T-Mobile G1 now available

Now that T-Mobile's systematic discrimination against non-T-Mobile customers (how dare they?) has come to an end, we can all exhale, pull out our credit cards and get to maxin' out the plastic. That's right -- the Android-powered G1 is now available for sale from T-Mob's website to all comers, though we're only seeing the black and bronze models listed at the moment and both are tagged with an ominous "extremely limited availability" label which tells us they probably won't be there long. $179.99's the price on two-year contract, and if they do sell out online, don't sweat it just yet -- sweep your local stores today.

Update: Full press release with all the details just hit the wires. Remember, all T-Mobile retail shops will open early at 08:00AM if you want to get your G1 on before the rush to the office.

[Thanks, Elisha]

[wako @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:15AM]

I love the whole android thing but I still think this phone is butt ugly. Ill wait for the next android phone to hit Tmobile. AND YEAH, I care what my phone looks like because I just spent a hundred some dollars on something.

[Dan @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:19AM]

I'm waiting for the "iPhone 3G Copy & Paste"

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:37AM]

Yeah, I agree. Maybe they could chop off that bottom half and move the buttons positioned there to the edge on the top half, then round the edges. Also, I'm not diggin' the cheap plastic look, how about a polished white plastic version? You wouldn't be able to see smudges and fingerprints, but it could be shiny and good looking!

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:42AM]

Yeah, I agree. Maybe they could chop off that bottom half and move the buttons positioned there to the edge on the top half, then round the edges. Also, I'm not diggin' the cheap plastic look, how about a polished white plastic version? You wouldn't be able to see smudges and fingerprints, but it could be shiny and good looking!

[L. M. Lloyd @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:03AM]

If I were you, I would wait to see it in person. I know it isn't the popular thing to say, but having played with one for two days now, I find it a very nice hardware design, and am actually quite fond of the size, build quality, and even look of it. Pictures really don't do it justice. It is much more attractive in person that the pictures make it look.

[Greg @ Oct 22nd 2008 7:37AM]

True, The Phone Does Look Butt From Pictures, But In Person the Phone Is really pretty attractive. Saw one yesterday at my local retail store, and purchased mine today online.

[Rifter @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:21AM]

@wako...

Are you a T-mobile customer? Their last high-end smart phone was the T-mobile wing. Up until today, that was STILL their #1 smartphone... You are looking at a good 5 years for T-mobile to get off their collective asses and get another smartphone.


So, I ordered one in a non-3g market.

#1 fail. They had 0 in stock
#2 fail. I have to spend $5 more per month, to use the G1 phone... using the same network that I use today. They give NO reason that I have to spend more for internet, other than that it is the G1 package. (once again, I am not a 3g market)

I have been a T-mob customer for a lot of years, and I actually feel like I got royally screwed by this upgrade.

[McPOW @ Oct 22nd 2008 12:58PM]

Thats funny, I care about what my smart phone DOES not how it looks doing it... but personally I think the G1 looks just fine. Much better than a Blackberry or 99% of WinMO machines out there.

[McPOW @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:03PM]

Thats funny, I care more about what my smart phone DOES than how it looks doing it... I know, I'm crazy.

Further, you should see the G1 in person, it looks just fine. Clean and uncluttered. Much better than a Blackberry or 99% of WinMO machines out there.

[McPOW @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:05PM]

haha, nice... engadget is posting the comments on the wrong parent. tried twice to make sure... (this should be on the first comment)

[Kyle @ Oct 27th 2008 12:17AM]

To be honest thats exactly what i said when i first saw the phone, but its seems better looking in person.

[Damien @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:15AM]

As long as they don't pull some fake shortage bull like Nintendo, I will be happy.

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:40AM]

Ok, that was an epic fail... for the comment system. I double checked that I was replying to Wako, and it said I was, but now it is showing up as a reply for your comment! WTF?

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:00AM]

Ok, I just screen recorded myself trying to reply to wako, and now I have a double post two comments up:
http://www.pismodude.com/commentsysucks.mov


Look at the time stamp on the double post, that reply is above one that is older! How is that even possible? Curse you Engadget! Don't you know anything about technology?!?!? :-)

[deyanimay @ Oct 22nd 2008 6:47AM]

Ok, i found your problem, your using a mac. =)

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:39PM]

@McPOW

See? I knew I wasn't insane! All of my comments (save for this one) have a timestamp earlier than yours, even the ones waaaay below it. Nobody can reply to wako--- http://pismodude.com/commentsysucks.mov

[roach @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:18AM]

Canada?

[jorvay @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:41AM]

GSM-based so we're looking at Rogers/Fido. Something tells me that Rogers would be very wary of selling a product that awards so much control to the user for no extra charges. Hell, my Rogers-branded SE w580 is so crippled, I can't even use the built-in voice dialing feature. Rogers is a control-freak company and I highly doubt we'll see an Android-based phone until well after most other major markets.

[aznofazns @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:21AM]

Great... this AND a woot-off on the same day?!

[aznofazns @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:10AM]

wow... the people at woot are ridiculous

[neoufo51 @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:24AM]

The iPhone sucks.
The G1 sucks.

Don't buy anything until a phone comes out with the features of both Apple and Android (and a little more) plus an innovative design.

