G1 > iPhone * 2

Topic: G1 & Android Cell Phones|Level: Beginner|Type: Informational

Ok, I'm not an iPhone hater... Quite contrary, I very much wanted one for quite awhile. But fortunately I could never get one in my area. And I say fortunately because I've found one that I love far more than iPhone.
iPhone set a new standard for smart phones and because of it's enormous market penetration any new apps are generally developed first for it. Given that, iPhone is amazing.

But if you're not an apple-head, or can't get AT&T or Cingular or w/e the "exclusive" service provider is calling itself now, or don't use a Mac/iTunes, I strongly recommend you check out Android (operating system) and the G1 (phone). Android OS (open source, developed by Google) will be coming to other devices (not just phones) and other carriers very soon, but is currently only available on the G1 from Tmobile.

But the G1 is very close and in many ways superior to the iPhone! Better camera resolution, removable micro-SD card for media, full QWERTY on-screen keyboard And slide out keyboard. And especially if you use gmail as your main email or google calendar because your email, contact list, and calendar are all completely integrated and synchronized to the phone, with 'push' email and updates to the device. Edit anything on the phone or computer, it automatically syncs to the other. You can also configure any POP3/IMAP mail clients to be received to your gmail account and thus sync'ed to your phone too. Or if for some reason the phone fails (though I know of nobody who has had any failed hardware short of dropping it in water or off a ledge to hard concrete), once you get it fixed/replaced all you have to do is sign in to your gmail account and all your email, contacts, and calendar are automatically resync'ed.
Also has full integration to Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, and Windows Live; full HTML & Java web browser; 3.2mp camera & camcorder

Or if you like Google Maps (regular maps, satellite maps, or even street view maps!!), they're completely integrated as well and with the phone's GPS and open source development there are some pretty amazing maps & location applications available for it too. ("Find me the nearest movie theater, give me show times, and now give me turn by turn directions to it")
And the phone even has a YouTube application built right in with very impressive quality!

As for media, the G1 is integrated with Amazon MP3 and Google Checkout for payment processing of songs or applications purchased in the Market. But you also don't have to have a particular application (iTunes) to get media in your phone. Sync via WiFi, USB cable, or load directly to the removable media card! And items purchased through Amazon MP3 are generally a bit less expensive than Apple Store and don't have DRM on them so you can transfer to PC, Zune, or any other device.

Another really cool thing, the Android OS also has something called "intents". Which allows an application with any piece of information to basically "announce" that is has some piece of info and any other application on the phone that can do something with that kind of info may take it and make use of it... For example, the Shazam application most people are familiar with can tell you what a song is and then "announce" that it has a song artist & title. Then the Amazon MP3 app can take that and take you to buy the song. Or you might use the "Places" application which uses your GPS information and online data to find places of interest (banks, gas stations, restaurants, theaters, etc) near you. You can see how far the places are or read reviews on them. But then you could click the Address of the place, the application "announces" it has an address, then the Google Maps might pick it up and give you turn-by-turn directions to it or allow you to see the Street View image of the place, or click the phone number and the phone application will pick it up and call them.

And as far as cost (again Tmobile is only carrier at the moment, but Android is being implemented on new devices by other carriers right now), I got a deal on the phone but I think it's $180 with 2-year contract regularly. Then I have the smallest minutes plan, 300 anytime minutes for $30/mo, and unlimited texting & data for another $35/mo (or they have a $25/mo with unlimited data only option too). So $65/mo total even cheaper per month than the iPhone would be even if I lived in a main service area!

The only things I still think the iPhone wins on is it's a more aesthetic device (but new Android devices are coming), it has multi-touch, screen is a little bit larger, and the software catalog is bigger (though again as more and more Android devices get to the market, their penetration is just going to keep growing and since it's even cheaper for developers to get registered to post & sell their apps it's almost guaranteed apps will start getting developed with Android as the standard then ported to iPhone)