The T-Mobile G2 Preview
by Vivek Gowri on October 7, 2010 12:29 PM EST
HTC has been having some interesting problems with the G2. For an HTC handset, it seems like there are a lot of minor issues popping up all over the place. I already mentioned the loose hinges issue, but there’s also an issue with the amount of memory the phone ships with. The G2 is supposed to have 4GB of NAND built in, whereas the Desire Z has 2GB of flash memory. More than a few G2’s (including mine) have shipped with 2GB onboard as opposed to the 4GB that it should be. It sounds like a pretty simple assembly line mixup on HTC’s part, but it’s still odd to see so many production issues with an HTC device, regardless of how new it is. I’m supposed to be exchanging mine for a different unit sometime soon, but we’ll see how T-Mobile decides to handle this one.
Edit: A bit of Googling brings me to this thread on the xda-developers forum, which basically says that the G2 ships with a 4GB NAND chip onboard, but the remainder of the memory is not recognized. How T-Mobile/HTC plan to fix this issue still remains to be seen.
Overall though, the G2 has the potential to impress. Great design, a great keyboard, good screen, solid camera/camcorder and good performance. The hinge and battery life are two significant issues that prevent the phone from being great. I suspect T-Mobile's sudden stop of preorders for the G2 has more to do with correcting the build quality issues and less with actually fulfilling demand. There's unfortunately no way around the battery life, but we'll reserve a full conclusion for when we have our entire suite of battery tests complete.
The manufacturing issues aside, G2 seems to live up to the immense hype it had before launch, and T-Mobile seems to have a winner on their hands. Most people who got G1 contracts early on should be set to upgrade right about now, making the G2 doubly attractive to those people.
For a number of reasons, the G2 strikes a unique place in the market, one that has been sorely missed since the passing of the original G1. As the first top tier GSM Android device with a keyboard (since the G1), the first top tier HTC GSM Android device (since the Nexus One), and the only Android device on any network that’s running a completely stock version of Android, the G2 is going to get a lot of fans really quickly. Let's hope T-Mobile can address the hinge issues quickly enough to avoid disappointing those eager fans.
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Trefugl - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
He says that the phones should have 4GB but his only has 2GB pretty plainly...I for one don't think that it is just "a pretty simple assembly line mixup"... that's one huge problem if their inventory system and QA guys are so messed up that they let allow more than a few batches of products to leave with half the NAND intended. People's heads would be rolling at every company that I've worked for if that happened! Maybe it would be understandable for Engineering units and prototypes, but not for full scale production.
phoenix79 - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
You seem to be missing something... They DO have a 4GB chip in themhttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=7...
Any google search will pop this up
Trefugl - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
Thanks for the link. Interesting that it's not showing up in the OS.Would have been nice if you could have given some more detail the first time instead of essentially linking to lmgtfy.com. Seemed like a blunt attack on the article without even giving some direction to those of us readers who don't feel like wasting 5+ mins googling for info on a product that we're not going to purchase (and I would have to do this for every product I see an article on as well...).
clarketelecom - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
So, are you just interested in Physics or are you taking the class for engineering, material science etc.? Just wondering because I have a big interest in Physics, mainly theoretical and I'd like to make that interest more practical - is that a good textbook?Thanks.
designerfx - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
Anand, I hope you realize that the nexus one does not perform better than the epic on anything.I suggest you run a lagfix and then re-run the benchmarks as not a single phone in the lineup, including the new iphone, will not beat a single samsung phone at that point of the new galaxy lineup.
Likewise, the FPS are capped at 55 (rougly rounded to 56 in benchmarks). It's a known issue, and is the only reason the nexus had a higher benchmark score.
The graphics core on the samsung galaxy phones is actually faster than even the iphone, by a substantial margin.
designerfx - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
so either voodoo lagfix or ryanza, anything like that, and it's enough to put the samsung at the top of the charts.zxc367 - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
I hope you realize that it's not Anand writing this, its Vivek Gowri. Check the author next time. ;)designerfx - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
realized after the fact. why can't we edit our comments? zzz.silverblue - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
It'd be nice to see all those devices in a head-to-head once they've all got Froyo installed. The Galaxy S phones are really being crippled by 2.1 in these tests.TareX - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
It's such a shame this phone has NO 2-WAY VIDEO CALLING in its future. My parents and friends live in a different continent and it would be nice to have the option to get in touch with them anytime, anywhere from a device that fits in my pocket.Also, I disagree with the author about the 3.7" sweetspot. I think the 4" size is the real sweetspot, with 4.3" being too big.