At the suggestion of Freeper dennisw, I am sharing this exchange with him on this thread, here about my G1 Android phone for any FReepers who might be interested in this very useful device:

My first post to Freeper dennisw:

You might check out the G1 phone, the new open source Android OS phone that came out Oct 22 and runs on the T-Mobile network. I have had the G1 for almost 2 months now and am more and more impressed with it. Actually, I couldn't be happier with it. More and more free applications come out every day for download -- the beauty of open source.

I haven't had one dropped call, clarity is excellent on both ends, has WiFi, GPS, and 3G, and the OS is extremely stable and user friendly. Feature set is very similar to iphone. Monthly is much much cheaper than iphone. And T-Mo service is consistently rated much higher year over year by Consumer Reports surveys (thousands of people participate) than AT&T.

We even dumped our landline and went with T-Mo @ Home (VOIP) to replace it, for only $10 per month with free long distance. Plugged our existing cordless home phones into the router, ported our number over, and good to go.

Freeper response to photo:

Great photo. How big is the screen
You have lots of good ideas there as far as connecting at home and mobile and I might steal some
Roughly how much is G1 with internet per month?

My response:

I just measured and the screen is almost 2 7/8 x 1 15/16”, basically just shy of 3" x 2". It’s a touch screen of course, and you can flip around the screen with your finger, zoom in and out, and scroll up and down too. The browser is terrific — any site you can go to on your home computer, you can go to on the G1. You are not limited to mobile only sites like some browsers (my buddy’s Treo is that way sometimes)

I would recommend you plug in G1 phone on youtube search and you will find a bunch of video reviews of it showing the features in action. It is very very fast, whether on WiFi or 3G. PhoneDog.com also has a bunch of in detail video reviews of it (which are also up on youtube).

I don’t know the exact monthly cost for a G1 alone — go to T-Mobile’s site and you can find out easily enuf. My wife and I went with a family plan. We have the G1 for me and she has a regular phone, 700 minutes for $59.99. The data plan for the G1 is $25/month which included up to 400 texts per month, which is plenty for me. If you need unlimited texts, the package with data is $35/mo. So we get one G1 and one regular phone for $85 per month. You can’t get one iphone for that monthly. Then $10 more for the T-Mo at Home VOIP service. Plus we put the account in my wife’s name and will be getting 12% corporate discount off the total due to where she works. Personally, I think it is a very good value for what we get.

And as I mentioned, the functionality of the G1 phone keeps getting better, with many useful new free aps coming out daily, downloadable directly onto the phone. The android system is here to stay and will be coming out on other phones in the coming quarters. It has never crashed or froze up on me, even once — very very stable OS.

If you want to play with one, go in a T-Mobile store — the stores where we live have a couple of them live on display, and you can play around with them.

Freeper response:

I’m going to be looking into that. Apple stuff makes me queasy while google usually gets it right.

Many thanks for the information and your personal experience with the g phone. Supposedly T Mobile doesn’t have 3g coverage all over but are working toward that

I will go their store and see it.... I like the free apps part. It means the techies like it

My response:

Oh yes, the techies like the G1 ... With all the available aps and the continuing number of them coming out, one can keep tweaking and customizing the phone to ones liking, which is what I have been doing.

Check out androidcommunity.com. There are already a number of G1 forums and android forums, but this one seems to be be the most comprehensive and have the most traffic, as near as I can tell. Also, they post regular news stories about android and the G1 on their home page.

Good luck to you.

You’re welcome. I live in a metro area, and usually am on 3G. Sometimes on lesser streets, it switches to Edge (altho my home is 3G), but the Edge is pretty speedy for Edge. I don’t actually use the 3G at home because it automatically logs onto my WiFi, which makes the phone blazing fast. So much so that I find myself using the phone in the kitchen and living room to look things up on the internet, rather than bring my laptop in there, as I used to do.

