Our fantastic friend google android is out and so far is not impressing me one bit. Don’t get me wrong the software is great but from my perspective doing research on both the hardware and the network that google choose to release this phone I am really disappointed. The G1 is one of T-Mobiles first 3G phones and the reason behind it is because that T-Mobile has an extremely small 3G data network. (Currently only in 13 Markets and by the end of 2008 only in 27 Markets). To put that into perspective AT&T’s 3G covers 350 US Markets.

You might think what does this mean in terms of the G1 and the services that google is offering. Rumors have it that google and T-Mobile are going to allow you to get googles services without the need for a data plan. If you have looked into what is google is offering this is ALOT I mean ALOT. Google is going to sync everything on the phone over the web. So if you add a contact, start a convo in gTalk, delete or send an email it will all be synced back to your google/gmail account over the air. However my question to google is how long is this going to take on T-Mobile’s EDGE network? With only 27 Markets on their 3G network and the average person not being in those Markets most people are going to suffer with EDGE speeds. So let’s say you have 100MB’s of email 10MB’s of contacts, cal events and tasks, and another 10MB’s of gTalk convos. If you loose your phone and need to replace it it would take around 45 minutes to re-sync all that back to your phone. Needless to say T-Mobile needs to get a faster data network soon or google needs to find a faster carrier.

The issues with this phone don’t end with T-Mobile. HTC is the maker of the G1 and so far I have seems some setbacks for this phone. First and foremost is going to be the 256MB of ROM on the phone. For all you music guru’s out looking for a cheap alternative for the iPhone this is not what you a looking for. 256MB = little to no music. Before you say I am crazy yes the phone does have an optional MicroSD slot that can support up to 8GB’s but who wants to manage where they store their programs and data? I sure don’t and would like to see google take an approach more along the lines of the iPhone with the built in flash memory.

Lastly I would like to let all you know that I am very disappointed in the overall marketing and overall execution of the G1. In my opinion the software has a great potential being an open source platform that many developers are going to jump all over. I currently have no issues with the software and will keep you updated on my progress as I am currently looking into learning more about the SDK and developer tools that google offers. In the end I will keep an eye on the G1 but have no intentions of running out to get one.

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