Gamertell

Product: T-Mobile G1
Price: $179.99 ($399.99 minus $220 instant rebate)
Rating: One thumb up, one sideways; 81/100; B-; * * * out of five.
Pros: A great phone with lot of groovy uses. Mini trackball works wonderfully for games, decent graphics for a phone and nice sound. Also has motion-sensitive controls, touchscreen, mini keypad and GPS that can be incorporated into games. A lot of free games in the Android Market.
Cons: Touchscreen requires full finger pad contact and sometimes slow to respond. Accelerometer is touchy and mini keypad is hard to see. Battery can be exhausted die fairly quickly.
Overall: Do not get this to use it as a game device. G1 owners will, however, enjoy many good and inexpensive games that make use of the mini trackball and proper use of the touchscreen, making it better than the average phone for mobile gaming.

There are few phones that can be called gaming devices. While Nokia has certainly tried the hardest - releasing two called N-Gage and then re purposing the name to include all of the company’s N-series devices - the T-Mobile G1 phone comes in a close third for marketing after those Apple products. Even so, T-Mobile has certainly done well promoting the G1 as a gaming device.

The T-Mobile G1 is a mixed bag when it comes to mobile gaming. It’ll play all of the regular games but also promises so much more with the touchscreen, accelerometer motion controls, built-in mini QWERTY keypad and mini track ball. While it’s certainly better than your average cell phone when it comes to gaming, it still has a few annoyances that keep it from being truly amazing.

Also check out the review of the G1 at sister site Gadgetell.

The Phone

The phone weighs 5.6 oz (155 grams) and, when closed, measures 2 3/16 in. wide, 4 5/8 in. tall and approx. 11/16 in. thick. When opened,  it becomes 3 13/16 tall and maintains the same width and thickness.

The model I was sent to try is dark grey with “T-Mobile” logo on the top above the screen, “hTc” on the left side and “with Google” printed in the middle of the back. The G1 has a color touch screen with a visual - and touchable - area that measures 1 3/4 in. wide and 2 5/8 in. tall.

The phone’s controls include, on the face, a green On button, a Home button with house icon, a center protruding trackball and push button, a Back arrow icon button and a red Power/Hangup button. Above those in the middle is a MENU button. Except for the trackball, the buttons are flush to the phone’s shell and all light up when the phone is actively being used.

The right side of the phone also has a slightly protruding camera icon button for tacking picture with the digital camera on the back of the phone. The left side of the phone has a volume +/- button (13/16 in. long).

The keyboard is concealed by the screen which you manually shove to the right. It pushes the screen up and automatically reorients the picture so it is readable from this view. It also exposes a mini QWERTY keyboard with 10 number buttons and a few extra buttons including an up arrow and Menu button (so it is easier top press from the keyboard than (the side button). The other buttons still work so you can still use the mini trackball in conjunction with the keyboard. The keys are very slightly bubbled with F and J having an extra Home Key notch. A few keys have been moved to the bottom row including @, . (period) and a magnifying glass which goes to the Google search screen. The characters are printed in dark grey on light grey buttons with secondary characters printed smaller in orange. The letters of the keys light up when the phone is active which is nice in the dark but makes the letter harder to read during the day.

Scrolling through screens and menu items is performed either by swiping the touchscreen in the direction you want it to move or by moving the mini trackball. The phone also has an internal accelerometer and GPS that can both be incorporated into games.

Get Yer Game On (To Yer Phone)

To get games you need to download them to the phone either through the Android Market (an icon in the phone), downloading from the web (also can be done through the phone) or uploading them from your PC. The Android marketplace is the easiest and fastest option. There you can click the Games buttons in a simple menu with four options (Applications, games, Search and My Downloads). Then you select based on four very basic genres (Arcade & Action, Brain & Puzzle, Cards & Casino and Casual) or All Games. They are then list by Popularity and Date, determined by the tab you press. Each game has a mini icon, name, developer cost (or FREE) and user-determined star ratings (out of five).

