Well, I finally went and did something I talked about doing a while ago: I went and switched carriers to T-Mobile from Verizon and got myself a G1. I had been planning to wait until June, as that’s when the court will approve or reject the settlement between Google and the Authors’ Guild regarding Google Book Search, and I had (and still have) hopes that Google would work to make sure that the Android phone OS that the G1 uses and their Book Search books would play nicely together. Well, it’s not June yet, but I went for it anyway. How come? That and more, after the break.
Well, a large part of it is that my old Motorola Razr was dying–slowly but surely. It was taking longer and longer for it to do anything, and I didn’t want to have my phone just spontaneously die on me one day. And then there was the recent news that Verizon was acting in a very shady way by sharing your customer info with their affiliates unless you actaully managed to read through pages of legalese to realize they were doing that and then waded through their Byzanitine online acount management system to find the place where you could opt out (Instructions for doing so have been thoughtfully posted by the great folks at BoingBoing).
I had some concerns about the G1, though. One of the chief ones is that the iPhone is the big phone platform for reading ebooks, and it makes a certain sense for me, interested as I am in ebooks and the future of publishing, for me to have one of those. On the other hand, I’m just not a big fan of Apple (yeah, I know); I think they’re too proprietary (for example, their new iPod Shuffle requires you to use Apple headphones), is basically what it comes down to–though I will certainly admit that their designs are impeccable, and their usability is top-notch.
The other concern I had with the G1 is that I’ve heard lots about their battery life, and none of it has been good. I don’t particularly want a smartphone if I have to carry a charger around with me all the time and keep a sharp eye out for spare outlets.
Fortunately for me, T-Mobile has a 14 day trial period, that applies for both the phone and the service. So if, in 14 days, I decide I really can’t deal with the battery life, then I can bite the bullet, grit my teeth, and make the move over to AT&T and the iPhone.
So far, though, the battery life has not been an issue. I’ve had the phone running for about 25 hours now, including downloading of apps, playing of games, some phone calls, lots of twitter, some texting, and all that, and while the phone is getting cranky and asking to be plugged in, the battery is still at 14%. That’s with 3G on the whole time, and bluetooth and wireless on for most of the time. GPS was off. I did take some advice I found online and downloaded an app called Power Manager, which is easy to use and seems to work well.
So, power worries seem to be unfounded, more or less–which is a relief. More about my new phone later, I’m sure.
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