Gadgetory

in a world where the iPhone was still a new device Windows Mobile and Blackberry were still key players and palms still existed a new player emerged to shake up the global smartphone scene but few imagined just how thorough and profound that shake up would be that player was Android and its first commercially available device was the HTC dream known in some markets as the HTC g1 this is PocketNow and this is our special edition throwback review on androids first smartphone including your tweets the rapid development of the Android platform makes it seem somewhat younger than it actually is so it's easy to forget that the g1 is actually almost 5 years old easy that is until you take a gander at the spec sheet at 320 by 480 the 3.2 inch LCD kept pace with other screens of its time like the iPhone 3GS but it looks pretty pixelated today the processor was a Qualcomm one running at 528 megahertz and backed up by a hundred and ninety-two Meg's of RAM and internal storage topped out at 256 Meg's though additional expansion was available up to 16 gigs using a microSD card slot while the version we're running on our g1 Android 1.6 donut offers a virtual keyboard like more modern versions of the OS the initial Android release did not so the g1 offered a physical keyboard hidden beneath the display which folded out via a special arc-shaped hinge and thunked into place while well spaced the keyboard was also deep set and rather mushy falling well behind the BlackBerry keyboards of the time something that still hasn't changed much another challenge to typing on the g1 was navigating around its big chin a design feature which set it apart from many of its competitors and made it feel more natural as a phone but which not everyone appreciated the chin was home to early androids control collective send and end keys for the phone home back and menu keys for software navigation and a clickable trackball that recalled the BlackBerry and sidekick devices of the time this portion of the g1 also housed the ext USB port which doubled as a headset jack since the g1 didn't incorporate a dedicated earphone port instead an adapter was required an oversight loudly bemoaned in reviews at the time another low point for the g1 at least initially was battery life the 1,400 milliamp power pack and our unit here is definitely on the small side to begin with but many units shipped with an even smaller 1,150 milliamp power battery tiny indeed especially considering the unoptimized software rounding it out around back was a 3.2 megapixel camera controlled by a dedicated camera key a good thing flanked by a two tiny speakerphone delivering pretty wretched and tinny sound a bad thing unfortunately earpiece quality was okay and even today callers said we sounded better on the g1 than on just released phones cellular reception though continues to be another story entirely when the g1 dropped with android version 1.0 it traded the mature app ecosystem found on the apple iphone for a tightly integrated google experience apps like Gmail Google Maps YouTube and Google Talk were all either aboard at launch or added pretty quickly thereafter making the g1 pretty attractive too heavy Google users even way back in 2008 adding to that attraction androids customizable home screens then limited to three linked to a kind of parallax background wallpaper that shifted relative to the main home screen elements which included support for widgets but the really big deal was the notification shade or drawer one of the first standout features of Android and one that continues to persist to this day modern touches like the settings shortcut and toggle array weren't there in the G ones day but persistent access to notifications no matter what app you were in was a big deal in 2008 and it continues to be today multitasking was a bit different in the g1 s day on version 1.6 a long press of the home button called up the quick jump window it wasn't as fluid or as flashy as today's recent apps ribbon but it served as one of androids biggest advantages over the iPhone which didn't support third-party multitasking at the and it could be used to jump into and out of any of the hundreds then thousands then hundreds of thousands of apps in what we know today as the Google Playstore is still called the Android app market on our doughnut running unit here in some ways the HTC g1 is the exception that proves the rule it wasn't the most heavily spec or the most capable device on the market when it launched and it certainly wasn't the prettiest design example neither on the hardware or the software side it was outclassed in hardware aesthetics by the BlackBerry Bold 9000 that came just before it and its software was far less aspirational than that of the Palm Pre which launched the following summer but the platform the g1 helped to launch has far surpassed both of those contemporaries only one of which still survives and the g1 or maybe it's more appropriate here to refer to it by its dream title played a crucial role in introducing Android to the public not just by launching it into the marketplace but by serving as a stable expandable and reasonably compelling hardware platform for developers to do their thing via the Google dev phone one and for customers to embrace a new player in the smartphone space that's why the t-mobile g1 will forever have a place in our mobile history and why it commands so many fond memories in the pocket now Twitter audience on behalf of everyone in pocket now thank you to everyone who tweeted in with their thoughts of memories fond and not so fond on the HTC g1 or HTC dream really appreciate it we're hoping to make user tweets a mainstay of the throwback series and maybe other PocketNow videos in general so thank you very much toss us a like if you enjoyed this throwback review leave us a comment if you have some feedback and follow us on social media and visit us at pocketnow.com thanks everyone for watching we'll see you next 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