I didn’t pay much attention to the hype surrounding it, until a friend of mine came over one night in early January with his new T-Mobile G1. I watched him play with it for a bit (ignore the dirty connotations that sentence brings up, please), and then I asked to check it out. My big thing is the keyboard — are the buttons easy to maneuver? Feel? Press? Well yes, yes and yes. The combination of touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard (plus separate numbers — no more hitting the ALT key to type in a number, or ALT + ALT to type in a whole string of them and ALT again to exit out of the number mode) and call/home/menu/back/end buttons made navigating the phone’s numerous features quite easy. Bonus: the spiffy little clickable mouse ball that I only discovered after buying the phone. Hah.

I had been having the “itch” to upgrade from the phone I had then, the T-Mobile Dash. A very nice phone, not a thing wrong with it (besides it totally laying the smack down on its original battery, which I replaced last December), but I bought it back in August 2007, and I was getting… bored.

So, while I was in Philadelphia on January 27th, I decided to check out the T-Mobile G1 in person. Then I had to call several stores and drive to three different ones in order to track down a white G1. Apparently white is in high demand. I’m not exactly sure why that is, besides the obvious fact that the Apple iPhone is available in white, so wouldn’t it be neat to have its competition in the same color? I do admit, I love having the phone in white. Both my friend and Dan (Dan liked my phone upon sight, and I got him one in black two days later) have theirs in black, and the black is okay… but just not for me. The big downside to having a white G1 is that the keyboard contrast, quite frankly, sucks major ass. Thankfully, I am a typing queen, and I quickly memorized the placement of the keys and spacing between them and such, so I only occasionally slip up and use a double quote instead of a single, or type a period instead of a comma.

Hardware-wise, the phone feels nice. It feels even nicer with the clear case I bought for it and put on the phone before I even turned it on. I also left on the original clear plastic shields. They don’t interfere with the look of the phone or the ability to view, read and use the touch screen, and I’m grateful for the added protection. Whether the phone falls off our furniture or gets jostled around in my purse, it’ll be good to go! The area surrounding the call, home, menu, mouse ball, back and end buttons aside, the phone will be in pristine, mint condition for years to come!
The keys are wide and raised just enough to distinguish one from another. They’re not spaced too close together, which was a peeve of mine with the Dash. All of the buttons and keys are very responsive, and the mouse ball is almost too fast.
The screen’s orientation is vertical when closed (the screen slides over the keyboard area), and automatically switches to horizontal when open.

Software-wise, this phone is just AMAZING. It’s fast to start up, fast to power down, and switches through applications seamlessly. Oh, and the apps… don’t even get me started on the Android Market. There is an application for just about anything. I’ll give you a perfect example of “anything” with the list of apps I have installed:

• Backgrounds: lists categorized backgrounds from Flickr that are the perfect resolution for use as G1 wallpaper
• Flashlight: turns the whole screen white, and disables screen timeout. Great for using as a flashlight, and yes, I have used it!
• Lexic: word game. You have three minutes to create as many four letter words from a 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 grid of random letters. Insanely addictive.
• Mileage: handy app that logs mileage for vehicles. Logging options cover the cost of gas, the number of gallons you purchased, and your current odometer reading. It also supports multiple vehicles. (On a related note, we’ve put over $100 in the Hyundai in less than a month. Ouch!)
• OI Shopping List: a cute app that lets you create shopping lists. Check or mark off items as you purchase them.
• PingDroid: quickly update Ping.fm.
• ShopSavvy: some sort of shopping app. I haven’t used it yet.
• Sudoku: self-explanatory.
• The Weather Channel: should also be self-explanatory.
• Tiproid: quickly calculate tips and bill splitting for restaurant bills.
• Toddler Lock: Ryan really likes this app. Basically, it “locks down” the phone, and it can only be removed by pressing a certain sequence of letters and numbers. While in the lock down mode, shapes in various sizes and colors float around the screen, and quiet music plays in the background.
• ToggleWifi: one-click to turn wifi on or off (as opposed to going to Menu > Settings, etc.).
• Twidroid: keep tabs on your Twitter friends and post updates, and photos, too!
• World Traffic Cams: just what it says. I haven’t used it yet.
• Yellowbook V2: app that enables you to search yellowbook.com directly, without loading up the browser.

In summary, since this review is long enough by now, the T-Mobile G1 is an amazing phone, and I have no regrets about purchasing it. The battery life leaves a little too be desired, but turning off GPS and wifi (when not in use) and keeping the screen brightness turned to the low end of the scale can really make a big difference. I’d say that I have to charge my phone every two days, and I can go two days or so with frequent use before it will die completely. The “inconvenience” of having to remember to charge isn’t too bad — Dan and I have a charger in the living room, two in the bedroom, chargers in each cars, and USB cables in case we want/need to connect the phone directly to a computer. So, we’re good to go!

