Comments on: Review: 7 days with the Google phone

By: Gadgetress

Gadgetress — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:36:06 +0000

Scottie — Got sidetracked… Image should be working now. I’ve got to return the review unit … Even though my T-Mobile service has been spotty, I was tempted to get one when they went on sale yesterday but didn’t want to wait in line. Who knows? You’ll have to check back and see what I do…

By: Google phone customers in line in O.C. - Alt+Save with the Gadgetress - OCRegister.com

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:34:09 +0000

[...] Review: 7 days with the Google phone [...]

By: kmila

kmila — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:09:26 +0000

Wow. I just got the phone last night and I am VERY IMPRESSED. I still need to find out many things about the phone, but so far… it is pretty amazing. Everything works so seamlessly, all the applications load fast and the image is so beautiful. Internet pages and youtube look much nicer than on my computer ( and I have one of those nice MacBook PRo’s)
The sound of the music tops the ipod I have…

I do believe this is one of the best phones out there.

By: Scottie

Scottie — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:18:45 +0000

The linked media player pic is returning a “404 — File not found.” Sounds like the gPhone needs a features added with a firmware update. So what do you plan on doing with it now?
2wire.com has a good speedtest too.

By: Gadgetress

Gadgetress — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:00:31 +0000

Scottie: I got the 2.3 mbps in an area without Wi-Fi, so definitely not. The potential issue is that the online speedtests I usually visit required me to update Flash and I didn't feel like it, so I kept surfing till I found a site that let me test speed without much fuss. As for the media player, please see the addendum posted above. I also uploaded this pic of the music player for ya.

By: Scottie

Scottie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:45:37 +0000

Maybe the 2.3 megabit-per-second connection was through Wi-Fi not 3G? Do you have a picture of the media players UI?

By: Gadgetress

Gadgetress — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:20:40 +0000

David — No, there is no ability to take video, which is another big negative. Since video on a cell phone isn’t a priority for me, I didn’t even think to try this during my review. Let me see if I can get an answer on why this isn’t available. — Gadgetress

By: David

David — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:59:41 +0000

Thank you for the review. Any “out of the box” ability to take video?

By: Gadgetress

Gadgetress — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:10:58 +0000

Ben – Yes, all three points you made were points I wanted readers to keep in mind before buying the phone or deciding not to.

Of course T-Mobile is trying to drum up hype. This is a significant even in the tech world. Whether it will become a significant event in history remains to be seen. T-Mobile hasn’t offered anyone specific numbers on pre-sales. However, those numbers will indeed come out. Now, the iPhone had a ton of hype but if you remember, the first iPhone only sold about 250,000 in the first weekend.

I’m not sure how to address your other two points other than, yes, I agree with you and with my statement. They don’t conflict. But one point on synching is that I don’t have everything on Google. If I did, I wouldn’t need to resynch contacts. If handing over all this information to Google is too scary — don’t do it. The Google phone isn’t for you.

And yes, the Android Market. If those other 1,000+ apps don’t show up soon, much of the appeal of the Google phone is gone. The potential for this phone or another phone with Google’s operating system, however, is still unexplored.

By: ben foigras

ben foigras — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:26:31 +0000

thanks for the report, just wondering about a few details…

When you say that you don’t buy into the hype, but try to assess the potential, I think you are really nailing it down, instead of hype people should look at the ‘potential’ of the product. Very good!

But in the very next paragraph you say that it is a ‘hotly anticipated phone’ and T-Mobile says they are ‘expecting people to line up’ for it. Isn’t that just hype? And you say the company been tellling you that ‘they had so many requests for pre-orders’ they had to ‘triple’ their orders? Did they actually tell you the real numbers or is that just another bit of hype to keep the interest in the product high?

You say then that you love the integration with Google because ‘it’s the ease you have been looking for’ yet in the same sentence you also that you would have to sync ‘all your contacts, photos, music and other files’ with Google first, even though you admit that that is a ‘scary prospect’.

About the market I am worried. You said that Google held a million-dollar contest and there are still only 30 apps available so far despite there being 1,758 entries? Just like you I really want to know is what happened to the 1,788 apps that developers around the globe submitted to Google.