[EdBrown]

I have been eagerly looking forward to a batch of new smartphones which are being released between now and the New Year, hoping that something would appeal and successfully rival the iphone which has several failings in my view.
I had declared an interest in the Google G1 soon to be released on T-Mobile and so was informed as soon as they had more pre-release details of it available on their web site.
Having viewed the specs I can only say that they and the production team of the G1 seem to have shot themselves in the foot; the amount of useful facilities that it is lacking is quite extensive and important examples are listed below, I would not perhaps miss something like video calling but I know others would and I expect most would be very disappointed to find more than one of their very useful facilities missing.
[This is what you will not get according to the T-Mobile info:
Voice activated dialling: They just lost a big percentage of drivers!
Video Calling: Not something for me but others love it.
Automatic Redial: Again very useful for drivers but others too.
Any Key Answer: An easily added switch on/off option often useful.
FM Radio: Most good smartphones offer this.
Mobile TV: Very disappointing.
Office App's: Cannot read PDF files.
Timer/Stopwatch: Again I could live without, but so easy to add.
To do notes: Not such a smartphone I'm thinking by now!
Video Capture: Not such a camera either!
Still Zoom: Digital zoom not great anyway, but more bad news.
Flash: A great camera if in bright light and close up (maybe)?
Now if that list of don't haves doesn't put off a large number of smartphone buyers then I'll eat my digitally enhanced hat!

[chum_2000_uk]

What you have to realise with the G1 is many of those things you have mentioned will likely be fixed through updates and apps. Its hardly the grim picture you paint imo. Many are just nitpicking it seems. Ok there are some hardware restraints that cant be fixed but hey.

At the end of the day no smartphone is perfect right now, if it has one thing then it doesn't have another. Sure we'd all love the perfect phone, but it seems thats just not on offer at this point in time. I certainly think the G1 is going to be the best of a "bad bunch"

The Blackberry Storm also looks like an interesting proposition, haven't read a great deal about that yet though, so dont know a massive amount about the specs etc. I do like the idea of an open source OS, and most of the reviews of the G1 so far have been pretty damn positive to be fair.

[Sy1441]

All these posts surface when the iphone was launched. The G1 is still a fantastic handset as is the Iphone.

[Autopilot]

Originally Posted by EdBrown

I have been eagerly looking forward to a batch of new smartphones which are being released between now and the New Year, hoping that something would appeal and successfully rival the iphone which has several failings in my view.
I had declared an interest in the Google G1 soon to be released on T-Mobile and so was informed as soon as they had more pre-release details of it available on their web site.
Having viewed the specs I can only say that they and the production team of the G1 seem to have shot themselves in the foot; the amount of useful facilities that it is lacking is quite extensive and important examples are listed below, I would not perhaps miss something like video calling but I know others would and I expect most would be very disappointed to find more than one of their very useful facilities missing.
[This is what you will not get according to the T-Mobile info:
Voice activated dialling: They just lost a big percentage of drivers!
Video Calling: Not something for me but others love it.
Automatic Redial: Again very useful for drivers but others too.
Any Key Answer: An easily added switch on/off option often useful.
FM Radio: Most good smartphones offer this.
Mobile TV: Very disappointing.
Office App's: Cannot read PDF files.
Timer/Stopwatch: Again I could live without, but so easy to add.
To do notes: Not such a smartphone I'm thinking by now!
Video Capture: Not such a camera either!
Still Zoom: Digital zoom not great anyway, but more bad news.
Flash: A great camera if in bright light and close up (maybe)?
Now if that list of don't haves doesn't put off a large number of smartphone buyers then I'll eat my digitally enhanced hat!

The thing with smart phones is that they are extensible and thus many of the features you mention could be added with third party software. However, Android has not been out long so the development community have not had time to do so. Many will be waiting to see how popular it becomes before investing their time in it. I must admit though, some of those do seem like strange omissions.

The problem here is not that it's a bad phone, it's that it's a first gen operating system. Windows mobile and Symbian where pretty rubbish to start with (well you could argue that Symbian is still a bit rubbish by todays standards). The iPhone has a lot of things 'missing' too. The platform just needs time to mature.

That's the risk you take being an early adopter of anything. It has a long way to go, but Android has a lot of potential so dont write it off just yet.