Google’s iPhone challenger

Google G1 mobile phone

The first smartphone powered by Google’s open source Android operating system – the G1 – was in one sense a big success even before it went on sale this week through Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA mobile unit. According to some reports, 1.5m T-Mobile G1 handsets were preordered by buyers eager to get hold of a device and an operating system that promise to deliver another boost to the consumer smartphone market. It goes on sale in the UK shortly.

I have been testing the G1, made by Taiwan-based HTC, for several weeks. A number of shortcomings aside, it is a true rival to Apple’s iPhone and other smartphone devices aimed at the consumer market.

The G1′s most noticeable feature is its design. It may lack the immediate, simple aesthetic appeal of the iPhone, but it does pack both a big 3.2 inch touch screen and a full mini Qwerty keyboard that slides out of one side: and it all fits into a case that is only slightly thicker than Apple’s device.

The G1′s physicalkeyboard will particularly appeal to users who write and send a lot of mobile e-mail, text messages or instant messages and who, like me, find the virtual keyboard built into the iPhone difficult to use.

The other unusual design feature is that it is angled at one end to move the microphone a little closer to the users’s mouth during voice calls. It also positions the BlackBerry-style trackerball conveniently under the right thumb when you rotate the handset to the “landscape” position to use the keyboard and browse the internet.

Aside from the trackerball, there are five buttons below the screen. The familiar green and red start/stop call buttons, along with its good sound quality, make the G1 an appealing handset for ordinary voice calls. There is a home screen button, a return button to take you back one step, and a menu button that brings up a set of context-sensitive “soft” keys at the bottom of the touch screen.

Navigating the G1 and its features is easy but not quite as intuitive as the iPhone.

In spite of its sophisticated technology credentials, the G1 is clearly aimed at the broad mass market rather than technology aficionados or corporate users. It is not designed to synchronise with corporate e-mail systems and does not permit users to save or edit Microsoft Office documents.

W hen new G1 owners power up the handset, they create or sign into a Google account and then the phone is automatically sychronised with Google’s web-based Gmail, calendar and contact information. Users can also set the phone up to download and send e-mail from other non-Gmail personal e-mail accounts. Gmail users can read Microsoft Word and Excel attachments, but cannot edit or save them.

Appropriately for a device that Google believes will help bring the mobile internet to the mass market, the G1′s web browser is both fast and excellent – it is in fact based on the same technology as the Safari browser built into the iPhone and Google’s recently launched Chrome web browser.

In my tests, web pages loaded quickly and I could zoom easily by tapping a screen based icon.

The G1′s home screen features four icons providing access to basic applications – a dialler, contacts list, the web browser and Google Maps. The latter takes full advantage of the G1′s built-in GPS satellite navigation technology and supports one of my favourite features – Google Maps street view that changes as you turn around, like a compass needle.

From the home screen, users can open a full screen of application icons that provide access to all the included applications such as alarm clock, camera, e-mail, IM and music.

Surprisingly, the big gap in the G1′s features is support for music and other multimedia content where it is easily outclassed by the iPhone and the latest BlackBerrys. The G1 comes with an integrated music player and 3Mp (megapixel) camera, but does not allow users to take video clips.

More crucially, there is no way to sychronise your music with your PC; instead, you must load unprotected AAC, MP3, or WMA files on to a memory card or drag and drop music files on to the G1 while it is connected via a USB cable to a PC. However, users can download music directly from the Amazon music store using the G1′s WiFi networking capabilities.

The lack of a standard headphone mini-jack is also annoying – users have to plug an adapter into the G1′s proprietary USB port. On the plus side, the G1 has a removable rechargeable battery and, in my tests at least, was quite frugal – an overnight charge was enough to run it all the next day. Talk time is around five hours.

Overall, the G1 is an impressive first generation of a new type of smartphone, with many strengths offsetting a few weaknesses. It is well made and remarkably stable – my test unit has not crashed at all – even though it is actually a combination of a new mobile phone operating system (Android) developed by the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, new hardware built by HTC and, at least in the US, a new 3G mobile network being rolled out by T-Mobile USA.

It is also likely that many of the niggles I have identified will be addressed by software updates and by third-party applications offered through Goog-le’s online store, the Android Market. Like Apple’s App Store, the Android Market will offer free and low cost software packages – about 50 at launch – and is in my view the most exciting development.

More smartphones: next week Paul Taylor looks at the latest BlackBerrys – the Bold and the Pearl Flip