Pressing on a game shows a rating area where you can press stars to rate the game, how many times it has been downloaded, a brief description and user comments. Further below are varied options including emailing the developer and viewing more applications.  There you can click Install or Cancel. If the game is already installed, you can then press Open to launch the game.

When you install a game (or application) it immediately begins to use your connection (phone service or wireless) to download the game. A min icon at the top of the phone lets you know it is downloading and you can press and drag the topmost menu on the screen to get the status. Once it is downloaded you can then install lit and,  once installed, it is automatically added to the phones scrollable and automatically alphabetized application menu (not to be confused with the Menu button menu).

Game Selection

So far most, if not all, of the games offered through the Android Market are free (with a few demos that lead to paid games). I was able to download more than 20 games and additional applications without being charged for any of them. Of course, that does not take into account your provider’s fees for bandwidth and Internet phone service (some providers, for example, add $40 or more to the basic service rates for making internet available on your phone).

The games varied from really crude to fairly complex, with most using the touch screen. A few use the accelerometer for motion controls or the mini keyboard for PC style controls. The more complex games offer a combination or choice between control schemes (such as Namco’s Pacman) offering a preference of either the trackball, touchscreen or accelerometer.

Playing Games

The touchscreen seems to be the most popular control device yet is not always the most accurate. It is adequate for games that require simple touching but fine, precision touches are not this phone’s forte. (With the DS as the best example of a successful touchscreen handheld game system, the iPod Touch comes in a second and this falls below the iPod Touch).

You need to press your full finger flesh to get a good, wide connection which makes on-screen controls a little delayed,  making the touchscreen a bit too sluggish (and hard to see) for some games. For more precise games this became a small annoyance and I was wishing I could use a DS stylus instead (which, of course, does not work well with the G1 touchscreen).

The trackball ends up being the phone’s best control device and it works very well though that leaves out some touch-only games. It’s essentially a mini trackball that you might find on some laptops and has a slight texture so that it moves well against you thumb.

The accelerometer was the worst controller, making some of the accelerometer-only games the least fun and most frustrating to control (although some of the motion apps are the handiest but more on that later). The issue was often simple inaccuracy where a left-right motion would be confused with a forward-back motion. For games with crude motion needs, it was sufficient.

The keypad, since it is so mini,  is really hard to use for standard WASD control schemes. What makes it worse is that the keys are hard to see especially when lit up. You need to either be in a very well-lit room to see the keys or pitch dark room to get the benefit of the keys being lit.

There are some GPS games which incorporate your real-world location with in-game actions. These are certainly more for silly giggles than long-term enjoyment, especially since having the GPS active drains the battery more than playing a touchscreen game.

To Game or Not To Game?

I would not purchase this phone with the propose of making it your primary game system. I’m not yet certain if the issue with the accelerometer and touchscreen is more a matter of people learning to develop for the phone or the physical limitations of the phone so I cannot completely discount those as controls (for now).

If, however, you want to have a really groovy Google-y phone with all of the benefits - Google search, GPS, mini keyboard, touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, BlueTooth, WiFi, etc. - this is a great phone to get. You can save stuff to a standard SD card which means you can download a lot.

If you get the G1 and pay for the pricey internet smart device (essentially Blackberry) plan, you might as well download as many games as you can now. The game selection is still growing and most offerings are, for now, free (which also means the bugs are not completely worked out of some games).

My suggestion to G1 owners is to first download all games that make (limited) use of the touchscreen and ample use the trackball since those are usually the most appropriate and most enjoyable given the phone’s controls. For now, avoid the accelerometer-only and precision touchscreen games until either the next model G1 is released or developers get a little better making games for Android (or both)

(BTW: Watch Gamertell for a fat wrapup of all the games played for this review later this week.)

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Check out the gallery: T-Mobile G1 Photos