My MWG Zinc II is now on the blink, having been less than stable since new, it now cannot find any network and will not connect. I am plain ****ed off with it and Windows Mobile too. Anyone using the T-Mobile G1?

Chris

Yup. I am and so are quite a few others on here.

Had mine a few months now and absolutely love it.

I went from a windows mobile device and although initially I didn't seem to like it quite as much but I like it more now as it's much simpler and easy to use.

The market is good with some good apps coming out now including a full featured turn-by turn voice navigation software package now (at last).

I would go and have a play with one if I were you as it will give you a good idea of wether you like it or not.

Phil

Yup. I am and so are quite a few others on here.

Had mine a few months now and absolutely love it.

I went from a windows mobile device and although initially I didn't seem to like it quite as much but I like it more now as it's much simpler and easy to use.

The market is good with some good apps coming out now including a full featured turn-by turn voice navigation software package now (at last).

I would go and have a play with one if I were you as it will give you a good idea of wether you like it or not.

Phil

Thanks for the reply. Key thing for me is its calender function. I use Outlook on Windows Mobile for all of my appointments. Is the Calender on the G1 stored on the phone or is it like the Google calender that is stored online? Reason I ask is that I visit places where there is no signal, but need to access the calender to make and retrieve appointments.

As long as it does that and works for phone / texts, the rest is just bonus toys for my entertainment.

Chris

It is stored locally on the one phone but is synced with the google servers periodically. I use the calendar a fair bit as we have a shared google calendar that I can access through it which is handy and it is pretty good I think... a lot less hassle to add/edit appointments etc than on WM.

The keyboard is one of the best I have used on a device like this as it very easy to use and repsonsive. They have also just added an on-screen keyboard in a recent update which is ok if you can't be bothered to turn the phone sideways and get the keyboard out but still prefer the physical keyboard.

Think the T-Mobile tarrifs are pretty good value too but not sure if you are going to use it on another network and get it unlocked as a couple on here have done with great results.

Phil

Thanks Phil

I am probably going to have it on T-Mobile. The existing phone is not the cause of the problem on this occasion though. I just slipped the sim card into another phone and found that the sim card is the problem.

Chris

What sort of battery time do you guys get out of the G1? Thinking of stumping up for one

Chris, I've got the G1. If I was going to Maidstone I would let you have a play with it, alas I am not going to make it but I think it is an excellent phone. All the contacts and calender are synched with a googlemail account. The only fault I can find with it is more down to T-mobiles network in my area, which where I live keeps on dropping out of 3g data just when I want to use it.

The battery life is better than I thought it wuld be. If you use the internet and constantly play games on it/download applications it will easily last you a day. If you turn of the 3g data except when you need to use it it will probably last you two (longer if you keep it on the 2g only network).

Also there is the HTC magic on vodafone and the HTC hero is coming on orange. The Magic is exactly the same but without the physical keyboard, the Hero I don't know about except it has a different lok on the front screen. Personally at the moment I would stick with the G1, as it as it is easy to hack and put the hero software on as well as so you can use the G1 as a internet dongle for no extra cost (the G1 has unimited internet included in Flext plans, £5 on mix 'n' match)

I normally get a couple of days out of mine with moderate texting and a few phone calls and some browsing of the market.

It will last about a day though with heavier use and especially if I use WiFi tethering (turns it into a wifi router).

Personally though I love it and it's great to see the look on iPhone users faces when you slide out the keyboard and they're faffing with the fiddly onscreen jobby!

Phil

A couple more questions then. I take it the contacts list and calender are synchronised on line. Can I make backups onto my PC directly, or keep copies of backups of appointments and contacts on my PC? One of my biggest gripes about the MWG is that it cannot sync with my Vista PC.

Also, can I make appointment or contact changes from my PC and have them sync on lint to my phone automatically?

Last and most important, when I am not in a data reception area, can I still get to my calender and record amendments to it?

Chris

You can sync the calendar and contacts with outlook using a little program called OggSync:

OggSync - Sync Google Calendar and Contacts with Outlook and Windows Mobile Device Sync (including Microsoft Office)

Not used it but it would probably just allow you to make a backup on a windows pc.

In fact... you can scrap that as I have just checked and if you logon to the googlemail account and go to contacts you can export all the contacts as a .csv file and also import from a .csv file.

You can then use google sync which will sync the calendar to outlook etc.

The easiest way to edit appointments and contacts is to just logon to your googlemail account in a browser and do it that way. The phone will automatically update the info and I've found it usually only takes a few seconds for it to do this!

