T-Mobile G1 (Black)

On September 23, the world was officially introduced to the HTC Dream, now known as the T-Mobile G1, and the initial reaction ranged from "That's it?" to "I have to have it!" Unfortunately, we fell more into the "That's it?" camp. The G1 definitely offers some functionality the original iPhone and the current iPhone 3G do not, including copy and paste capabilities, multimedia messaging, a better camera, and Google Street View.

However, there are some serious design flaws and at this time, the G1 does not support stereo Bluetooth, Microsoft Exchange, or video recording.

While these features may (and probably will be) added in the future, we feel like HTC, Google, and T-Mobile had the opportunity to really come out swinging and raise the bar, but didn't take full advantage of the opportunity.

The T-Mobile G1 is manufactured by HTC and has a similar look and feel to the company's other Pocket PC smart phones, such as the T-Mobile Wing and the Sprint Mogul.

Measuring 4.6 inches tall by 2.1 inches wide by 0.6 inch deep and weighing 5.6 ounces, the G1 is definitely not the sleekest device, and we certainly wouldn't call it sexy. Instead, the words "interesting" and "weird" come to mind. This is mostly because the bottom section of the phone juts out at a slight angle. We asked HTC about this design decision but have yet to hear from them as of press time.

Presumably, it's to get the phone's speaker closer to your mouth, which isn't a bad thing but consequently, it affects the ergonomics of the keyboard, which we'll touch on later. In a battle of pure looks, the iPhone would win hands down. Overall, the T-Mobile G1's interface is clean, fun, and easy to use. You have the freedom to customize the Home screen with your favorite apps, and you can do this in a couple of ways.

For example, you can do a long press on the Home page, which will bring up a menu where you can add shortcuts, widgets, or change the wallpaper. Alternatively, there's a little tab along the bottom edge of the screen that you can touch and then pull up, which will reveal a full menu of applications. From there, you do a long press on an icon and then drag it to the Home screen.

To remove it, perform the same touch action and then drag it to the trash can. Note that this action simply removes it from the screen and doesn't delete the application from your device. There are also sliding panels to the left and right where you can add more shortcuts, and there's a notification bar at the top, which you can pull down like a window shade and view missed calls, new messages, downloads, and more.