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

I’m impressed with the battery life – with regular use, I can expect to need to recharge every three days or so.

Well, here we are, with a cell phone that has been getting daily use for a year and two months, and its battery is dying. I have to say, I am very disappointed. In contrast, the Motorola Razr V3 that I purchased in February of 2006 has a consistent and high quality battery life, just as the Samsung E315 that I purchased in March of 2005 is still going strong.

The Dash battery life? Not anything to write home about. For the past month I have been putting up with a phone that lasts perhaps 3-4 hours after being charged for up to twelve hours. Needless to say, I’m constantly plugging the phone back in, in my car, in my house, in my mother’s house, etc. I’m taking to traveling with an AC adapter, and have even considered one of those battery-operated adapters (how ironic, using batteries to charge batteries!). Today I purchased a new battery from eBay, and I hope I can go back to having a cell phone battery that lasts more than a few hours.

T-Mobile, I’m quite disappointed. :/

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

• Be approved for a monthly plan, which required a one or two year contract. You might also be eligible for a free or discounted cell phone, depending on the terms and length of your contract
• Buy expensive prepaid phone cards, and pay full price for a cell phone

Because my father was willing to set up a cell phone plan for me in his name back in the summer of 2004, I did not have to worry about dealing with prepaid, which I would have had to otherwise, as I had in the past. Yet another downside of having bad credit – not only do you deal with high interest and higher deposits on loans and such, you are also almost always denied for contract cell phone plans!

Recently my husband and I decided to call T-Mobile and see about paying off an owed balance on my account, one that we had let go in the fall in order to take care of some more pressing financial matters. But because we let the balance go so long, we had to pay it off and start anew with T-Mobile.

I fully expected to hear the spiel about being denied based on credit, but why not take advantage of our wonderful prepaid phone cards?

But I was wrong. Blissfully, totally wrong! T-Mobile has introduced a great new feature called T-Mobile FlexPay. T-Mobile Flex offers people the same monthly plans and benefits and features, but without contracts and obligations! With FlexPay, you can still pick your plan and add-ons, and still have them! The key difference is that your pay period is based on prepaid, rather than postpaid. This means that you pay for your month service ahead of time. For example, I am expecting a bill from T-Mobile within the next week. This bill will cover my services for March. I already paid for my February services when I signed up for them in the middle of January (I paid for January too, but it was pro-rated).

The purpose of T-Mobile FlexPay is to offer customers with shoddy credit the opportunity to enjoy the same plans, features and rates as contract customers, but without the risk of running up large bills that they might not be able to pay. That is why all services must be paid for at the start of the billing period, rather than at the end of one.

There is one downside to T-Mobile FlexPay, and that is that a lot of the shorthand numbers – those five digit codes you see mentioned on commercials and advertisements — are blocked from usage with T-Mobile FlexPay accounts. Again, this is to prevent unforeseen costs being added to one’s bill. It’s a downside for me because Twitter uses a five digit code for updates, as do many other online and offline companies, including Google and MSN. But, there are workarounds, with the use of international numbers, email addresses and applications that can be downloaded right to your cell phone!

The T-Mobile Dash is a sexy, feels-good-to-hold “Smart”phone that is loaded with Windows Mobile. Its key features include a bare bones but very functiona e-mail client, Internet Explorer (mobile version), and a camera that takes fuzzy but relatively decent photos.

When I’m on the go, which as of late has been just about every single day, I use my T-Mobile Dash to keep in touch with family, check my voicemail, check e-mail, and, of course, browse the web. I’m impressed with the battery life – with regular use, I can expect to need to recharge every three days or so. Charging takes a little longer than other phones, but that is to be expected.

I do have three minor critiques about the phone. First, the phone itself. I love the QWERTY keyboard, but I wish the keys were just a bit larger and had some spacing between them, more like the Sidekick II’s keyboard. I understand that this would make the overall size of the phone wider, but I would take a wider phone in exchange for being able to type quicker and not make so many mistakes (namely, hitting the wrong keys).

Second, there is no close or exit option for any of the programs loaded onto the phone. I can “leave” the program to go back to the home screen, or to open up another program, but this leaves the current program running in the background, sucking up precious amounts of memory. The only way I can turn off a program is to go to the Task Manager – much like hitting ctrl + alt + delete on a regular Windows computer – and force a shutdown of that particular program, all programs, or all programs but selected there.

My final gripe is that there are times when I am loading email or a website, and I’ll be suddenly bounced back to the home screen. I don’t know if this is a quirk or a crash, but it is annoying when it happens.

Overall though, small keys, lack of easy close options and quirks aside, I love this phone!