THE MORNING AFTER: Gizmodo’s Matt Buchanan offers up Android and T-Mobile G1’s Five Most Obnoxious Flaws and Wired’s Gadget Lab judges it Neither Open nor Exciting.
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It’s promised to be in 22 markets by commercial launch on October 22nd; by mid-November 27 markets. Wired’s epicenter:
The long-awaited, breathlessly-rumored, Google-powered (and still unavailable until next month) G1 phone was unveiled today with a list price that undercuts Apple’s iPhone by $20 but with few design or software elements that had not been anticipated.
The handset is made by HTC and the service is provided by T-Mobile — but the buzz is all about the completely open source Android platform developed by Google, which allows third-party developers to create applications.
Indeed, it was the unadvertised appearance of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, 45 minutes into what had been a routine presentation, that energized the packed media room. The pair skated onto the stage wearing rollerblades, perhaps taking a cue from the legendary, crowd-pleasing marketing prowess of Apple’s Steve Jobs.
The phone’s website was launched last night and the specs leaked then too. The BBC has an android video tour.
Amazon has partnered with Google to challenge the iTunes store. That’s attractive not least for the 6 million 100 percent DRM-free songs.
James Kendrick at GigOm has four things you need to know in order to get the most out of 3G. ReadWriteWeb is probably not first to wonder will it beat the iPhone? (They don’t answer but while the phone’s $20 cheaper the T-Mobile data, web, and message plans look to be about the same as AT&T.)
My quick read of Walt Mossberg’s first impressions is he’s underwhelmed. He begins by pointing out that it has a physical keyboard — “the lack of which has made the iPhone a non-starter for some users” — and is tightly-tied to Google’s web-based email, contacts and calendar programs:
In fact, you must have a Google account to use the phone, and can only synchronize the phone’s calendar and address book with Google online services… The G1’s multimedia capabilities are less polished and complete than the iPhone’s.
Finally, TechCrunch asks, can you say paradigm shift?
The G1 event has come and gone and it looks like we’re seeing an epic paradigm shift in the mobile space. iPhone started the ball rolling and Android is about the finish the job. The change? Phones are now officially computers and the expectation for most users is that they behave in the same way a powerful laptop or desktop PC would perform, albeit in a considerably more compact package….
Putting the G1 through its paces showed a intense attention to detail on the part of Google and a tacit promise from the phone that it was far more powerful than originally described. This is G1’s blessing and curse.