Three Days with the G2

A Thawing Tioga Lake in late May, 2008

I've had the iPhone 3Gs since June 2009 and while I enjoy everything good about the platform, the grating "my way or the highway" doctrine around everything Apple keeps sending me on these off ramp excursions. This write-up is about one such 3-day exit on an off-ramp from Apple highway.

T-Mobile worked hard to get my business, including an allowance to ease the breakup fee
, hats off to them for that. It reminded me of how good it feels to be wanted! The T-Mobile plan offered more than our service with AT&T, adding unlimited texting for all four of us, but with 100 less any-time minutes per month and no rollover minutes, my plan with T-Mobile would cost $40 less per month! Costco had the G2 for $50! All told, the new setup would put $155 cash in my pocket and save me $480 per year after paying to get off my AT&T contract. Ask me how and I'll tell you!

The G2:

The HTC G2 is an excellent phone. The sliding keyboard is smooth but it felt like it would need the 2-year hinge warranty that HTC provides. Overall, construction quality is top notch, the phone exudes a solid personality helped by its weight which is a bit more than the 3Gs.

Young The Giant, a family favorite SoCal Indie Rock band, released a new album that my daughter said was being featured on KROQ. Being the gadget-junkie dad I am, I had her go to it on the iPhone while I navigated the G2. We got to the site at the same time but only G2 delivered the goods. KROQ uses Flash. Ouch. All you iPhoners, you don’t know what you are missing - but as they say, ignorance is bliss. Stay happy!

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My teenager is also an avid texter, not super-fast, but definitely better than I am. Having just discovered Swype on the G2, I went about trying to recreate the Swype Versus iPhone duel. All I can say is, Swype made me look good! It appears that a Swype keyboard app called ShapeWriter was on the iTunes App store for a while, but now it isn't. Anyone know why? I have a couple of guesses.

I'm a Google Voice (GV) user and the G2, like any Android phone, works seamlessly with GV. None of my callers even had a clue that I was trying out a new carrier! Now that GV Mobile+ is back in the App Store, iPhones are usable with GV. Wish GV Mobile+ had push notification for SMS delivery! The G2 does! Very cool.

The best part was not having to deal with an interface app to load media. I connected the USB up came a dialog on the G2 asking permission to enable USB. Touch it and I have a new drive on the machine. Drag & drop and you're off and running. This was the best part! iTunes fatigue is killing me - this open storage was such a breath of fresh air.

Switching on to the G2 would have left me without Netflix, Chase banking and most importantly, Roboform. A price I would happily pay to get away from iTunes ;-)

I did love the G2!

T-Mobile:

I couldn't stay off the "highway". AT&T drops calls all the time - but rarely when I'm at home. I used the G2 for a total of 130 minutes over about 10 or so calls. I had nasty drops on 4 of them. Unlike AT&T, where the call degrades before dropping, T-Mobile drops on a perfectly good sounding call.

After the 2nd drop, I continued the call from my Ooma VoIP line while I watched the bars on the G2 - 5 bars one moment, down to one and then a little 'x' appeared and no bars. The T-Mobile customer support person suggested network improvements in progress and for six hours I kept that as a valid reason. When my call to the T-Mobile dealhut at Costco was abruptly dropped at 7:30 pm. I called back and flipped my decision.

Grating down The Highway

So, if you hear from me, its still the iPhone 3Gs on AT&T. I'm not sure which phone will take me on the off-ramp next?