So I just upgraded from a nokia n900 to a tmobile g2x, here's my impressions so far:
Speed is so, so much faster. However, the n900 was a sluggish phone, just about every recent android device, even those of lesser specs, outperformed it in use. It's nice finally to be able to get to text message without having to wait.
I don't care much for the hardware. I greatly prefer a hardware keyboard, though I'm adjusting to a touch keyboard. Autocorrect infuriates me, but I believe that can be turned off, very rarely does it help me. It's hard to select text by touching. I find the touch screen 'feels' far less accurate than the touch screen on the n900 (even without a stylus) and I miss having arrow keys to navigate text.
The feel of the phone is just odd, but it's just the bar standard iphone slate copy that all phones are now. It doesn't really fit well in my hand, and the power button is difficult to reach. However, it fits in my pocket way better. Phone is considerably lighter than the n900, this is a good thing, the n900 could make my wrist tired holding it one handed while web browsing.
No landscape orientation for the desktop?! Lame!
Android's stock interface is rather unintuitive, and I actually think the n900 did a better job having a user friendly interface. Not having wrap around on the multiple desktops kind of sucks. The pull down drawer menu is just awkward. The icons in the taskbar are way too big, it's not going to fit very many notifications, and why are they always there when they have nothing new to tell me? I prefer the n900's expanding translucent grid of notification icons. Why do you take up the bottom of my screen with shortcuts, when those could just be moved into the pop up menu you have a dedicated button for, or left to the user to place on the desktop? The one click 'does everything button' paradigm of the n900 was better imo, click once for an expose view of all running apps, twice to go to installed apps.
I do however like the performance, stunningly fast compared to what I came from, and far less glitchy. I'd give the hardware design and user interface to nokia, but overall google's software wins the day. Oh, but for some reason the phone lacks an notification LED, so you have to reach around for the awkward power button to see if you have any emails or messages.
I really like being able to do speech to text transcribing. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, and almost makes up for the lack of a hardware keyboard (seriously, I almost wanted to return the phone after using the touch screen keyboard). It does take a while though, and I wish there was a dedicated hardware button on the phone for it like the mytouch4g has, it sucks to look at the phone to hunt down the voice icon.
Google Nav isn't as amazing as I thought, and how come the text to speech software can only be installed on an SD card? Still pretty good though, it will probably become my primary gps, replacing my Garmin.
Speedy, everything is speedy. Honestly, I kind of wish Google went for a pay model with android. Sell it as a software backend that other companies could build user interfaces on top of, so phone companies could have their differentiation but performance would still be good. Wish it had the all in one integrated sms/chat client capabilities of the n900, but the speed and individual google apps make it so much more useful. The web browser is speedy (and so are the alternatives, opera, firefox, and dolphin), and I like the direct integration with gmail, google calendar, etc. The navigation app is cool, and so are google goggles and the voice transcription. The app store is speedy too, and well-stocked with useful apps.
I finally have a phone that just works, it truly is an enabler. The n900 was fun to play with, the G2X lets me get stuff done and then forget about the phone. And the google services are, imo, the only things in the smart phone world that actually make having a data plan worth the cost. An app store can be handled over wifi, chat and email (aka blackberry style smart phone) only need minimal data, google actually gives me a reason to be paying for always connected unlimited data.
I can't see myself doing any gaming on the device, unless the bluetooth game gripper (or something similar) ever comes out for the phone. Touch screen gaming seems pretty horrid based on the two included games (need for speed and some shooting game). NFS relies on tilting the phone, a pretty lame control mechanism imho, and the touch screen control don't work very well. The nintendo ds pulled it off better, but it could dedicate a screen as a touch pad, instead of a tiny portion of it. I could see myself maybe playing a turn based strategy game or something. I did play games on my n900 using a game gripper, occasionally, and the keyboard would also serve in a pinch.
Speed is so, so much faster. However, the n900 was a sluggish phone, just about every recent android device, even those of lesser specs, outperformed it in use. It's nice finally to be able to get to text message without having to wait.
I don't care much for the hardware. I greatly prefer a hardware keyboard, though I'm adjusting to a touch keyboard. Autocorrect infuriates me, but I believe that can be turned off, very rarely does it help me. It's hard to select text by touching. I find the touch screen 'feels' far less accurate than the touch screen on the n900 (even without a stylus) and I miss having arrow keys to navigate text.
The feel of the phone is just odd, but it's just the bar standard iphone slate copy that all phones are now. It doesn't really fit well in my hand, and the power button is difficult to reach. However, it fits in my pocket way better. Phone is considerably lighter than the n900, this is a good thing, the n900 could make my wrist tired holding it one handed while web browsing.
No landscape orientation for the desktop?! Lame!
Android's stock interface is rather unintuitive, and I actually think the n900 did a better job having a user friendly interface. Not having wrap around on the multiple desktops kind of sucks. The pull down drawer menu is just awkward. The icons in the taskbar are way too big, it's not going to fit very many notifications, and why are they always there when they have nothing new to tell me? I prefer the n900's expanding translucent grid of notification icons. Why do you take up the bottom of my screen with shortcuts, when those could just be moved into the pop up menu you have a dedicated button for, or left to the user to place on the desktop? The one click 'does everything button' paradigm of the n900 was better imo, click once for an expose view of all running apps, twice to go to installed apps.
I do however like the performance, stunningly fast compared to what I came from, and far less glitchy. I'd give the hardware design and user interface to nokia, but overall google's software wins the day. Oh, but for some reason the phone lacks an notification LED, so you have to reach around for the awkward power button to see if you have any emails or messages.
I really like being able to do speech to text transcribing. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, and almost makes up for the lack of a hardware keyboard (seriously, I almost wanted to return the phone after using the touch screen keyboard). It does take a while though, and I wish there was a dedicated hardware button on the phone for it like the mytouch4g has, it sucks to look at the phone to hunt down the voice icon.
Google Nav isn't as amazing as I thought, and how come the text to speech software can only be installed on an SD card? Still pretty good though, it will probably become my primary gps, replacing my Garmin.
Speedy, everything is speedy. Honestly, I kind of wish Google went for a pay model with android. Sell it as a software backend that other companies could build user interfaces on top of, so phone companies could have their differentiation but performance would still be good. Wish it had the all in one integrated sms/chat client capabilities of the n900, but the speed and individual google apps make it so much more useful. The web browser is speedy (and so are the alternatives, opera, firefox, and dolphin), and I like the direct integration with gmail, google calendar, etc. The navigation app is cool, and so are google goggles and the voice transcription. The app store is speedy too, and well-stocked with useful apps.
I finally have a phone that just works, it truly is an enabler. The n900 was fun to play with, the G2X lets me get stuff done and then forget about the phone. And the google services are, imo, the only things in the smart phone world that actually make having a data plan worth the cost. An app store can be handled over wifi, chat and email (aka blackberry style smart phone) only need minimal data, google actually gives me a reason to be paying for always connected unlimited data.
I can't see myself doing any gaming on the device, unless the bluetooth game gripper (or something similar) ever comes out for the phone. Touch screen gaming seems pretty horrid based on the two included games (need for speed and some shooting game). NFS relies on tilting the phone, a pretty lame control mechanism imho, and the touch screen control don't work very well. The nintendo ds pulled it off better, but it could dedicate a screen as a touch pad, instead of a tiny portion of it. I could see myself maybe playing a turn based strategy game or something. I did play games on my n900 using a game gripper, occasionally, and the keyboard would also serve in a pinch.
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