Now that the press event held by T-Mobile in New York is over (and they promise we’ll be able to watch the video from the event again later at the official website) I must admit that we have seen quite a number of surprises and unpredicted things about G Phone. There were good surprises when things we expected actually appeared to be better or something we did not expect at all was introduced. But there were also bad surprises when something we really hoped would happen was not even mentioned.
So let’s forget about our guesses and expectations - the device has been officially introduced and everything is more or less clear about it now. So what are the surprises?
Price - $179
This is no doubt the biggest surprise. The price announced today is lower than that of iPhone and lower than what we expected for T-Mobile G1 - $199. Instead they chose a lower price for the device - $179. I suspected pricing would be where Google, HTC, and T-Mobile would make some big surprise and this is exactly what happened with the price clearly intended for G1 to be competitive against Apple iPhone in pricing as well.
But there’s one unpleasant exception here: this price is only valid for new T-Mobile subscribers while existing ones will have to pay $299 for the upgrade. (UPDATE: $179 price is valid for all T-Mobile customers that are not bound by an existing contract.) But it does not stop T-Mobile subscribers from ordering the phones from the website now that the pre-ordering is open for them.
So while HTC CEO at the press conference constantly repeated his mantra about the power of mobile internet and the opportunities it offers to consumers, it is quite obvious that this low price is not about making mobile internet really affordable but about grabbing a market share from Apple and possibly Blackberry as well.
The device price is accompanied with two options for data plans (both affordable but anyway required on top of voice plan): $25 for unlimited internet and limited messaging or $35 for unlimited plan.
Official shipment date - October 22
We had two shipment dates predicted in the blogosphere - October 17 and October 20 with some people already making plans about when exactly they will need to arrive to their local T-Mobile stores to grab their G1 phones. Now the official date is announced and it is October 22, Wednesday, almost a month from now.
Existing T-Mobile customers can actually pre-order the phone on the website (for $299) to have it delivered when it is available in stores.
Anyway while we have not guessed the exact date, at least the expectation to see the phone selling in October proves to be the right one.
Quite reasonable launch dates on markets other than the US
The phone is scheduled to be launched in the UK in November and it will appear in other select European markets next year as well. So unlike with iPhone we won’t have to wait for ages to grab a device for ourselves as well - the main limitation to consider will be availability of 3G network that is the pre-requisite for G Phone to perform best (with WiFi connectivity winning in quality over both 2G and 3G, we are told).
And while there are no details about carriers HTC and Google will work with in Europe, we will sure start to get details very soon with the launch dates imminent.
Browser not exactly Chrome
We used to suspect that the primary purpose of Google’s Chrome browser would be for use on Android operating system. But what we have seen at the presentation as the browser is not actually Chrome and it hardly even resembles Chrome at all. So while we are told the browser can be dubbed Chrome mini, it has very few visual (or functional from what I’ve noticed) resemblances to Chrome at all - not even the icon we associate the browser with.
The similarity is that both browsers - the desktop Chrome and the mobile G1 browser - are also based on the same WebKit rendering engine. So this guess was also wrong - the browser is not exactly Chrome which must mean that Android and Chrome may have two very different destinations in the end.
No free email
We really hoped it would be true and we would see free access to Gmail on T-Mobile G1 as rumors had it. Better yet, I suggested access to all ad-supported Google applications could be free for users (and users could still opt for ad-free paid versions if they did not want any ads on their mobile devices). But no, this is a disappointment but it is here - no free access anywhere with a data plan required. But since the data plan is a requirement anyway and both options for a data plan stipulate for unlimited web usage, I guess it does not make sense to have access to any applications preferential and free - since you will have to buy a data plan and it will have to be unlimited anyway.
No Amazon videos
We already knew that the camera of the device would not support video capturing but we hoped that there would be some non-YouTube videos available for download by default - and the candidate to provide those videos was Amazon mobile application we heard rumors about. We suggested that a good idea would be to have Amazon’s Video On Demand service as part of the mobile Amazon application so that users could purchase and download movies and TV shows from Amazon when on the go. Unfortunately we are not seeing this happening and Amazon application will only be used to purchase mp3 music to play on the device.
Super accessibility of search
Google is a search company (at its core, at least), after all, so they have made sure that search is easily accessible on the device with just one key on the keyboard. This key will initiate the search process depending on what you do with the device at any given moment - for example, if you browse the internet, it will launch internet search for you while when you browse your contacts, it will start searching within your contacts instead.
Presence building using Gmail
At the press conference a new concept has been introduced by Google - online presence building. Gmail application along with Google Talk application running on G1 Phone (both the defaults) will work together to ensure continuous online presence for any user where you won’t have to be away any more.
While we don’t have details for now, it sure sounds intriguing - and a little scary as well. We’ll see what the concept actually looks like when in operation.
DRM-free content only
A user will only be able to use the device to play DRM-free music and videos. I believe it is part of the partnership with Amazon for music sales and an additional way to compete with iPhone with its default iTunes functionality.
Clear targeting at the general feature phones market, not smartphones only
This one may be the last (since it was the one I noted last) but it looks like the most important one for the market. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made an unexpected and stunning appearance at the presentation themselves to share their own (understandably positive only) experience of using G1 phones. But the intriguing part was Larry describing how he admires the market of mobile devices with 3 billion existing devices and 1 billion new devices per year. And he did not mention his admiration with the size of smartphones market or anything similar at all. I believe these words are a clear indication that Google is not planning to limit Android for smartphones market to compete with iPhone and Blackberry only - the bigger game is in the regular feature phones that are purchased in much higher numbers.
Basically I think we should expect cell phone manufacturers announcing partnerships with Google one by one now that the first device is announced and almost ready to be shipped.
These are a few things that surprised me (some in a good - others in a bad way) at today’s press conference where T-Mobile introduced the long-awaited and much-hyped already G1 T-Mobile phone with Google. I am sure we will start getting more information now that the companies will be open for comments during the month preceding the shipment date. But even though we have heard some disappointed voices on Twitter already, we have also seen people pre-ordering the device when they can - and this must be a good indication of a good start of the marketing campaign that T-Mobile promises will be the largest campaign for a mobile device it ever had. We’ll see how it works but for now we have all the reasons to be excited.
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