9 Feature Comparisons: G1 vs. iPhone 36 comments
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The rumors circulated, the news was deemed imminent, and now it’s official. Tuesday morning, Google (GOOG), together with T-Mobile and HTC (HTC), officially revealed the hyped “Dream” phone, the first mobile phone to be built around Google’s Open Handset Alliance Android operating system.
Bloggers, press and even Google’s founding team of Sergey and Larry were on hand for the Manhattan launch event.
Rebranded from the Dream to the G1, an obvious nod to Google, the phone will be available on October 22nd at T-Mobile stores in twenty one cities. It will sell for $179 (with a two year contract), plus a $25 or $35 monthly data plan subscription.
From the start, the phone will provide Google with gateway access to consumer’s mobile experience. The bundled G-mail and Google services will help make sure of it (Google has made the software open-source and doesn’t draw direct revenue from Android. Instead, their view is a longsighted one with an aim towards capturing mobile advertising and services revenue later as the mobile Internet market matures. More on this here).
As expected, the phone will try to attack Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone platform head on: To match iPhone applications, the G1 will come preloaded with instant access to Google services including Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Talk and Google’s calendaring tools.
To match Apple’s musical features and iTunes tie-ins, the G1 will showcase a mobile music application that connects to Amazon’s (AMZN) MP3 store. All 6 million songs in the Amazon catalog, all of which are available without DRM encryption, will be accessible. Like the iPhone, customers will be able to browse and hear samples of the music over a mobile connection. To download, they’ll need to use the phone’s faster WiFi networking to download songs straight to the device.
To match Apple’s Application Store (Appstore), the G1 will be supported with the “Android Market.” (No word yet on what kind of third party software will be available at launch.)
Here’s how the two line up on some of the tech specs, feature by feature:
- Footprint - the G1 comes in a case that measures 4.6in X 2.16in x.62. That’s slightly longer and narrower than the current iPhone. The G1, with its slide out keyboard, is also thicker. The iPhone measures 4.5in x 2.4in x .48in thick.
- Screens - the G1 screen is a 3.2in TFT enabled touch-screen. The iPhone features a 3.5in screen of comparable resolution with multi-touch touch navigation controls. (Multi-touch, as the name implies, means it can handle multiple touches at the same time.)
- Keyboard –the iPhone is purely touch controlled when it comes to entering text. The HTC G1 has a slide out, complete QWERTY keyboard. The G1 also features a trackball control.
- Camera - the G1 features a 3.2 megapixel color camera with fixed focus. The iPhone offers a 2.0 megapixel camera.
- Battery – the G1 uses a 1150mAh lithium battery. Talk time is pegged at up to 350 minutes via WCDMA or up to 406 via GSM. Standby time is listed at up to 402 hours [WCDMA] or 319 hours [GSM]. The iPhone offers talk time of 5 hrs via 3G [GSM] or up to 10 hours via 2G networks. Standby time is listed at up to 300 hours.
- GPS – Both phones offer GPS and mapping tools.
- Connectivity - both phones support Quad Band GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate [EDR]. The iPhone handles UMTS/HSDPA at 850, 1900, 2100 MHz. HTC lists G1 HSDPA/WCDMA support at 2100Mhz (Europe) and 1700/2100 [US].
- Memory – the iPhone is offered with 8GB and 16GB flash hard drive storage. The G1 is to be sold with 256MB of ROM and 192MB of RAM. An SD Card expansion slot is available for expansion with a 1GB card preloaded.
- Colors – the iPhone is available in black and white. The G1 will be sold in black, white or brown.
(HTC’s specs and product information for the G1 can be found online here. Tech specs for the iPhone are available here.)
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This article has 36 comments:
Half-baked phone.
The G1 is EXCLUSIVE to T-Mobile.
T-MOBILE also THROTTLES your download speed. When you get past 1 gigabyte of downloaded data, T-Mobile limits your download speed to 50 kbps. This is 1/3 of the speed of EDGE on AT&T. This is far worse than AT&T,
T-Mobile does not cover the area of AT&T either. It has a far smaller 3G network.
One thing good about Android:
PORN will be a huge hit on it. PORN apps are sure to pop up. PORN is the most profitable business on the internet. PORN takes up half of the world-wide internet's bandwidth. PORN will inevitably show up on Android.
A 3rd party accessory idea: Android condoms. You can place it over the Android to protect it from fetish activities.
