You’re not sick of hearing about the new Google phone, are you? Because, let’s face it: This is even more vital to the future success of our country than our senators and Congresspeople bailing out Wall Street; more compelling than Britney’s decision to remix “Womanizer,” more tortuous a wait than watching for David Blaine’s eyeballs to pop out of his head while hanging upside down over Central Park.

For all of you who haven’t been living in the critical care unit of your local hospital for the last 48 hours, you can ignore the next several paragraphs, in which I describe Google phone basics.

First, the Google phone is actually called the T-Mobile G1, because that’s the company that’s selling and servicing it. Second, the phone will cost you between $180 and $300, depending on if you’re already a T-Mobile customer, as well as a monthly service fee on top of your regular voice plan charges. The extra fee is $25 for 400 messages plus unlimited data access or $35 for unlimited messaging.

In appearance, the gadget looks a lot like a Darth Vader version of the iPhone — all angles and pop-out surprises. It features a one-gigabyte memory card to carry your music and photos. It includes a three-megapixel camera. The display changes from portrait to landscape when you shift the angle of the device.

So what’s Googley about it? There’s one-touch access to Google search, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Talk and Maps. You can drag and drop items to set up your home display with applications, photos or folders that you want quick access to.

Plus, you’ve probably heard about Android. That’s the operating system that makes the phone tick. In the weeks and months ahead, armies of developers will presumably be putting up and selling their applications on the Android Marketplace, a storefront developed by Google that lets you read about, rate and download the apps to your phone.

The G1 runs best on T-Mobile’s 3G network. By October 22, 2008, T-Mobile promises to have 3G coverage in these cities:

Atlanta
Austin
Baltimore
Chicago
Dallas
Houston
Las Vegas
Long Island, NY
Los Angeles
Miami
Minneapolis
New England
New York City
Northern New Jersey
Orlando
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Portland
Sacramento
San Antonio
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle

If you don’t see your community on there, it means one thing: You’ll be living on the EDGE. That’s where the slow, pokey, drawn out, long wait-times wireless networks are set up. Whereas 3G freaks will be downloading videos from YouTube like Tang through a straw, the rest of us will be grimacing in pain and desire and pondering a move to Minneapolis, even if it is mid-winter.

But the feature I like best — above all others — is one the iPhone lacks: It has a slide-out qwerty keyboard. The slide-out part is nice, because you won’t do accidental dialing. But more importantly, the qwerty is essential. I’m a touch typist. Put letters into alphabetical order and I can’t find the ones I want when I need them. My brain isn’t wired that way anymore. T-Mobile: Get some more towers up and you’ll have my business.

Posted on September 24th, 2008 by dian