thoughts on a new phone
It's been a long time since I got a new phone. My Nokia N73 served me well, but it's been time for a proper smart phone (on an unlimited data contract rather than pay as you go) for some time. I thought about an iPhone, which would seem a logical choice given I have Macs everywhere; but Michael beat me to it, and I felt I should have something different, partly so that we'd be on different networks (increasing the chance of getting a signal in remote areas) and partly so we could compare and contrast two devices. So he's been on the iPhone 3G for a while, and I've been lagging behind with occasional use of the (actually quite usable) Opera browser on my N73 and of course a quality camera that takes good pictures (unlike the iPhone's).
When the Android G1 came out, I was optimistic that this might be the smart phone I'd been waiting for, but I was hugely disappointed when I played with one in a T-mobile store. I like physical keyboards, but this one, although OK to type on, was an awkward slide-across mechanism, and I realised I wouldn't be able to create a quick text message one-handed, which seemed like a requirement. The rest of the experience was OK, though, and I keenly anticipated the G2 (whilst preparing to be disappointed, that something on the surface so iPhone-like would be a let down). So shortly after the G2's release, I could be found in Cambridge's Vodafone store, annoying the (horrifyingly young) salesmen, and now I have my very own G2 on the desk beside me.
There's no point in my listing features - this is a smartphone, it does smartphone stuff, and I can't be bothered with comparing the detailed figures of hardware specifications. But I think it's worth reviewing, because I've been surprised by the G2 in a number of ways, and as a long-time iPhone user (albeit not my own) the comparison is interesting.
Physically, the G2 is a nice, solid bit of kit, actually looking pretty good with clear design effort having gone into it, and quite a reasonable size. The screen is large enough for most things, and the scroll-ball is a great alternative to greasy finger prints on the screen (and also means you can scroll without obscuring the screen if you want, which is a nifty feature in my view - I find iPhone reading frustrating as I must always block the screen to move the text on).
I'm fussy about user interfaces these days, and I was expecting to be annoyed by the G2 after the iPhone - partly because I expected it to be "worse" in some ways, and partly because I felt I was too used to the iPhone paradigms to be able to adapt to a whole new way of doing things. This has not been the case at all. The buttons on the G2 have been well chosen, offering consistent and useful behaviour across all apps ("home" screen, "back", search, and "menu" which brings up a menu appropriate to what you are doing).
Typing works well; you can have a portrait (narrow/small) QWERTY keyboard, or a landscape one, which has bigger buttons - the phone figures out which way up it is. I like being offered 4-5 different words as I type, rather than the iPhone's one (which was rarely what I wanted). The punctuation, numbers and so on are fine and there are some nice shortcuts, not too hidden away. I'm already able to type quite quickly and accurately, and I don't get annoyed by the autocorrection stuff as I do on the iPhone. My one complaint is that the letters at the very edge of the screen (L and P) seem harder to "hit" for me; bit odd.
All the applications you would want are there - maps, Gmail and other email, camera, twitter, etc. My google calendars are there all the time; I can make it buzz when I get email - or not. Google Sky Map is the most amazing so far - it uses the GPS and compass to show you what stars are around in the part of the sky you are pointing the phone at! You can wave the phone and it updates as you move it. Wow. Most apps seems to be free, but some are not, which is fine. Although there is not such a profusion of apps as the iPhone AppStore, there are enough for the things I actually want to do, plus a few nice games (such as Abduction, where you bounce cows around - a compelling casual game and bettering FlightControl on the iPhone in my view).
A whole lot of things just work, which is excellent. I can take a picture, using some image stabilisation (!), and then twitter it or send it as an MMS within a click or two. A USB cable will charge the G2. I've not needed to think about how to set things up, so far everything pretty much works as I would like. There's a notification LED which lights up when things have happened, and a useful notification bar on screen gives me an instant view of events, and I can open that and dive straight into the application for an event with one swipe and click - very fast and just what I need. I also enjoyed entering a "swipe pattern" as my security protection, rather than ending up with another PIN to remember.
The biggest true annoyance for me is not having the Apple pinch/zoom interface in maps. I also feel I'm going to be frustrated by battery life (which I haven't measured in detail, but I suspect it will be not enough for a weekend away, putting it on a par with similar phones, but a long way behind my old Nokia). I know I'm going to fret about the screen getting scratched, but this is something which would have bothered me about any similar phone though.
