Today was a huge day for Google and T-Mobile with the announcement of the first phone to come loaded with Android. The official release date of the T-Mobile G1 will be Wednesday October 22nd. Pre-sales started immediately after the announcement for the upgrade price of $179. The G1 has a 3.2-inch 320 x 480 (HVGA) resolution capacitive touchscreen, a flip-out full QWERTY keyboard, dual-band UMTS HSPA, quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth. There’s also a 3.2-megapixel fixed-focus camera, microSD slot (with a 1GB card provided and up to 8GB supported) and a trackball for navigation.
The phone comes preloaded with most of the essentials including Google Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Contacts, Calendar and IM. Out of the box it has access to Amazon’s MP3 download store, but you’ll need to download a video player from the Android Market. Google Street View was added to this device with a convenient compass feature to help with navigation: turning while holding the phone automatically pans the display, so it’s always in the direction you’re pointing.
The design of the G1 is very similar to that of the Sidekick series with a hidden keyboard and trackball. The angled “chin” appears to be for extra support when holding the device in landscape orientation. As for the menu button, it seems a lot easier to access and use in landscape mode, as if it were created for use with the keyboard. The G1 comes in white, soft black and soft brown. It appears rather than going for a sleek look, HTC was aiming at better functionality and a much better feel in your hand.
Competitively priced data plans start at $25 with unlimited web & some text messages, and $35 with unlimited data and messaging. The draw back to these plans being the 1 Gig cap on data usage. Some would-be buyers are finding that the $179 price isn’t available to them, and that they’re being charged as much as $299.
There’s a thriving forum and more information over at Android Community, so if you’re interesting in the G1 or Android as a platform, head on over!
