HTC T-Mobile G1 Mobile Phone Review - Android and 3.5G Combined

The HTC T-Mobile G1 is a dinky little phone. Despite the ugly (for some) little lip on the front, and its weight, this is a compact, sturdy little social assistant that is sure to please the person who spends a lot of time surfing the web as part of their social scene.

It's pretty - it's white, and has a really handy sliding screen which provides access to the full five-row landscape orientated QWERTY keyboard.

The T-Mobile G1 weighs in at a pretty heavy 158 grams, unlike its bigger Android brother - the HTC Magic, which only weighs 118.5g. For those who prefer a keyboard to the touch screen function, this is the phone to choose when you need to surf the web, and wish to be able to take videos of your social life and immediately upload them to YouTube.

It measures a touch under 118mm long, and at nearly 56mm wide and only 17mm deep HTC and Google have packed an awful lot of power, web-loading speed and functionality into a tiny little package.

The T-Mobile runs off a Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz processor. With a ROM of 256 MB and a RAM of 192MB, it has enough oomph to seamlessly work with the Android operating system to give you unequalled surfing and web search capability. The memory can be expanded by the use of SD 2.0 compatible microSD memory card.

This is a quad band phone, and is designed to work on HSPA/WCDMA in Europe (2100 MHz), US (1700/2100 MHz) and give up to 7.2 Mbps down link (HSDPA) and 2 Mbps up-link (HSUPA) speeds. On Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, workable frequencies are 850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz. The final accessibility and band frequency is ultimately dependant on the network service provider.

From the point of view of connectivity - the HTC T-Mobile G1 has Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate, and also uses Wi-Fi and an HTC ExtUSB. This is the 11-pin mini-USB and audio jack in one and replaces the standard 3.5mm audio jack.

The camera could be improved - at 3.2 megapixels with auto focus it ranks below other phones with good connectivity on the market.

For the person that enjoys listening to music on their mobile phone, the HTC T-Mobile G1 offers a built in speaker as well as Bluetooth headphone connection. It plays 40 polyphonic and standard MIDI format 0 and 1 (SMF)/SP MIDI.

Finding your way to the club you have just searched for on the web need not be a problem - this compact handset sports GPS capability with Google Maps.

The HTC T-Mobile G1 has a Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery which, when fully charged, will last 350 and 406 minutes of talk time, depending on whether you are using WCDMA or GSM, and on standby, from fully charged, it will last between 319 and 402 hours - also dependent on whether you are using WCDMA or GSM.

The T-Mobile's special features are a Motion Sensor and Digital Compass.

All in all - this is a nice compact, user friendly little phone - with tremendous accessibility to the World Wide Web, and seamless up- and down-loading from video sites such as YouTube. For the socially orientated person who wants assistance capability - HTC T-Mobile G1 is a good choice.

by Carlson Osbourne