Got an Android phone today

Today Ellen and I went to the T-Mobile store nearby and got out of there with a T-Mobile service contract and two HTC G1 Android phones. These are a few disorganized notes as I explore the device. My previous phone has been a first gen 8GB iPhone.

Why the G1?
The contenders were the HTC G1 and the T-Mobile MyTouch (HTC Magic). Besides the physical keyboard, the hardware on the G1 and on the newer MyTouch are very close to identical. I was set on getting the MyTouch due to the fact that it comes with a larger Micro SD memory card (4GB vs. 1GB in the G1), it can record videos, and the G1 would never show a software keyboard -- the physical keyboard is nice, but it would have been better to be able to use an on-screen keyboard for short text input without having to slide the thing open.

Well, all of the above disadvantages disappear when the G1 receives the latest Android OS version (1.6, "Donut"). The device becomes video recording capable and gets a soft keyboard, which appears when the screen has not been slid open to review the physical one. The memory card on the G1 still only holds 1GB, compared to the 4GB one that comes with the MyTouch, but since I would have updated that to 16GB anyway, it's not much of an advantage (in any case, the G1 is $30 [make that $20] cheaper than the MyTouch, which is more than enough to buy an 8GB memory card).

Odds and ends

• Even though the store display unit had Android 1.6, our purchased units are still on 1.5 [correction: they were still 1.1 units]; we should be receiving the 1.6 update push soon (otherwise T-Mobile support will be receiving a phone call tomorrow). Manual update of the OS is also possible of course (one of the key features of this platform is unrestricted OS modification/upgrade).
  
• Google Voice integration: I can set up the phone to use my GV number automatically for outgoing calls, transparently, after downloading the GV app.
• It has three types of call forwarding modes supported by T-Mobile: Always forward, forward when busy, when unanswered, and when unreachable. I actually use forwarding on a day-to-day basis, as I receive no cell signal in my (soon to be old) office. The only forwarding option on my iPhone was the always forward. Now I can simply set the "when unreachable" forwarding to my Google Voice number (which will ring my office phone) and don't have to worry about setting call forwarding as I arrive at work. Of course, my new job's location will have good cell reception, making this point moot...
  
• It has out-of-the-box integration with my GMail account (contacts, calendar, email). It does not come with any sort of desktop sync software, or any desktop software at all. And it doesn't require it, provided you don't mind using the Google software stack (which I obviously don't).
• There is an entry in the phone settings menu for application development (which I thought was pretty cool), and it contains two options: USB debugging ("Debug mode when USB is connected") and Stay awake ("Screen will never sleep while charging").
• When connected to a computer it will simply show as external storage, allowing me to copy files to and from it without any sort of gate keeper software. I find this extremely positive.