High on features, low on looks: Reviews

Google Inc’s first handset, equipped with the Android operating system, lacks the attractiveness of Apple Inc’s iPhone while offering features that may make it an appealing alternative, reviewers said.

The G1, unveiled yesterday, made by HTC Corp. and released through T-Mobile USA Inc, is “frankly homely-looking next to an iPhone,” USA Today’s Ed Baig said in a post on his Web log before comprehensively reviewing the product. “Android is not as beautiful or engaging as the iPhone’s software,” David Pogue of the New York Times wrote.

While “the G1 won’t win any beauty contests with its Apple rival,” wrote Walter Mossberg on his Wall Street Journal blog, it “will offer users a real alternative in the new handheld computing category the iPhone has occupied.” A slideout keyboard, a memory-expansion slot, a replaceable battery and voice dialing are among the features the reviewers said distinguish the G1 from the iPhone.

The phone’s ability to act as a photographic compass when Google’s Street View application is in use, is “amazing and actually useful,” Pogue wrote.

“Most importantly, the G1 complements its touch screen with a physical keyboard,” while the lack of one had rendered the iPhone a “non-starter” for some consumers, wrote Mossberg. “The screen and software were quick and responsive.”

The Android operating system on the G1 has an advantage over Apple’s iPhone because its software development is “open, in ways that would make Steve Jobs cringe,” Pogue wrote. That means developers can make changes without getting permission from Google, unlike the approach taken by Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Jobs, he wrote.