First Impressions
Walking around town with the phone, there weren’t the people dropping their jaws when the phone was pulled out. The T-Mobile G1  is a 2006 version of the HTC Wizard, the AT&T 8125, and the PPC-6700 on Sprint and Verizon. The only major difference, is that it has a spring loading keyboard, and a trackball. In short; it’s thick, it’s a brick.

But, the wow factor starts when you hit the power button. Normally, when you think of an HTC device, you think of a tank. It’s big, it’s slow, but eventually it gets the job done. It took the threat of a class action suit for HTC to realize that drivers actually matter in a Windows Mobile phone. The T-Mobile G1   is a new beginning for HTC.

Powering on the phone for the first time, you notice the quick boot time, about half that of a Windows Mobile phone. The T-Mobile G1  boots in about 49 seconds, compared to iPhone 3G at 54 seconds (time from powering on, to main screen). You’re given a quick welcome screen, and asked to enter in your Google Account, so that you can have sync services. More on that later. After that, you’re dropped right to the “desktop”.

The desktop is not like the home screens on any other cell phone. It’s much more akin to the desktop of a modern computer. You have icons, a menu bar, an application dock, folders, and widgets. Like the iPhone, you flick your finger to scroll through these things. And, that’s the next major thing that sets the T-Mobile G1  apart from any other HTC phone yet; it’s designed for your finger. It only responds to a human touch.

 Usage-wise, it’s almost natural to immediately open the keyboard when using the device. I only found myself using the T-Mobile G1  with the keyboard closed… was when I made a phone call. Regardless of scrolling with the trackpad, or flipping with the finger… widescreen was the way to go. That’s mostly because of the weight balancing on the T-Mobile G1 . But, it works surprisingly well… All three inputs; keyboard, touch screen, and trackball, are all easily accessible.

Unfortunately, we can’t really weigh in on call quality as of yet. Same with battery life. Why? T-Mobile has said that the Sacramento market will be 3G when the T-Mobile G1 launches… but as of yet, we haven’t seen a any 3G coverage. It is a bit concerning that T-Mobile is committing to launching a 3G network, but hasn’t opened access less than a week before launch.

The mini-USB port at the bottom carries a port cover. It’s a nice addition, and despite some who had concerns about it, the port cover was easy for us to open and plug things into. Unfortunately, as had been rumored, the standard Ext-USB port adapter (which allows the USB port to be used as a 3.5mm headphone jack), is absent from the included accessories. This is simply unacceptable; HTC bundles this with every Windows Mobile phone… Android should be no different. Ideally, T-Mobile should rectify this and offer to mail all T-Mobile G1  owners an adapter.