Google Bashing: G Phone in the Barrel
October 30, 2008
I want a mobile phone to be a mobile phone. When I want more, I fire up my Asus eee gizmo so I have a fighting chance of reading what’s on the LCD. I looked a T Mobile Google phone in my local phone store. I concluded that it was clunkier than my colleague’s Apple iPhone, and I didn’t like the keyboard or the weird way I had to keep using the touch screen and the key pad to accomplish a task. I ran some queries and Google mobile search did what it did the way it performed on my old Treo 650 and my current BlackBerry 8320. Yawn.
But I am a dinosaur and proud of it. When I read Bonnie Cha and Nicole Lee’s “Google’s HTC Dream Phone. That’s It?” here, I knew that folks younger and me were annoyed with the GOOG. Ms. Cha and Lee were not overly thrilled with the device either. Scan their article and you will get more details than I was able to notice because their eyes were able to read the display and they were motivated. I was not. I’m not a phone guy. Ms. Cha and Lee give an exhaustive run down of the Google phone’s features, including a look at the applications for the device.
For me, the most interesting comment in their write up was:
It’s [the Google phone] not quite there yet, so for now, the G1 is best suited for early adopters and gadget hounds, rather than consumers and business users.
Microsoft usually gets a product right after three tries. Google has one strike. I will wait for the next couple of pitches before making up my mind. It’s a version 1.0 product, so there is room for improvement.
Stephen Arnold, October 30, 2008
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2 Responses to “Google Bashing: G Phone in the Barrel”
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your an idiot if you dont like your job go work for apple or better yet if your not a phone guy keep your mouth closed and rate other products
I’m really the same way with phones. I’ve always opted for the “phoniest” phones – the ones that let me call someone, and little more. Over the years I’ve been warming up to supplementary features like voice dialing (great for when I’m driving or wearing mittens), camera (I’m always finding handy uses for an ultraportable camera), and … well, these lists always sound better when there’s 3 items but I can’t think of a third.
This being said, it’s definitely a fair comment that a phone is trying to do more than we want it to. Take the iPhone for example – it makes toasted peanut butter and banana sandwiches and can sing Beach Boys songs in Swahili but it’s only got enough battery life for half a day’s use. When you suck up all the juice using Google Maps on your phone, how are you going to call for help when you get a flat tire?
Value adds are all well and good but too many cooks spoil the soup, sez I.