So after almost 3 weeks of G1 use, I can say that battery life is not a problem on G1, at least for me. When I first got G1, I was using it constantly. But now that I am done playing with it and using it like I would use it, battery life is not so bad.
I still need to charge it every night unlike my last cell phone which can go on for a week with a single charge. But then again my last phone, well just a phone. With all the features that G1 provides, I think daily re-charge is a small price to pay for those. Another cool thing about is since G1 uses USB to charge, you never have to worry about about charger. My TomTom’s chatger works with G1. I have used PS3 at times to charge my phone at friend’s place. USB is just everywhere. Gotta love standards.
Being an engineer, I love numbers. Numbers motivate me. Numbers are just cold hard facts.
So I was using Playstation 2 game, Yourself! Fitness for working out. It was great. It got some cool feature like it displays charts of your progress. Also it customize workout for you, so that you work on things you need to work on. As time goes on, it makes workouts more challenging. During every workout routine it asks you if this routine was too easy, just right or too hard for you.
Initially when I started, I would say workout was really good. However, lately, its been too easy for me. I keep telling it that workout is too easy but I hardly notice any difference during next workout. I guess this game increase level of difficulty in very minor increments.
So lately, I am doing my own workouts, mostly push ups and crunches. But there was no way for me to track my progress, so I made this Google sheet to track my workouts. It should be fun to look at progress chart.
Then I enjoy running and biking but I normally have no idea how much I am running or if I am making progress or not. This new G1 app, let me track my runs. It, in fact, maps those runs and upload to web. Its amazing!
Ah I love technology.
G1 is a great phone. The best feature about this phone is Android, an open source development platform. There are some really cool apps out there. And these apps make this phone so cool. I am still playing with various apps but so far following are my favorite:
- Shazam, recognizes any recorded music and provide a link to purchase it from Amazon.com
- Compare Everything, let you scan UPC code of a product and then it finds the cheapest price online and locally. I know I will be using the a lot.
- CallerID, pulls up white page information if you don’t have that number stored in your phone.
- CardioTrainer, lets you keep log of your actual running route using GPS data.
- Bartender, well you tell it what you got and it tells you what you can make.
I also like phone part. Its simple. Contacts are stored online, this way switching between different Android phones should be a breeze.
Camera is really bad, don’t expect to take even semi-good pics with this camera. Also there is about 3 second delay when you press shutter button and when actuall photo is taken.
Now the worst part, the battery life. I got this phone yesterday and I had to charge it 3 times in 24 hour period. Of course, its a brand new phone with a lot of features, so I am playing with it a lot more too. But it still seems ridiculous. Some online forums recommend shutting off everything and only using Edge network. I am not sure if that really a solution since the whole appeal of this phone was 24/7 connected life, at least for me.
Also I read somewhere, battery will take sometime before it get calibrated. Once battery is calibrated then it should last much longer. Well I will wait a week and see if there is any improvement.
3G network speed in Arlington TX is about 390 Kbit/second and Edge is about 80 Kbit/second.
Well I was going to return this phone because of its battery life issues but its other features are just too good. I think I will have to invest in car charger and hope that T-Mobile or Google will release an update to fix battery life.
Wow I love g1, so addicting. Shazaam is my fvourite app right now.
G1 looks like a sweet phone. It got a lot of great features that will be useful for me. However, the greatest feature that interested me was Android platform. Android is an open source platform for programming cell phones. this means I can write my own application for G1.
I was alomst about to order it until I realized just like my so many coding projects, I probably will write Hello World application and then just get bored with it. I decided only way I will order G1 is if I actually write a decent app for it. i don’t need actual phone to program it. I can use emulators to program.
So I gonna wait for now.
