Between the Youtube videos, fan sites, and ever-cranking rumormills, it's like we knew all about the first Googlephone before we ever got our mitts on one: a boatload of apps available through the Market, built-in Amazon music store, 3G, Wi-Fi, Google Maps with Street View, that crazy shape-driven lock code, and so on. Sure enough, all those message board stars are present and accounted for on the G1, but don't worry: There are still plenty of surprises to keep you entertained.
Surprise #1: Android is pretty freaking on-point for a first-gen software release. Sure, it has bugsWeb pages don't automatically re-size and the zoom feature blowsbut it's also remarkably polished, bristling with nifty tricks. Take the long touch: Not unlike the windows-born right-click, it brings up useful contextual menus. Long touch a field of text, for example, and you get the option to select it, copy it, or paste something in (take that, Jobs!). And though Android's first home is a touchscreen phone, you can tell that the OS was designed to work with hard-buttons as well.
In fact, if you can't abide fingerprints, you can get around the G1 quite well without ever smearing the glass. There's a BlackBerry Pearl-esque trackball in the center of the button bank that lets you cruise menus, websites, or any other screen you can bring up. Five other buttons flank the trackball: the ubiquitous green and red phones, "back," "home," and "menu." The keys are useful, but their physical location is a problem that ties into the most noticeable G1 bugaboo: its size. This is a big bitch for usnearly a half-inch thickand its problematic girth is made worse by an annoyingly curved-up section that makes the phone frustrating to pocket: that button bank. If you want to rock a G1, be prepared to bust out the manpurse or multi-pocketed raver jeans (sorry, Hipsters).
