Google has new program to sell Android phones directly to developers. The Android Dev Phone 1 is both SIM-unlocked and hardware-unlocked. SIM-unlocked means you can use it on any GSM carrier you want. Hardware-unlocked means you can run any system you want on the phone, not just officially signed ones. No more need to worry about security patches taking away your root access.
The device is $399. You will need to purchase it through the Android Market as a registered developer (a $25 fee). We wonder how long before the unsigned bootloader starts getting flashed to T-Mobile phones.
Two new Android phones have surfaced recently which may prove just as friendly: the Kogan Agora Pro and the QiGi i6.
UPDATE: While shipping is free in US, it is incredibly expensive everywhere else. Yes, we bought one.
[via Techmeme]
[photo: tnkgrl]
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.
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”.
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
virtual keyboard is on the way soon
@taylor it only works on t-mobile’s 3G in the US and International 3G. AT&T’s 3G is not supported.
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.
@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.
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.
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
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
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.
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/
There are some attention-grabbing closing dates in this article however I don’t know if I see all of them heart to heart. Theres some validity however I will take maintain opinion till I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we want more!
Good point Hans. If you primarily use WiFi then you will love it. I’m on the go a lot, and the edge network is unusable for directions or anything useful. It’s very unfortunate because I love the iPhone. Best of luck.