Yes you can still use the calendar and make and ammend appointments without data coverage. It will just sync once it has a data connection again.

Hope this helps.

Phil

Another user :wave:

Most seems to have been covered above, but another recommendation anyway

Battery life I find a bit poor and just end up plugging it in each night. Camera could be better, but that doesn't sound like something that will affect you. I'm a big user of Google services, so it's ideal.

I have mine unlocked, and running on O2.

Steve

Looking like the phone for me. I have had excellent service from HTC stuff before, so looking forward to this one. I have been offered 800mins with unlimited texts and tinternet for £25 / month 18 months. Does this sound like a good deal?

Chris

It sounds like a very good to me.

Also worth considering is the Samsung I7500 Android phone, should be out this month and spec looks quite good.

10 things to like in Samsung's i7500 Google phone | News | TechRadar UK

One of the reasons to switch to the T-Mobile package is that I get 24 hour replacement on the phone or sim. Virgin reckon 3-5 working days to get me a new sim out and that is too long when you run a business out of a mobile.

Chris

How about the HTC Magic on Vodafone or new HTC Hero that was announced last week? Available on T-Mobile via Expansys at the moment, will also be on Orange and SIM free.

How about the HTC Magic on Vodafone or new HTC Hero that was announced last week? Available on T-Mobile via Expansys at the moment, will also be on Orange and SIM free.

I really like the slidy out keyboards. I use the one on the MWG a lot.

Chris

Another question or two:

In calender, can I copy events and paste them into other days?

When web browsing, does the phone handle pages with fit to screen and various zoom levels? Will hit handle Brisky OK for example?

Is there a video media player for MPEG etc. files?

Chris

Chris,

Not sure on the copying and pasting of events. Can't see an immediate way to do it. I just tend to set a repetition for any reoccurring event I have. Or I use Google Calendar anyway, so just move/copy appointments on a proper PC when convenient. Perhaps not the answer you're looking for though.

Browser - one of the best things about the phone IMO. Scrolling around the page is flawless and zooming in and out is very easy. I find you can 'float' very easily around a page by using the touchscreen. The addition of the small trackwheel is excellent for browser use too. It certainly can handle Brisky well in my experience and remembers logins (if required) which was a problem my previous Nokias always struggled with. Minor gripe is that it doesn't integrate with Google Bookmarks for favourites - but again, something that you might not use?

Video - there's inbuilt YouTube support, which works very well (and quicker tha the iPhone in direct pub testing ) - never had the need/want to play MPEG or any other proprietary video format, but I'm sure there's something capable out there, available through the Market.

HTH,

Steve

Think steve has covered them all there but I will add that I think the only way to move an event is to edit it and change the date.

Also there is a video player on the market that will play MP4 video... It works very well and I have encoded a few videos in high quality that play brilliantly.

For converting videos this is a handy little program. They do one for pretty much any device you can think of and the G1 is in there:

Videora - Free Video Converter

Chris,

Not sure on the copying and pasting of events. Can't see an immediate way to do it. I just tend to set a repetition for any reoccurring event I have. Or I use Google Calendar anyway, so just move/copy appointments on a proper PC when convenient. Perhaps not the answer you're looking for though.

HTH,

Steve

This is possibly a real sticking point for me. I tend to copy and paste repeat appointments as they are frequently at different times / days. If I can set an event as a repeat and just edit the day / time that would be OK, otherwise, could be a deal breaker. I make most appointments in the car, so PC editing is not much use most of the time.

Chris

I thought that might be how you'd use it Chris :(

Best to go have a play with one, specifically with the Calendar and see if you can make it work. Do agree though - can't see it as much of an issue to have a 'Copy' option on the Calendar menu.

Steve

One thing to note is that they are constantly adding features to the Android OS through regular updates so it is quite likely that things like this will be added soon although not guaranteed.

This is afterall a pretty new OS and they are still finding their feet with it.

Phil

Little update. Have found work around for copying appointments that is not a problem. Also an Android Store application is on the way that integrates with Google Calender and looks like the front end of Outlook if I want it. Looking much more into what the platform and format can do, the G1 is definitely the phone for me, so going to pick one up tomorrow morning.

Now begins the fun of getting all the data from my phone to the new one.

Chris

Great stuff!

The best way that I found to get your contacts across is that if you sync with Outlook on the WM device then export all the contacts from outlook to a .csv file then you can inport that into Google contacts by logging on through a web browser. That's what I did and had it sorted within 5 mins!

Phil