How I really feel about my antiquated G1

Posted: August 18th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

…So the G1 may not be updated beyond Cupcake (Android 1.5)…

As an Android early adopter, I do not feel screwed.  Do I care that I shelled out all that money for the G1 just to watch it get put out to pasture in less than a year?  Nope.  I can’t imagine that any other G1 owner would really be that upset either.

Know why?

Because we didn’t want the G1 when we bought it.  We wanted the first Android phone.  We wanted the first Google phone, and we got both of those things.  If anything, the G1/Dream actually made the whole experience worse for a lot of people.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the phone, I really do, and I am now painfully attached to the keyboard/trackball layout.  But overall it’s janky and I now have a legitimate reason to shop for a new phone.  The first one on my list is the Motorola Sholes simply because it has a keyboard and there more Android devices without one.

I understand that a physical keyboard lends to a phone’s overall creakiness, and the iPhone is therefore built like a goddamn rock.   My G1, on the other hand, cracked to shit when I dropped it once and it feels all wobbly most of the time.   But I simply do not wish to sacrifice the already tiny screen real estate (and use a soft keyboard)  for the sake of a stronger chassis.

I mean, are you nuts?   People and their virtual keyboards, man.  How fucking small of a screen do you want?

Your virtual keyboard cuts the workspace down to 1 inch. Good Job.

Your virtual keyboard cuts the workspace down to 1 inch. Good Job.

Knowing this, how can you honestly consider an onscreen keyboard a viable interface?  Couldn’t they have come up with some kind of stupid gesture-related “handwriting recognition” alphabet like the old Palm Pilots used to have?  I mean,  ONE INCH OF WORKSPACE….your screen is about this big:

This doesn't look so awesome for running apps.

This doesn't look so awesome for running apps.

Now I know these two devices end up having the same real estate because I have both of them and I measured.  The LG eNV is actually a o.9″ so I rounded up, and the iPhone’s screen space in notepad and messaging was 1.1″  so I rounded down.

I know Motorola hasn’t had a killer phone since the RAZR, but I’m putting a lot of stock in the Sholes, since it’s one of the only Android Phones in the near term that has a keyboard.