The T-Mobile G2 Preview
by Vivek Gowri on October 7, 2010 12:29 PM EST
One thing that’s pretty clear from HTC’s history is that they know how to make some pretty great smartphone keyboards. The Touch Pro 2, the original Tilt/TyTN II, the old school T-Mobile MDA, etc. - they all have excellent keyboards, and the G2 is no exception. In fact, the G2’s slide-out keyboard is pretty similar in both look and feel to the Touch Pro 2 keyboard, and that’s not a bad thing. The keyboard has very tactile feel, positive feedback for key presses, good spacing and layout, and even some shortcut keys that can be programmed to launch apps. Coming off the iPhone’s admittedly great virtual keyboard, I had zero trouble adjusting to the G2’s keyboard. Simply slide it open, start typing. That’s it. (I will say that the spacing is awful if you’re playing Quake 3, since you can’t use three separate fingers for the WASD keys, but that’s a different story and a problem with smartphone gaming in general.)
I felt obligated to at least try the virtual keyboard, and I’m happy to report that it works pretty well. It’s the default Froyo keyboard, and it doesn’t look or feel too different from most other virtual keyboards. It’s there, it works, but given the excellent physical keyboard, why bother?
The display is the same resolution and size as those as on the Nexus One, Desire, and Incredible - 3.7” 800 x 480 - but is based on a different technology, Super LCD TFT. After the Samsung AMOLED shortages over the summer, HTC seems to have migrated over to the more commonly available Sony S-LCD panels on all of its 3.7” devices. I’m a fan of 3.7” screens, they strike a nice balance between the somewhat cramped 3.5” iPhone and the massive 4” Vibrants and 4.3” EVO’s of the world. The contrast ratio of just over 800 is significantly higher than HTC’s previous LCD screens (EVO 4G and HD2), and is fairly competitive with the iPhone 4 and Droid X, though the Droid and Droid 2 IPS panels are far, far higher. Overall the screen looks pretty good, though the max brightness of 273 nits is fairly low by superphone standards. You’ll get more in-depth analysis on the display in the full review, but I’ll leave you with this: unless you’re coming off an iPhone 4 or you enjoy blinding yourself every time you look at your cellphone screen, you shouldn’t have too many complaints with the G2’s screen.
The camera is a 5MP unit with autofocus and an LED flash, and it does fairly good work. I was pretty impressed by the flash, finding it better than even the EVO’s blinding flash. The dedicated camera button is nice to have, but even nicer than that are the camera settings. Like I mentioned, I’m mostly used to the iPhone, so having any kind of option is pretty new. You can change the white balance and exposure to suit the lighting conditions, turn the flash on and off, and mess with the focus and zoom (up to 2.0x). As you can see from the sample shots, the G2 is pretty solid by smartphone standards. It won’t wow you like some of the iPhone 4 HDR photos will, and it definitely will not come close to replacing a real camera, but for quick snaps, the G2’s camera should be serviceable enough when the pictures are scaled down to web size.
The video camera is pretty cool. It shoots video up to 720p and features a myriad of options, including flash on/off, the same white balance options as the still camera, and four filters (black and white, sepia, negative, and solarize). The mic is pretty bad, and it has some issues with high motion action and settings where the lighting changes rapidly, but it will replace a Flip video camera pretty easily.
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xype - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
Battery Life & Build Quality are pretty mich the two most important issues in a phone for me (For a smartphone, add Usability to the list). So it sounds a bit weird to say the phone has potential and whatnot, if you're afraid the hinges will break and the battery only lasts a bit more than half as long as that of its competition...JimmiG - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
Despite a die shrink and an underclocked CPU, it's still down there with the N1.No matter what's causing it - inefficient hardware, poorly coded software protocol stack or lack of throttling and power-saving features, Google and OEMs need to fix this.
If you think 3.5 - 4 hours of 3G browsing is bad, try doing it on a moving train with the brightness cranked up. You're looking at around 2 hours. Not everyone has access to a power outlet or USB port during the day to top off their phones.
Also reviewers need to weigh in battery life more. It's hugely important.. How "smart" is a smartphone that switches itself off at 3pm?
strikeback03 - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
OTOH there are people like me who average 20 min or so of web browsing per day but do a decent amount of text messaging. Word on some forums is that the switching between 1X and EVDO on Verizon phones is a major source of battery drain, but they don't test that at all. Some battery tests are going to be more useful for some people than for others. Also, there are extended batteries for those who need them.Shlong - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
I believe you omitted the Front Facing Camera for the Samsung Epic 4G on the chart.rcocchiararo - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
Desire Z (and all the new SENSE htc android phones) has 768mb, not 512 like the G2fhgh - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
http://0845.com/InrGood-looking, not expensive
fhgh - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
http://0845.com/Inr
Fashion Female attire
letsreboot - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
my feeling is that a backup copy of the original android image (or of another T-Mobile-blessed image) uses some of the 2GB left.G2 Rootkit in action, anyone?
AndroidFan - Saturday, October 9, 2010 - link
Indeed the G2 battery life is crippled by the poor battery capacity. But the result still surprises me because I feel the battery life on my G2 is much better than N1.I do browsing a lot and my N1 sucks on the battery life, which I later figured out might be related to the OLED panel on N1, which burns more power on white and light colors. I don't know what web sites are included in your test, but most websites like to use white background. Check out the browser battery test here http://blog.laptopmag.com/android-battery-test-rev... G2 having a LCD panel definitely is a plus for the browser battery life.
Also, Vivek, did you have Flash enabled in G2? That may make G2 browser battery life worse than the other non-Flash supported phones. That's why I always disable it on my G2 :)
teekan - Saturday, October 9, 2010 - link
I had a cable buy come over and say that their company don't even use speedtest.net anymore because how in accurate is. have you tried the same tests with speakeasy.net?I'm kinda in G2 Battery Denial because the G1 the number 1 flaw was the battery lasted before the 9' o clock news was over. after I got the extended battery pack for the g1 that came with a bigger back for it since the battery way so huge, i could actually use the G1 finally!
too bad I ordered the battery and did it only 2 months ago. I"m really hoping for G2 Battery Solutions out there soon, because how could they mess up on this again? Hopefully there you can install programs on your SD card this time now too. that was another Flaw.
thanks for your time.