When I am driving with my wife, she has taken to surfing on the phone sometimes. She’s not a geek at all, but the phone is so user friendly to use that she took to it right away, LOL. Tho not officially sanctioned, some have figured out how to tether the G1 to laptops. It’s on the forums. I haven’t done it yet, but plan to before my next trip. You also get access to T-Mo Hot Spots with the G1 Data package, something that for some odd reason is not adverstised. I verified it to be a fact with T-Mo customer service after I read it in a forum.

There was a posting on a forum by a T-Mo employee — when the G1 first came out, they gave some to the employees for an hour or so to familiarize themselves with them. He said they locked a G1 on Edge (you can do that) and put it head to head with a Blackberry that was an Edge phone for a speed test, and the G1 blew it away. The G1 browser and the processor both seem to be very efficient.

I agree with you that T-Mo is prolly continually expanding their 3G coverage. It only makes sense. They had to have HTC in Taiwan ramp up the production of the G1 because sales were much heavier than they had projected b4 release — about 40-50% over projections from what I have read. In short, the phone has been a hit.

Freeper response:

Thanks for all that info. I will go to a T Mobile store and see how it deals with my important websites. Do you know if it is possible set it up to alert you when a certain stock does something? Maybe that would be an app someone created

You might like this article ——>>>

HTC On A Roll With Android
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/htc-on-a-roll-w.html

My response:

There are already at least two stock aps, and one of them I use daily and really like, called Quote Pro. The other is Stock Ap. Quote Pro is tied to Yahoo. I don’t think you can yet get alerts, but I’m not 100% sure of that, as haven’t attempted it yet. But the developer has already had several updates, and keeps adding great features, so wouldn’t be surprised if it is coming, if not already there. This ap is very very popular and is rated very high. I like it a lot. I would think if he doesn’t add that feature, that someone will eventually come up with that feature on a stock ap.

Freeper response:

Once again I thank you for all the info

You could take your G1 posts and put them on your freeper home page. Then people would have a quick reference to this new hot item and Apple competitor

My response:

You’re very welcome. Thanks for the tip about putting the G1 info on my home page. That’s not a bad idea. Perhaps I will consider doing that ... I must sound like a T-Mo employee, but I assure you I am in no way connected to T-Mo, nor am I connected to the cell phone business, LOL. I just like the device alot. I think I could safely say that it is the most day-to-day useful electronic piece I can remember buying, and being a bit on the techie side, I don’t mind sharing info about it, particularly with fellow FReepers.

One more tip for you — according to info I extracted from a T-Mo rep, T-Mo or Google required all aps to be free thru Dec 31, '08, but developers are allowed to charge for them after that. The rep said that any aps you already have on your G1 on Dec 31 will remain free for you, even if the developer starts charging for it. Personally, I currently have I think 45 aps installed on my G1, and use not all but most of them. And I check the Market every one to three days to see what interesting new aps have appeared.

The ability of developers to charge for aps next year doesn’t bother me personally though. I suspect that many aps will remain free, as was the case with the Palm system with my old Palm OS PDA. And I don’t know, but I also suspect that many new more sophisticated aps will start to appear which may cost something, but will surely have a 30 day free trial or some such. Myself, I won’t mind paying some reasonable fee for really good aps that I find very useful during a trial period.

When you play with one at a T-Mo store, flip up the little tab at the bottom of the home page and press on “Market”, and you can browse the many applications for download.

Thanks for the link. I follow that news pretty closely. You will find stories like that posted at androidcommunity.com also.

Freeper response:

I must sound like a T-Mo employee, but I assure you I am in no way connected to T-Mo, nor am I connected to the cell phone business,

This never entered my mind. You like the device and are happy to tell people such as me what the deal is

What you said is what an enthusiast would say not an employee

And I thank you very much for the real skinny on the G1

You gave me a better run down than a long article or review would have So thanks!

My response:

You’re quite welcome. I learn so much from others here on FR, I am happy to share something myself when opportunity affords.

I am in the process of taking your suggestion and posting this exchange and the original pic of the G1 on my FR profile page for any who might have an interest in the device.