures and Breakthrough Ventures who at the time saw an opportunity to aid first time entrepreneurs struggling to find funding from angel investors and venture capitalist to hatch ideas. Semantic Seed is a special kind of venture capital firm and idea accelerator that cares more about funding “Good People” than resumes, credentials and business plans.
About the author: Toby Morning is the founder of Blue Monitor and Semantic Seed, a collaborative workspace in Northern California.
. Bookmark the
permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
Reviewing the G2 and Google Android
Last week at the Google I/O Developers’ Conference, I was lucky enough to snag the hottest phone money can’t buy (at least, not for a little while). Google may not have an iPhone killer yet, but if this little piece of awesomeness is any indication, they sure are trying.
Powering up the phone takes about 30 seconds. I was greeted with the I/O DevCon logo before seeing the familiar Android shiny splash screen. As a Ubuntu user, I’m used to wait times, and I have never owned or used an iPhone so I’m not sure what to make of the initial loading. Now we’re at the home screen, a typical clean look with a few icons from the Applications tray thrown down there. It also had a Google Search bar until I elected to dump that. Why? Because you can’t switch to landscape mode on your home screen and typing in portrait mode is annoying. That’s my personal opinion and not indicative of the phone itself. I like as much space as possible for typing.
The soft keyboard replaces the rather bulky keyset from the previous phone, allowing for this model to be much slimmer. Holding down the Menu button for a few seconds will pop up the soft keyboard during virtually any task. All of the apps that came standard with the phone (browser, messaging, Google Maps, etc) have multiple ways of accessing the keys. The keyboard itself is quite sensitive, but one is easily accustomed to it after using it a few times.
The browser itself is a thing of beauty. All of your controls are accessed by pressing the Menu button. Pressing the Search button will allow you to type in either a web URL or a Google search string. While there is no Flash support yet, Java works, and all YouTube videos are playable through a built-in app on the phone. Last I heard, Adobe planned to have Flash available for Android by next year.
But what about music? Adding songs has never been easier — plug the phone into a USB slot and the computer sees its SD card as a portable hard drive. No need to sync up with your computer, no formatting your library every time you go to plug into someone else’s. Any MP3 (I’m sure there are other formats supported as well, I just don’t use those) from any computer can be transferred to the phone quite easily. After plugging in the phone, you simply open the Notifications tray at the top of the screen, where you will see that you are connected via USB. Mount and you’re good to go. Just don’t forget to unmount before unplugging! Also, some apps do not work while mounted. You can dump pictures to the card as well, to set as phone book photos or wallpaper later. Want to buy more music? Amazon Music app at your service.
And the apps, ohhh the apps. I’ve already downloaded the free Barcode Scanner and Metal Detector apps, as well as the Flashlight (white screen, brightness automatically kicked to max — surprisingly useful!), WikiMobile, NBA GameTime, imeem Mobile, Ringdroid, Terminal Emulator (more on this one in a minute), Compass, gStrings chromatic tuner, deciBel, AndFTP, and Hi AIM; and of course some ultra-novelty and game programs like Light Racer (Tron), LOLcats (an app that lets you browse through the I Can Haz Cheezburger site libraries, including the namesake, FAILBlog and others), Mario Simluator (Jump, and it makes Mario jumping sounds), Newton’s Cradle, The Schwartz Unsheathed (Virtual Lightsaber), a Glen Quagmire soundboard, a Daft Punk soundboard — you get the idea.
Setting up WiFi is easy, although for some reason I have yet to get it to work. I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with the phone itself, though, because I can’t get my home computer to connect wirelessly right now either. But yes, WiFi capability is built-in: press the Menu button or open your Applications Tray and click Settings. From here you can change all sorts of things, but for WiFi just click the Wireless Controls tab. It’s pretty straightforward from there. The T-Mobile sim card we received gives us 30 days of phone service with unlimited data transfer. Thus far, the fastest connection I’ve had was when I downloaded some files from a folder via AndFTP at 63KB/sec. Not bad for a phone!
I do have an issue with the camera, and that is that I have yet to find a way to adjust for lighting. Aside from that it is easily the highest-resolution camera I’ve ever had on a cell phone. Camcorder is nice, especially because it doesn’t have any kind of maximum recording time. You can fill your whole damn SD card with one video if you want to.
I was sure I’d have something bad to write about battery life, but the juice lasts anwhere from 8 to 12 hours before the battery inidcator goes yellow, depending on your personal usage tendencies. I have yet to fully kill the battery from a normal day’s use. With the ridiculous ease of use and functionality, access to a full encyclopedia via WikiMobile, WiFi connectivity, and the number of apps and Linux ports being made, I think we could probably call this The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but the G2 sounds good, too.
David Teter ranks the HTC Magic running Android, aka The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, aka the G2, a 9 out of 10. Give me a better terminal emulator for the soft keyboard (my Enter key doesn’t register), lighting controls on the camera and Flash compatibility, and I’ll probably never stop using this thing. The iPhone Killer? Time will tell.
This article was originally posted at Semantic Seed. Semantic Seed was established in 2008 by the founders of Urban Technology Ventures and Breakthrough Ventures who at the time saw an opportunity to aid first time entrepreneurs struggling to find funding from angel investors and venture capitalist to hatch ideas. Semantic Seed is a special kind of venture capital firm and idea accelerator that cares more about funding “Good People” than resumes, credentials and business plans.