A Look at Google’s First Phone

The Google phone is real, and it’s finally here. Stand clear of popping corks.

AP

Actually, to be completely accurate, there isn’t anything called “the Google phone.” You can’t buy “the Google phone,” any more than you can buy “the Windows PC.” Google makes the software (called Android), and it’s up to the phone manufacturers to build cellphones around it.

What has its debut on Oct. 22, therefore, is a Google phone, the very first one: the T-Mobile G1 ($180 with two-year contract). Others will follow in the coming months.

The G1 is quite obviously intended to be an iPhone killer. Assessing its success, however, is tricky, because it’s the sum of three parts. Google wrote the software, HTC made the phone and T-Mobile provides the network. What you really need is separate reviews of each.

The software. The Android software looks, feels and works a lot like the iPhone’s. Not as consistent or as attractive, but smartly designed and, for version 1.0, surprisingly complete. In any case, it’s polished enough to give Windows Mobile an inferiority complex the size of Australia; let’s hope Microsoft has a good therapist.

The Home button opens a miniature computer desktop, with a background photo of your choice. A sliding on-screen “drawer” contains the icons of all of your programs; you can drag your favorites onto the desktop for easier access, or even into little folders. You can park playlists, single-purpose “widgets,” Web pages or address-book “cards” there, too, just as on a real computer (which this is).

The Home screen scrolls sideways to reveal more desktop area. You’ll need it once you start downloading programs from the online Android Market.

Like the iPhone store, this market is a gigantic development, rich with possibilities; as programmers everywhere create new programs, mostly free, this “phone” will turn into something vastly more flexible — and patch many of its feature holes.

Better yet, Google insists that its store will be completely open. Unlike Apple , it will not reject software submissions if they don’t serve the mother ship’s commercial interests. For example, Apple rejects programs that would let you make phone calls over the Internet, thereby avoiding using up cellular airtime. Google and T-Mobile swear they would permit such a thing.

One crucial improvement over the iPhone: a Menu button. It summons a panel of big buttons for functions related to what you’re doing. It’s the equivalent of right-clicking a computer mouse.

This panel offers commands like Hold, Mute and Speaker when you’re on a call; Archive and Delete when you’re working with e-mail; or Rotate and Share when you’ve taken a photo. If you can just remember to tap that Menu button, you’ll rarely flounder trying to find your way around.

Android comes with built-in programs like Contacts, Calendar, Calculator, Music, Google Maps, a YouTube module and chat and text-messaging programs. The Web browser uses the entire, glorious, 3.2-inch screen (480 by 320 pixels); unfortunately, it offers no Flash video. Worse, you have to do a lot of zooming in and out, and the onscreen + and - buttons are much fussier to use than pinching on the iPhone’s multitouch screen.

There are a bunch of minor glitches. For example, you have to deal with two different e-mail programs: one for Gmail accounts, one for other accounts. The Gmail program can view Microsoft Office attachments; the other one can’t. And when you’re using the non-Gmail mail program, hitting Reply puts the cursor in the To box (which is already filled in), rather than the body of the message.

You can’t get from one message to the next without returning to the Inbox list in between. There’s no Visual Voicemail (voice mail messages appear in a written list) or Microsoft Exchange compatibility, either.

Where Android really falls down is in the iPod department. There’s no companion program like iTunes to sync your photos, music and videos to the phone; you’re expected to drag these items to the phone manually after connecting via USB cable to your Mac or PC. More time-consuming fussiness.

Nor is there an online store for music, TV and movies. T-Mobile has worked out a deal with Amazon’s music store, which is a start, although you can download songs only when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot. Out of the box, Android can’t play videos at all, although a video-playing program is available from the Android Market.

Some of the goodies in Android will reward the iPhone holdouts: voice dialing, picture messaging, built-in audio recording and the ability to turn any song into a ring tone are all included — no charge.

CONTINUED : So much for the software...how about the phone and the network?

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