ceremorphosis

I have used Palm- and Windows Mobile-based HTC phones in the past and have found them to be a decent option. The Google entry into the market with Android really interested me – a new OS not straddled with the legacy of Windows Mobile or Palm and on hardware not bound to one vendor as with the iPhone. Yesterday’s launch notes of the G1 have overall been pretty disappointing:

• No 3.5mm headphone jack. You have to use the silly HTC USB-like connector and their crappy earphones. I hated this on my previous HTC devices. This is a huge failure for any phone aimed at consumer use.
• If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less. So you go from 3G speeds down to GPRS after 1GB. For a phone heavily touted as an Internet-capable device, and especially one so tied into Google’s services, this is a failure.
• While we’re on the topic of Google services – there is no syncing. MobileMe, ActiveSync, and Palm Desktop exist for a reason. You may have your data in the “Cloud” but you may not always have access to the Internet.
• Google’s GMail is push to the device. This is a nice feature, especially as it also ties in your GTalk presence.
• Rumor is that a T-Mobile music store is coming. I don’t like DRM, but I would rather be tied into a company that had music devices as one of their tiers, rather than a phone company. To wit, the above comment about earphones.
• Edit: Yes, the Amazon MP3 store is the default, and that is a solid choice. DRM-free music thanks to the RIAA’s fear of iTunes is good. If this remains the default, then the item above is moot. I just know how mobile phone companies tend to act.
• Copy and paste is only from within text entry forms. This is better than the iPhone but worse than Palm-, Symbian-, and Windows Mobilebased phones.

Those are my thoughts for now. Back to work.