My corner

 Finally my G1 android arrived. I had to pay 810 kr in tax, so I ended up with a total cost of 3313 + 810 = 4123. That’s actually not a bad price, consider it is not for sale in Denmark yet, and it is unlocked.

This was how it looked when it arrived.

I could see that the danish postal service had opened the package, because inside they had used duct tape saying "opened because of inspection". See below.

T-mobile/Google could learn something from apple when it comes to design of packages. There is nothing better than receiving a package that is well designed. There is a bit too much Microsoft package over it…. But what the hell..

I was a bit scared of the unlocking part. I was told that the phone came with an unlocking code, but I could not find any. Another concern that suddenly hit me, was that I needed an us adapter converter to charge the battery, but I found out the phone can be charged with an usb cable to the computer, so that was not a problem.

I tried to put my SIM card in (Telmore, danish operator), placed the battery and turned it on. It has a really simple startup procedure which lets you either sign in with your google user account or create a new account. I signed in and G1 tried to connect to googles server…. without luck…

It is possible to choose another APN from a list, but you can only choose T-mobile. Hmm… After a quick search on the net I found out that I can add my own APN. So I went in the menu and added Telmore. I used the settings I found from this site http://www.flexispy.com/Mobile%20APN%20Setting%20to%20use%20GPRS.htm and everything worked.

I never used any SIM unlocking code or tools, just my old SIM card.

The phone is VERY intuitive. Maps, gmail, calendar and other google tools works out of the box. Messaging and dialer works as supposed but contacts should be synced with your contacts on the SIM card. This is also very easy. 

I started using GPRS and the Maps application worked surprisingly well. I then turned on the wifi and the phone had no problem connecting to my home wifi network. I have just now activated 3G at Telmore, so next job is to get that working.

The keyboard buttons looks small the first time you see it, but it is actually not that bad. I have not found the danish characters yet, but maybe it is the language I have to set. While the phone is plugged to the computer it is very unhandy to use the keyboard, because the usb wire is placed where your right hand should be.

So far I have enjoyed using the phone and it looks promising. The phone is still to big, but the software platform is amazing. Now I will test my own android apps on the phone.

 I have bought the G1 phone on eBay because it is not released in Denmark until start 2009. As part of my master thesis I’m developing a musicplayer prototype for the android system and it would be nice to test the system on a real device and not just on the emulator. The USPS tracker says it has arrived to Denmark, so it can not take long before the postman rings my door.  I hacked the Nokia N810 internettablet and got android running on it, but it was too buggy to actually use. I’ll give my opinion on the phone when it arrives.