Posted on October 27, 2008 - by Jeffrey Posner

Google Phone Review (Gphone) for tmobile vs Iphone

When I first started reading about the Gphone, I really wasn’t too impressed… I thought it was going to be big and clunky, it was portrayed to behind in software development and bloggers were giving out some shitty reviews.

Well I have had my Gphone for over 2 days now and I think it is amazing. My roommate has an Iphone and we ran some tests where we live in Northern NJ right outside of NYC. I had predicted that the t-mobile 3G network would be faster than ATT for the mere fact that there are less phones on it at this point. Either way the Ghone loaded websites almost twice as fast if not more. The screen seems to be a little brighter and yes, it is nice to have a real keyboard. As I got the hang of the device more it became easier to use and I could navigate through menus much quicker. I attribute this to it having a full keyboard and touchscreen combined with the pearl navigation button. Its like I have keyboard, mouse and touch screen monitor.

Size and Appearance and Youtube

It is about 1.5 times the thickness of the Iphone but the iphone is a little bigger length by width. The video quality was about the same but for some reason the brightness of the screen was far nicer in the GPhone. I later looked and saw that I had it on only 30%, so at night in the car it works really well.

The menus and screens flow just as elegantly as they do on the Iphone and the triple desktop allows you to really have a little fun customizing the layout. The apps aren’t all on the one screen like the Iphone, its a little cleaner. Then there is the window shade which is a super cool feature. It’s like having a personal assistant checking everything that goes on with your phone and giving you a report as it happens, then just click an item and you go right to it. One last thing I love is the ability to send someone to voice mail permanently! A feature everyone desires since you cannot block numbers with cell phones.

A big reason I have stuck with t-mobile for so long was for 2 reasons:

1. SIM Cards – I love having the ability to instantly change phones unlike Verizon and sprint.
2. Biggest WI-FI Network – They have always had the biggest WI-FI network

WI-FI is a big part of the future and most people don’t realize why. See 4G, is not just higher speeds on existing networks. 4G has always been thrown around as the combination of powerful 3G networks combined with WI-FI to deliver the best performance wherever you are. So 3G in the boonies and WI-FI in the local or more metro areas. This is where it think its going and t-mobile has made the deal even sweeter by giving all Gphone user free access at all hot spots in their dominating WI-FI network. So you basically have free secure WI-FI at any Starbucks and most FedEx/kinkos Pretty Sweet.

GPS Location and Satellites

So at first I was launching the maps application and trying to see the awesome “full GPS” supposedly in the phone. After driving around for a little while I started to get disappointed, my blue dot was jumping all over the place and it seemed to be working like my old Blackberry. So I went back into the book and looked around. Turns out that you have to enable the satellites in the settings menu under security & location options. The reason for this is that it eats your battery, so use it when you need it.

Once I found the option the service immediately started working and seemed to be so accurate that it could tell that I was in the back of my house! That’s right, it was working inside my house in a back room and showed me in the backyard! I’m sure you remember Google launching all those satellites up there, they probably have better tracking (or will have) than traditional GPS units like Garmin and so forth. I took it for a ride to see the true accuracy of it on the road it it worked like a champ, you will not be disappointed with this feature, IMO.

Mail (Gmail)

Before I received my Gphone I took the liberty to switch all of my personal email over to Gmail. I quickly fell in love with Gmail and was excited to get the phone until I realized that the reason I liked Gmail as an online email client was because I learned the use of labels and was super organized with them.

When I received the phone I see that my fear had been alleviated and I can see the labels on the phone, they do not have their designated colors, but beggars can’t be choosers…he he.

I am not really using it for IMAP or POP3 because in my experience they always seem to cause problems on small devices and you should think the same way. Do you really need all your email everywhere? or Would your clients really think its unprofessional for the email to say “Sent on behalf of email@gmail.com from yourrealemail@workemail.com? I doubt it in this day and age, just add sent from my new Gphone in your signature and you will be redeemed.

Camera

I was reading on the G1 forum for t-mobile about people complaining about the camera delay and wanting it changed. Hmmm… I guess this is something I just notice because I think, but if you look closely at the screen when you are taking a picture you will notice it is focusing on the subject like most REAL cameras do. So for those of you who think it’s broken or you have to press the button twice (we call you guys flashing 12:00’s), just have a little patience, take a seat and think about why its doing something before just freaking out and wasting more time writing five forum posts expecting someone to hold your hand…sorry, that just came out…my apologies.

Back to the phone… As with most cameras and phones, you have to hold the device very steady as to avoid blurry photos (and remember to wait for the focus;) I threw up some pictures I snapped quickly, some are a little blurry and some are crisp so you get the idea when I talk about holding the device steady.

Then I downloaded this really cool app called picsay and was immediately able to add balloons and thought bubbles to all of the pics I took, pretty cool.

Applications

I have played with a few applications and found some useful ones. The first one I am really liking besides picsay is iskoot. Iskoot is a client for skype and from what I can tell already i works pretty well. I never really used skype because i wasn’t into the whole talking through the computer thing, but now things will change. If you have friends or relatives in other countries and you want call them like any call on your cell phone then this app is for you. I am guessing that you will want to be in a 3G area but I guessing it will work on edge? I’ll keep you posted…

Wertgo also seems like it has potential, just not the angle they are taking on it. They are trying to pitch it like a social network, when I feel they should be spinning more like a review community. My 2 cents…I did a local search and found plenty of places on it. Even here in Montclair New Jersey, so I would think they have a pretty extensive database already.

Summary

I think that the Gphone and Android have a nice grasp on the market and I am very happy with my purchase. If you are on the fence with it then I hope I am making your choice easier

I’ll keep you posted as I learn more, but that’s a good chunk of what I learned already…