

Ask YC:  G1, IPhone or BlackBerry? - iamelgringo

So, I'm in the market for a new phone.  I live on Gmail and G-Cal, so I need something that works well with those.<p>I'd really like something that has a terminal client (think PuTTY), so I can log into my server if I need to.   Does that exist?<p>I'm leaning towards the G-1.  Any thoughts?
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procrastitron
I don't have a G-1, but I've been playing around with the emulator lately and
studying the architecture, and I find it to be really impressive.

Also there does appear to be a third-party SSH app
(<http://code.google.com/p/connectbot/>), but I don't have any experience with
it.

I think that right now the IPhone is more polished. However, the G-1 is more
open, so you may be better off with that in the long term.

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lacker
Definitely either the G-1 or the iPhone.

For email on the G-1, since you have background processes, a little icon
appears in the screen when you get new email or instant messages, and you can
swipe it down, switch applications to chat for a bit, and then hit the "back"
button to switch applications back to what you were doing. So it really makes
it possible to do something else with your phone while you are carrying on an
email or IM conversation. Same goes for calendar notifications. For this sort
of thing I think the iPhone's one-button, one-task-at-a-time interface really
hurts.

For general applications the iPhone is much better - there aren't that many
applications in the G1 market yet. In general the larger screen and pinch
gestures make it easier to use the web and maps on an iPhone.

For general operating system, I'm torn, because I like the extra buttons on
the G1 (notably "back", "home", and "contacts" versus the iphone only having
"home") so you can be doing something, send off an email, then resume what you
were doing. But the UI is more intuitive on the iPhone, there are many little
fluidly animated bits.

Hard to say... I have a G1, have used many friends' iPhones, and am tempted to
get an iPod Touch so I can fool around with both of them.

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SingAlong
Would like to make a point. G1 doesnt have a head phone socket!

After reading all the reviews the G1 sounds to me like its still half
polished. And as someone else suggested, get a phone that supports wifi and
s60 3rd edition(this supports 1,2 editions too). There are a lot of good s60
apps. My N70 is s60 2nd edition and its more than useful. There's even and IRC
client!!!

Meanwhile if u wanna type code on the go, then i would recommend a bluetooth
keyboard addon too instead of using the phone's keyboard.

And dont choose the N70. The keys are a bit small and conjested. I sometimes
endup pressing the red cancel button instead of '3'.

P.S: this post is from Opera Mini using gprs on my N70. I frequent HN on this.
Gmail mobile at m.gmail.com works fine too.

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lacker
The G1 does have a headphone jack - it just isn't the normal shape. You plug
your headphones into the mini usb. It comes with some headphones that fit in
there, so the headphone thing isn't really an issue unless you want to use
your own special headphones.

~~~
SingAlong
Oh! Thats nice. I'm a music freak and use my phone to listen to a lot of
music.

But is the g1 available in countries where tmobile isnt present?

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vlad
1) I have the latest beta of Mac OS X on my iPhone, and it has some unreleased
updates to some apps that would make you regret getting the Google phone as
soon as the next official operating system update comes out. Get the iPhone.

2) Google Mail has a web app, but more importantly, the Mail app on the phone
supports it out of the box.

3) Google Calendar can be used on the iPhone using the third-party service
nuevasync, in free beta.

4) Regarding a terminal app, a web app might exist that does something
similar.

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hardik
I know this is gonna sound a bit, uh, odd. But have you considered Nokia N79?
I am also in the market for a new phone (ever since my iPhone got a deadstrip)
and I am leaning towards N79.

As regards you needs for Gmail, GCal, Putty, etc I have not looked into it but
have a feeling that S60 apps for these would probably be available. The thing
with S60 apps is that they are not half as polished as iphone ones when it
comes to UI but some are very good at what they claim to do.

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alaskamiller
Blackberry is out.

On the iPhone gmail and gcal webapp work prety well. iPhone's Mail.app
integrates with Gmail seamlessly but Gcal requires third party software to
sync -- I find BusySync on MacOS X to be the best option.

There's an iPhone terminal app that kind of works but not fully featured
enough to let you manage a server purely on the phone.

G1 has homecourt advantage with Gmail and Gcal integration but cruddy design
and a few other minor annoyances.

