Comments on: Hardware-unlocked Android G1 for sale

By: Michael Kamleitner

Michael Kamleitner — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:07:59 +0000

i only recently got a review unit of the t-mobile g1, and was somewhat disappointed as well. the keyboard (which should one of the devices biggest advantages!) sucks totally, its backlight is way too weak.

i’ve compiled my first impressions here:

http://nonsmokingarea.com/blog/2009/01/14/testdrive-t-mobile-g1-aka-google-phone-day-1/

By: rayrar

rayrar — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:39:36 +0000

Actually, they have an onscreen keyboard for the g1 that should be out shortly. you can find videos of it on the android forum or on youtube. Looks very promising.

By: santaninja

santaninja — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:47:25 +0000

actually the best keybored out is on the sidekick lx, i have a lx A iphone and a G1 the iphone is the biggest pain to use try the lx then the iphone and the iphone is just a crappy phone it fills so boxed in the g1 fills so open, real keyboard any day

By: liam

liam — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:02:16 +0000

ctrl-shift-s does nothing for me here (FF, Linux)

Besides, it’s a very small price to pay to not have to suffer the fanboy caps

By: Coderer

Coderer — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:18:08 +0000

Agreed about the keyboards. Steve Jobs can pry the “buttons” out of my cold, dead hands.

Also agreed about the punctuation — the problem is the site’s stylesheet. I’d write a userscript to override it but I’m *just* lazy enough not to bother. CTRL-SHIFT-S (in Firefox, possibly with the Developer extension installed) turns off style sheets, which fixes it, if it matters to you.

By: andrew

andrew — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:21:23 +0000

@urza9814 I humbly disagree. I’ve tried many virtual keyboards, and many thumb boards as well (treo, bberry, palm “add-on” thumb board).

While a hardware keyboard definitely is faster and more accurate, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the iphone kb. On screen keyboards without multitouch are a pain. I type quite a bit (ssh) on my iphone kb and it’s definitely usable, even with my huge hands.

By: Urza9814

Urza9814 — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:03:10 +0000

Virtual keyboards suck. Damn near impossible to type on.
Best mobile keyboard I’ve ever used: The peek.
Worst: iPhone.

And no, they don’t just take some getting used to – I use my iPod touch’s keyboard several times a day. My peek I’ve only used a couple times, but I love it.

By: Eliot Phillips

Eliot Phillips — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:59:13 +0000

@taylor it only works on t-mobile’s 3G in the US and International 3G. AT&T’s 3G is not supported.

By: bountyx

bountyx — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:47:00 +0000

virtual keyboard is on the way soon

By: Taylor Alexander

Taylor Alexander — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:42:04 +0000

Any news on what 3G bands this supports? Still just the T-Mob bands? I’d love for this to work with AT&T 3G, that would be reason enough to buy it, and the unlocking doesn’t do a lot of good for people interested in 3G, since i think T-Mob’s 3G bands are unique? Not sure on that. Anyway i know it’s unlikely, but it would sure be nice.
And tim, that’s funny, i helped my uncle Jack off a horse just yesterday!
-Taylor

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:16:31 +0000

What’s with removing all the capitalisation? As they say, capitalisation is the difference between “I helped my uncle Jack [capital J] off a horse” and “I helped my uncle jack off a horse”.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:11:39 +0000

Cool. I would buy this but the hardware looks a bit crap. The iPhone hardware is so much nicer; if only Apple weren’t such control freaks.

It doesn’t look like Android will ever be on a phone with an on screen keyboard which is a shame. Those physical qwerty keyboards are stupid.