1GB of onboard storage
No standard 3.5mm headphone jack
1GB/mo data limit over 3G
Heavier, thicker form factor w/ smaller screen
No Exchange compatibility
T-Mobile's woefully inadequate 3G coverage
Yeah, quite a deal. HTC sure didn't do Google any favors putting out this clunker for the debut of Android.
I also agree with DavidK, Apple WOULD get killed for bringing out garbage like this!!!
And for those of you who say it is only a first generation phone, go back OVER A YEAR AGO and look at Apple's first gen phone! The only bad thing it had was the Edge network, which is pretty much on par with TMobile's limited 3G(I say that because others have said it, I personally don't know). I would take a 1st gen iPhone over this iPorn anyday!
It's like those Feature Comparison Charts about MP3 players that show the iPod down in the middle of the pack, yet the iPod completely dominates the market. It's not cause Apple's "cool," it's because the user experience, including seamless interaction with iTunes software on the desktop, makes extra "features" irrelevant. I still remember all the articles that said the iPod would fail without an FM radio.
Going feature-to-feature with the iPhone is simply having the wrong discussion.
It doesn't matter what specs the G1 has, if the carrier's 3G coverage is only just rolling out.
The Big List: 30 critical issues with Google G1 phone
counternotions.com/200.../
What is first generation is the OS. And that's where Apple has a significant advantage. The iPhone runs a streamlined version of OS-X (basically the full version minus the features not needed for a phone). It's a mature OS with a very solid feature set. The G1 has a first generation of Android. How stable it is and how fast it's patched have yet to be seen. This is a major difference in the two phones.
And, of course, there is Android Market / Amazon as compared to iTunes / iTMS. We have no idea how Android market will look. We do know how Amazon looks - I happen to prefer iTunes over Amazon by a wide margin.
It will be interesting to see how this works. Even more interesting will be when we see Android on other hardware - some more powerful, some less, and undoubtedly with a lot of different feature sets. How well Android adapts to the additional hardware, and how dumbed down the apps have to be to work with the least capable hardware could potentially be an achilles heel for the platform.
It sure will be interesting to watch though...
Most people are so worried about the physical look at this phone that they don't see the platform that has been unleashed. IPhone is just a single phone and always will be. Android is a platform like Windows Mobile and this is actually what it should be compared to. If it gains traction as a standard in smart phone OS's the IPhone will become just like the Mac...a very nice system used by a niche crowd while everyone else works together on something else.
they comments on this article are hilarious, let me tell you.
anyway, i personally like the keyboard feature. as a girl, my nails get in the way of typing on the iphone. i also enjoy typing with two fingers because its so much faster and the keyboard is great for that.
If one wants the world's best GUI on a UNIX base, one runs OS X. Period.
Also, though you are perfectly correct in stating that Apple is a niche market, you forget (or are perhaps too young to know) that Apple was once the Big Dog on the block, with a dominant share of the market...
With its string of recent hits with iPod / iTunes and iPhone luring many former Windows customers away, I'd say there is a fair chance they may again become number one.
However, whatever Android does or becomes, it is a good idea - and will speed development in the field. It is not good for any system to have primacy, as we learned from MS's dominance of the field.
ive had both back and forth.
the only good thing to me is an unlocked iphone.
ATT charges way too much for their services
and honestly its not worth it.
And you cant do jacksh*t with an iphone
unless you have itunes.
The G1 is an openbased platform phone.
you can do anything with it. The keyoard is a nice touch.
yeah its bigger than the iphone but i mean i like that feel of dependability. Not to mention You can use 16GB sd cards for the G1. And thats raw space. Their nothing saved on the card like contacts memos notes music. The iphone 8GB uses about 2GB
for information. retarded.
If you drop it then its cool. you drop an iphone
and you got to pay 100 plus dollars to get it fixed.
The G1 is the best iphone killer out there.
And the 3G network has grown a lot since this thread began.
You will literally save thousands of dollars too. The iPhone is nice and the UI is great. But the G1....is Amazing. And its by
the most popular website ever. Google. Can you say updates?
G1>iPhone. Hands Down.
u got MMS capabilty with the G1.
And The PUSH system actually works. lol.
Apple forgot some of the most important things on a cell in this time.
suck on that Steve Jobs.
can any of you so enlightened beings help me with one quesiton?
Will the G1 be updated and available to as time progresses? so unlike the Iphone would i have to throw this one away when google really amps this up and creates even more features for it or since it is open source someone else does. will i have to buy a new phone or would this phone automatically update to the newest features?
no idea so any input is great, thanks
all this in the name of gettign the iphone??. christ i like my G1 any day.
anyyone agree?
[im pretty sure they got 'em iphones]
:)
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