Monday, November 23, 2009

Final Report: G1 versus iPhone

This will likely be my final blog about the G1; I'm enjoying the thing and it does the job, but it's not exactly an exciting device in itself.

eReader has released a client for their ebook service; it's actually my favorite and now I'm happily reading "The Golden Compass" on the G1.

It is pretty noisy; the noise floor when listening to music is barely tolerable, although the music itself seems to sound pretty good. They must have used a really cheap D/A converter in this thing. I bought a pair of Skullcandy earbuds to use with it, and they work and feel fine.

Rooting the G1 was initially pretty scary, but now that it's done it's a cakewalk. I'm using the images from http://cyanogenmod.com ; I can now tether with the phone and can use my SD card for application storage by just putting a Linux-compatible (ext2, 3 or 4) partition on the card after the FAT32 partition. I can do a quick backup of my currently running system to the SD card at any time using Nandroid (which comes with the image) so trying new versions isn't a problem; I can always revert the phone.

Salling Media Sync does quite a good job of syncing my phone with iTunes. I'd rather give iTunes a pass altogether, but for now I need it. Hoping Banshee will work on the Mac soon.

In conclusion, the G1 is doing the job for me. I'm happy with the switch.

No comments: