Exterior
G1 is a real hinny: it has been made for T-Mobile, it runs Google’s operating system and it’s manufactured by HTC. By the way this is the first manufacturer from the Taiwanese manufacturer that has their logo on it even in spite of the fact that is made for exclusive distribution by a different company. This is a sign of the HTC brand becoming more and more known amongst average users. It’s another thing that if I hadn’t known who the manufacturer is, I would have never guessed that it’s made by HTC, as it looks completely different than their other handsets, I dare to say that it’s very ugly. Sticking to the facts I’d rather say that it’s large: it weighs 158 grams and its size is 117 x 55.7 x 17.1 mm. I can’t say that it uses premium quality materials either, it’s covered in soft, silky plastic everywhere.
The top of the front side has the distributor’s logo, while below it there is the 320 x 480 pixels large touchscreen with a 3.2” diagonal – yep, it’s the same resolution as of the iPhone’s. It’s a great thing that the display is also similarly high-quality, even though consider Apple’s phone as the de facto in this case, no matter the resolution. I think it’s unnecessary to go into more details, there are splendid colors, great contrast, exceptional readability in sunlight – I think these describe the screen the best. On the bottom we can find five keys and a “navigation ball”, which has been mostly seen on BlackBerry devices before and I’ve liked it a lot over there. As an interesting fact the case is not completely flat, the bottom part has a small arc pointing upwards, which makes G1 resemble a banana.
The back is rather puritan, we can only see the lens of the 3.2 megapixel camera and the handsfree speaker. The cover claps on the phone, we have to press a notch in order to take it off (this can be accessed by sliding the keyboard). The sides are similarly desolate, on the left there are the volume control keys and the microSD slot, while on the bottom there is a covered HTC ExtUSB connector, all other sides are empty.
After sliding the phone open we get to see the QWERTY keyboard. This is a rather standard thing for slider, but the opening mechanism is unique. It’s not really a slide, but a kind of arm, so the screen doesn’t only slides on a path when opened, but it also moves on an arc – it resembles butterfly windscreen-wipers from some Mercedes cars.
So the keyboard has a QWERTY layout, the keys are placed in five rows. I don’t want to over-hype it, but the keypad has an exceptionally good layout and it’s also highly usable, it’s really fast to type, which is probably also due to the large surface. The keys are placed logically; you can see that this has been designed with usability in mind.
A cikk még nem ért véget, kérlek, lapozz!
