The Gadget Gurus Podcast 03 has arrived!!
Put down whatever your doing and grab The Gadget Gurus latest podcast! This week Ray and I cover, the new iPod Shuffle, iPhone 3.0 and our predictions, Microsoft, Windows Mobile, Palm Pre webcast and of course the App Of the Week!
Get it here:
T-Mobile G1 Journal Days Three and Four
So a couple more days have passed with the T-Mobile G1. The battery life has gotten a bit better, but overall it still sucks pretty bad. I have not received my my Seidio extended battery yet, and after it has been conditioned I will do another post to let you guys know if there is any real world difference.
I am still very impressed with the G1, it has some great features and the integration with Google is, of course, seamless and great! The App market has some great stuff and I really see this platform becoming more more relevant once it gets on more hardware and more carriers pick it up. Will the G1 replace my Blackberry? Not yet. First off the battery will need some serious improvement, T-Mobile’s service will need to improve (no 3G here), and it needs to be able to handle multiple Gmail accounts. I don’t need the G1 to do multiple calendar, contacts, but having all my Gmail mail accounts pushed would be great! My Storm gets all of my Gmail accounts pushed right to me. My Blackberry still gets my email about 2-3 minutes before my G1 at the worst and 30 seconds or so at its best. Not a huge deal, but it shows you RIM knows how to do email very very well.
One thing I love that the G1 does, better than any device, is the integration with Google. The email is nice because I do not have to delete a message on my G1 AND on my account like I do with Blackberry. Also contact integration works so much better on the G1 even with Blackberry having Google sync. If I set a contact photo, it changes in Gmail and I do not have to change it on my device. Less steps and more productive!
The notification bar is the real winner with Android and the G1! Seriously every developers/engineer should just copy this idea and put it on all of there phones right now. It works so well and makes the OS a snap to go in and out of apps with ease.
So after about a week, I am very happy with the G1, minus some shortcomings. I will definitely be holding onto it and I am looking forward to more and more out of the platform in the future!
Thanks for everyone for reading my T-Mobile G1 Journal and be sure to ask me anything you’d like! You can find me on Twitter @mikef1182 or email MobileMike01@gmail.com
T-Mobile G1 Journal Day Two
Well here we are on day two of Mobile Mike’s T-Mobile G1 Journal! Today was my first day back at work with my G1 in hand. Today I left my blackberry Storm at home, GASP!, and Strictly used the G1 all day. In fact I still have not picked my Blackberry up and I have been home for the last couple of hours. So how did the G1 fair today while at work? Pretty darn good aside from one issue that is REALLY annoying, the craptastic battery life!
I unplugged the G1 at around 10am this morning and headed to work. On the way to work I listened to about 15 minutes of a Podcast without it charging at the same time. When I got to work I responded to a few text messages and some emails, and of course busted out Twidroid for my Twitter habit. Of my 8 hour work day, my usage consisted of Twidroid use and text messaging throughout the day. I did browse the web off and on too, I did not use Wifi, but EDGE instead (T-Mo doesn’t have 3G here yet). After about 4 hours my battery had taken a huge hit and was down to about 60%. At the end of my 8 hour work day, the battery was down to about 20%. I started researching and found this Seidio Battery. It is physically the same size as the OEM G1 battery, but packs 1400mah VS the stock 1100mah. I ordered it right away and hopefully it will help with my battery issues.
Battery problems aside, the G1 was great to use today. It kept me in the loop on Twitter, I LOVE the Gmail client, and the web browser is probably my favorite on a mobile device. Also I found the keyboard very easy to use when sending text messages all day as well. I also uninstalled anything that may run in the background and installed an app called “Power Manager” to try and help with the battery life. I will put it through a complete test tomorrow with everything running and see how it does since today I ran the G1 with everything off (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc..).
There you have it! Day two of Mobile Mike’s T-mobile G1 Journal in the bag! Stay tuned for another post tomorrow! Of course please fire any questions/suggestions away to me on Twitter, @mikef1182, or email me at MobileMike01@gmail.com!
T-Mobile G1 Journal Day One
Well today was my first real full day of usage with the G1. I used it today as my primary device and my Blackberry Storm took a backseat. So I figured I would just chronicle a few days of usage and my thoughts through out each day.
So today was my day off and I had a VERY late night, so I did not take the G1 off the charger until about noon today. I have a program called Locale that will auto adjust settings like back light, GPS, WiFi, and a lot more, based on your location. When I am at home I have pretty much everything on, and all settings turned up, when I am out and about, it turns down my back light and turns off WiFi/GPS. First thing I did after unplugging the G1, was check Twidroid to get my fix of Twitter. After getting updated on my Tweets I browsed through my emails and responded to a few. I only made one phone call today that lasted about 5 minutes. Throughout the rest of the day I was browsing through the app market, checked Twidroid, browsed the web for about 5 minutes, and used Shop Savvy to check prices at BestBuy. I didn’t really “use” it a ton today, and at around 7:45pm my battery had drained to about 4%! I have had nothing running in the background except for Gmail and Locale, needless to say, I am not impressed with battery so far. I have only had the device for a few days, so I hope the battery will break in a little more, but after my last G1 and some research, not hopeful.
What I am impressed with is the quality/number of apps in the Market now. Apps like aHome, Open Home, and ShopSavvy are great and show you the potential of the Android platform. I am really liking the level of customization that Android offers, while at the same time enjoying the great App experience. Overall I am really glad I picked the G1 up again, and besides the battery issues, I don’t have much to complain about on day one of my journal.
Stay tuned for more of the G1 journal, brought to you by mobile Mike!!
Apple Releases New iPod Shuffle
Sneaky sneaky you are Apple! Today Apple quietly released their new iPod Shuffle, with a new design and some new features, it looks pretty neat. The shuffle’s design has been updated to an even more “less is more” style, with the controls moving off of the body of the iPod to the in line headset itself. The 1.8″ tall x 0.3″ thin iPod is a testament to Apple’s minmalist design philosophy, and now packs 4GB of storage. Along with the memory bump, the new shuffle also comes with some new features as well. Voiceover is a feature that lets the iPod shuffle “talk” to you. It will announce playlists, give you song info, and even let you know when your battery is low. Another nice feature is the shuffle switch has been updated to now either play music in order or shuffle. The nice part of all of this is that the price has stayed at $75! The only bad news is, you cant use your own headset since the controls are built in to the Apple headset. Maybe they will make an adapter or something, but this can be a deal breaker for some.
