I thought I would start my Android/G1 series by highlighting the things I do not like about the G1. It is a good way to keep the balance, since I have sounded like the G1 (or Android) is the best thing that happened to mobile phones since….. who knows?
Anyway, here is my list of gripes about the Android-powered T-mobile G1:
- Battery life. Battery life is frustrating! The G1 simply burns fuel like a race car. With semi-intensive use, a full charge barely lasts 7 hours. And that is with the 3G, Wifi, and GPS radios turned off. Go figure.
- Keyboard backlight. It works well in the dark, but in daylight, the white backlight on the grey/silver keys simply means that you can”t see the characters on the keys without having to turn the device at an angle.
- Multi-tasking and Application Management. The G1 has multi-tasking, but since there is no way to terminate applications by the user, it is up to the device to determine what applications running in the background to close. At times, it simply closes the very one you would love to have left running. There is at least one 3rd party app that provides this functionality though.
- No Bluetooth file transfer. Yup; sorry guys but you cannot send or receive music, pictures or any file for that matter via Bluetooth. Bluetooth on the G1 exists only for audio. No way; this is not happening!
- Inability to install applications on external memory. You can install apps only to built-in memory. Install heavy apps and run out of space ASAP.
- One general Gallery. All your media files – pictures and videos are presented under one general gallery. Yes; there are sub-folders, but not in a very elegant way. again, 3rd party applications offer alternatives
- No built-in file manager. Again, 3rd party apps to the rescue here!
- No built-in MS Office viewer or editor. Once more, 3rd party apps fill this vacuum…
Err… that list contains 8 gripes; right? I tried. I hunted for two more to complete the list but came up with nothing else.
Up next: “Ten (or so) things I like about the G1!”
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June 4th, 2009 at 7:36 am Browsing with
This tells us that we ve gat 1 or 2 things to cheer about the ‘dated’ Symbian OS especially the multi tasking aspect…..dont ya all agree wit me?
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June 4th, 2009 at 8:22 am Browsing with
Azeez,
Not quite. Multi-tasking works well on the G1. Apparently, the option to terminate applications was left out by HTC, so it isn’t an issue with the Android OS.
For example, the Samsung i7500, which also runs on Android 1.5 (the same version on my G1), has the feature implemented. See i7500 preview at GSMArena (non-mobile link). So, there’s no doubt that Android supports the feature but that for whatever reason HTC didn’t put it in the G1.
As a matter of fact, multi-tasking on Android is better than on Symbian, in the sense that when an application is terminated in the background (and Symbian does that too), when you re-launch it, the application resumes exactly where you left off before it was terminated, such that it wouldn’t even occur to you that it had been terminated.
This is superb for users who don’t need to know what’s going on behind the scenes, and who do not care about technicalities (and the majority of users fall into this category). It simplifies things for them. The only reason I got to know was because I installed a 3rd party app that shows running applications so I could monitor behind-the-scene operations.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself now. That was supposed to be part of the “10 things I like about the G1″ review.
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