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).

Where?? I NEEEED that!! lol!!

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!

Ditto - that's what I did as well. I started from a Nokia, so got everything from the phone into CSV format through Nokia PC Suite, then did an import through Gmail Contacts.

Glad you've got sorted Chris

Steve

Where?? I NEEEED that!! lol!!

Search for "copilot".

It's £22 for UK Maps and £52 for Europe.

Phil

Ditto - that's what I did as well. I started from a Nokia, so got everything from the phone into CSV format through Nokia PC Suite, then did an import through Gmail Contacts.

Glad you've got sorted Chris

Steve

Sorted. Importing data is easy enough, getting it off my old phone to a vista system less easy. Am transferring organising and contact duties this weekend. Keyboard on new phone is better than old one. Typing this reply on it at the moment.

Battery life is looking to be a bit limited mind. First charge spent in 3 hours or so, lots of messing about and trying things out, but needs to be better than this. Now where did I see that big battery pack?

Chris

If you spend all day playing about with the apps and stuff and downloading tons of things, the battery will go down very quickly. I spend a fair amount of time doing that and I manage to get it to last about a day and a half before it really gets low.

I charge mine each night, just get into the habit. That and the quality of the camera are the only low points for me.

I can get down to 2% within about 18hrs - combined standby time/web access/email delivery etc. Bit cr@p to be fair, but then the phone does do a lot of stuff! Often it only gets down to 30-40% in a day though, so does vary a fair bit.

Steve

Phone has got down to 40% today from mostly standby and a little web, email and GPS use. Using Google Maps in photo view and the GPS together canes the battery when you are on the move. Did not make any calls on it (still waiting for the PAC transfer to go through) but comparison to my existing phone shows reception to be at least as good if not a little better. I expect things to improve a bit with a few charge / discharge cycles on the battery.

Chris

The gps will do the battery in. I tend to just let google maps use the nearest antenna for the location as thats accurate for what I'd need it for

The gps will do the battery in. I tend to just let google maps use the nearest antenna for the location as thats accurate for what I'd need it for

GPS is very accurate, CSA is not great the twice I have tried it has been several hundred yards out. I was impressed with the GPS. It locks on very fast and is accurate enough to know where it is to around 1.5M when not moving fast.

I will most likely only ever use it when lost in an unknown town on foot, but nice that it works so well.

Have not delved too deeply into the apps store yet. Nice that most of it is free.

Chris

Another little update:

Completely seamless and simple data migration. Exported csv files to PC, imported contacts and calender csv files on the Google account web page. By the time I had finished my tea, all contacts and appointments loaded onto phone without it ever leaving my pocket! Liking this device more by the hour.

Chris

Have not delved too deeply into the apps store yet. Nice that most of it is free.

Chris

Some of the 'more useful' apps can only be used after rooting your phone and replacing the software with a hacked version. (like using the phone as a dongle for computer internet and having applications running off of the sd card instead of taking up what little space there is in the phone memory.

Some of the 'more useful' apps can only be used after rooting your phone and replacing the software with a hacked version. (like using the phone as a dongle for computer internet and having applications running off of the sd card instead of taking up what little space there is in the phone memory.

yes... agreed. I use wifi tether which turns the device into a wifi access point for the internet but there is now a new app called Proxoid which allows proxy tethering over USB without needing root!

Phil

I tried something similar called pda tether, and personally I thought it was too slow

OK, so a weeks work under its belt and the phone is working out well. Reception and call quality good, calender and contacts syncing good, 3g coverage seems to work well most places I have been.

Only downside I can see with this phone is the battery life. I had left the phone to hook into a slow to respond web page this morning and after around 1.5 hours, the battery was down below 50%. Also the other day a few call made and the 405mins allegedly available was more like 120mins.

I have read that allowing the phone to discharge completely so that it will not switch on recalibrates the battery monitor and that helps.

HOWEVER, I found some extended life batteries. One is the Innocell 2600mAh version which adds 5mm to the thickness of the phone, the other is the Innocell 1400mAh version which gives a 21% increase in capacity without increasing the phone thickness or weight.

I am thinking of getting one of these 1400mAh batteries, the killer is it has to come from the USA and shipping is a crippler. Anyone else interested in one? Price each will be approximately:

£43 for an order of one

£35 for an order of two

£33 for an order of three

£31 for an order of four

Plus import duty and VAT (add 18% give or take) and the cost for me to ship them out to you (at cost).

I could also get the extended back and 2600mAh battery instead / as well if ordered at the same time. All orders will be through the Seidio store Innocell 1400mAh Extended Life Battery

Anyone interested in splitting the postage?

Chris

Told you the battery was err, not very good

Tempted by that 1400 one Chris, but that's still quite a bit of cash for a battery, even on the better price if we each got one.

Steve

It is a bit steep, but will keep searching for a better price when I get time. Am going to let the battery die tomorrow to see if it is just the monitor being over safe.

Chris

Good stuff Chris. Might try letting mine run completely, see if it makes any difference.

Steve

2200mAh battery £8 with cover: *Cheap* T-Mobile G1 Google Replacement / Spare Extended Battery - - Batteries - Accessories - Superetrader - Cheapest Satellite Navigation, Global Positioning Systems, GPS, Sat Nav in the UK

Cheers. Well the std one is 1150mAh, so hope this one will last nearly twice as long

Steve

Saw the seido 1400 battery on ebay and it came to around £30 odd with shipping.

Would be a slight improvement on the battery life i suppose.

Running mine down now with wifi tether running then will charge it up and see if it makes a difference.

Phil

The fat back batteries are OK, but do increase the thickness of the phone by 5mm, so for me not an option. Also, cheap batteries are not always that good from a life cycle point of view. Doing a bit more testing, it seems the battery is not fully charged when the green light comes on. Left mine to charge overnight last night and had a much longer day from it than average, with closing charge of 65%. Looks like the battery meter could be a bit random.

Have not been able to find the Seidio 1400mAh battery in the UK so far. Will fully discharge and recharge tomorrow.

Chris

Yep, Seidio stock seem US-only and I don't want to make the phone any fatter either!

Chris - if you haven't already, grab the 'My Battery Status' app from Market. Not sure if it's any accurate, but at least you get a numerical value and it sits in the status bar all the time.

Usage just seems to be completely hit and miss - as I type this I have 48%, whereas yesterday I was down to low 20s by this time, and I've done more stuff on the phone today :confused:

Steve

Yes that's right.. although sometimes the green light comes on if you look at the meter on the unlock screen it isn't at 100%.

I completely ran my battery down for the first time last night... to the point where all I got when I tried to turn it on was a red flashing light.

The cheapest I have found for the 1400 battery is here on e-bay:

Seidio Innocell 1400 Extended Battery T Mobile G1 on eBay (end time 31-Jul-09 20:35:35 BST)

From US of A of course but fairly cheap suppose.

Phil

Didn't charge mine overnight and still sitting on 27% - this is like some kind of G1 record for me!

Will see how long it takes to completely discharge; might go and give it a helping hand now actually!

Steve