Overall, although I haven't been using it for long, I feel this is an iPhone-beater for me. The open source nature of Android goes some way towards cancelling my innate fear of getting trapped in a Google ecosystem, but Google knows everything about me already, so I am also somewhat resigned to this. All smartphones seem likely to tether users to one ecosystem or another. Ah well.
When the Android G1 came out, I was optimistic that this might be the smart phone I'd been waiting for, but I was hugely disappointed when I played with one in a T-mobile store. I like physical keyboards, but this one, although OK to type on, was an awkward slide-across mechanism, and I realised I wouldn't be able to create a quick text message one-handed, which seemed like a requirement. The rest of the experience was OK, though, and I keenly anticipated the G2 (whilst preparing to be disappointed, that something on the surface so iPhone-like would be a let down). So shortly after the G2's release, I could be found in Cambridge's Vodafone store, annoying the (horrifyingly young) salesmen, and now I have my very own G2 on the desk beside me.
There's no point in my listing features - this is a smartphone, it does smartphone stuff, and I can't be bothered with comparing the detailed figures of hardware specifications. But I think it's worth reviewing, because I've been surprised by the G2 in a number of ways, and as a long-time iPhone user (albeit not my own) the comparison is interesting.
Physically, the G2 is a nice, solid bit of kit, actually looking pretty good with clear design effort having gone into it, and quite a reasonable size. The screen is large enough for most things, and the scroll-ball is a great alternative to greasy finger prints on the screen (and also means you can scroll without obscuring the screen if you want, which is a nifty feature in my view - I find iPhone reading frustrating as I must always block the screen to move the text on).
I'm fussy about user interfaces these days, and I was expecting to be annoyed by the G2 after the iPhone - partly because I expected it to be "worse" in some ways, and partly because I felt I was too used to the iPhone paradigms to be able to adapt to a whole new way of doing things. This has not been the case at all. The buttons on the G2 have been well chosen, offering consistent and useful behaviour across all apps ("home" screen, "back", search, and "menu" which brings up a menu appropriate to what you are doing).
Typing works well; you can have a portrait (narrow/small) QWERTY keyboard, or a landscape one, which has bigger buttons - the phone figures out which way up it is. I like being offered 4-5 different words as I type, rather than the iPhone's one (which was rarely what I wanted). The punctuation, numbers and so on are fine and there are some nice shortcuts, not too hidden away. I'm already able to type quite quickly and accurately, and I don't get annoyed by the autocorrection stuff as I do on the iPhone. My one complaint is that the letters at the very edge of the screen (L and P) seem harder to "hit" for me; bit odd.
All the applications you would want are there - maps, Gmail and other email, camera, twitter, etc. My google calendars are there all the time; I can make it buzz when I get email - or not. Google Sky Map is the most amazing so far - it uses the GPS and compass to show you what stars are around in the part of the sky you are pointing the phone at! You can wave the phone and it updates as you move it. Wow. Most apps seems to be free, but some are not, which is fine. Although there is not such a profusion of apps as the iPhone AppStore, there are enough for the things I actually want to do, plus a few nice games (such as Abduction, where you bounce cows around - a compelling casual game and bettering FlightControl on the iPhone in my view).
A whole lot of things just work, which is excellent. I can take a picture, using some image stabilisation (!), and then twitter it or send it as an MMS within a click or two. A USB cable will charge the G2. I've not needed to think about how to set things up, so far everything pretty much works as I would like. There's a notification LED which lights up when things have happened, and a useful notification bar on screen gives me an instant view of events, and I can open that and dive straight into the application for an event with one swipe and click - very fast and just what I need. I also enjoyed entering a "swipe pattern" as my security protection, rather than ending up with another PIN to remember.
The biggest true annoyance for me is not having the Apple pinch/zoom interface in maps. I also feel I'm going to be frustrated by battery life (which I haven't measured in detail, but I suspect it will be not enough for a weekend away, putting it on a par with similar phones, but a long way behind my old Nokia). I know I'm going to fret about the screen getting scratched, but this is something which would have bothered me about any similar phone though.
Overall, although I haven't been using it for long, I feel this is an iPhone-beater for me. The open source nature of Android goes some way towards cancelling my innate fear of getting trapped in a Google ecosystem, but Google knows everything about me already, so I am also somewhat resigned to this. All smartphones seem likely to tether users to one ecosystem or another. Ah well.