[aznofazns @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:31AM]

"Until" a phone like that comes out? So you're saying that no phones currently exist that are better than either the iPhone or the G1 right? Doesn't that make all phones suck?

[neoufo51 @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:44AM]

No, what I'm saying is that its not worth getting a touchscreen phone until they go above and beyond what users wants. The iPhone and G1 are not there yet, so dont waste your money.

[lowdef @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:52AM]

you are missing the point that Android will keep getting better. I agree on the phone itself. The G1 is average in my eyes and lacking some key features. I own an iPhone and am fairly happy with it but am looking forward to development of android. Hopefully some really great phones will come around that really complement android. Plus the added competition in the market will keep apple on its toes (copy paste maybe? landscape texting? mms? video? etc). However the G1 itself is going to get better with the OS.

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:54AM]

I'm pretty frickin' sure that the ten flashlight apps for the iPhone in the App Store go way beyond what any customer could possibly want.

[neoufo51 @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:01AM]

@lowdef

What good is Android if the hardware is average? Without a 3.5mm jack, a slimmer design, a proprietary USB port, reliance on MicroSD for very very very limited storage due to the limits of mSD, etc etc, there's only so far you can get with Android.

All I'm saying is that just like the iPhone, now is still NOT the time to invest in a touchscreen phone.

[jake @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:26AM]

"proprietary USB port" it works with standard mini-usb in case you don't know. It is NOT proprietary; it has an extra pin and a different shape but it still works with standard usb.

How is MicroSD limited? What do you propose? It works with the new 16gb cards and I'm sure it will work with the 32gb ones too when those come out since those also follow sdhc. Also with MicroSD you can swap cards out.

There are a lot of reasons why the G1 isn't perfect but those aren't the reasons. No phone is ever perfect so it's dumb to ask people to wait until a perfect phone comes. I think what you want to say is for people to wait past first gen for the product to improve.

But on the iPhone, it's second gen now so it should be a safe buy especially after all the firmware updates.

[Kex @ Oct 22nd 2008 12:25PM]

If it doesn't tether to a laptop, it is dead to me.

[Lee @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:24AM]

T-mo guys in Nashville had one out playing with it today so I got to mess around with it for a bit. I was actually quite surprised at just how well-build it feels - slider and all.

It doesn't feel like any of the 3 other HTC phones I've owned over the past few years, which is a great thing. Now that it is officially available, I'm hoping some unlocking action occurs quickly so I can use it with my AT&T SIM. This is after only playing with it for about 15 minutes.

[7on @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:32AM]

As opposed to the "BORG" AT&T you can call up T-mobile if you're a customer in good standing and they'll email you an unlock code.

[Adam H. @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:51AM]

I have been playing with it for just over a day now, and I have to say. It's very raw. There's a lot of good, its super solid in build quality and response. But they need a little more work on the UI, simple things are buried, like putting it into silent quickly and settings for certain programs. I think they model this OS after computer and the cloud-theory of OS, give the people a base and they will build whatever they want on top of it. I feel though that some simple creature comforts were forgotten in the process.

As time goes on this phone will get better.

And for those poeple that say they never use copy & paste, never had the option, because if you did, you'd use it.

[Bo Najdrovsky @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:15AM]

I think you're right that some of the settings are kind of deep in the menus, but I have to disagree about putting it into silent mode. All you do is hold down the hang-up/off button and then select 'silent mode' on the screen. Pretty quick, methinks. I would also agree with several other posts saying that the device is much nicer in person than in photos. It feels quite solid, well built, and looks rather nice. It's also smaller than it appears to be in the pictures.

[CLShortFuse @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:00AM]

Meh. The betas had already worked on the TytnII/AT&T TIlt and now that 1.0 source code has been released, all you need is to compile it and run it with Haret. That's without any tweaks whatsoever. I can wait until somebody gets a autobooting SPL even though the ability to dual boot WMO and Android is nice, atm.

[Anthony @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:01AM]

I wonder if it will be 179.99 for existing customers in the Tmobile store. The phone reps keep saying they cant guarantee it will stay 179.99 after tonight.

[Jeremy K. @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:49AM]

It actually is more expensive now for existing users; $350. That's annoying. Good thing my contract ends soon though.

[RichardBronosky @ Oct 22nd 2008 12:44PM]

Yeah, the day the G1 was announced I left T-Mobile for ATT. My company required me to purchase a Blackberry 88xx and I couldn't get T-Mob to match the ATT price because I was an existing customer. I was Power-Tel customer before it became VoiceStream before it became T-Mobile. I begged them to not make me become a "new customer" to get new customer pricing, because I can only become a new customer of some other company. I was very sad to end my 9 years of loyalty. They didn't bat an eye. How screwed up is an industry when companies can't even keep fanboy customers.

Side note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZkwaNx8_Y @1:28 in there is a cool unspoken of piece of technology, face detection. Notice the "Tap a face to begin" when setting a pic from Flickr (not Picasa... Google is so open and cool!) as a contact icon. This gives me hope that Google will provide an experience that rivals that of Apple. They also brag about their cut & paste. It's amazing how much attention Apple's flaw has gotten.

[tiremfej @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:00AM]

The phone doesn't feel fucking cheap. It's a g good phone, the sound quality is crystal clear. The GPS found me within in a mile, the camera sucks, and the whole bloated thing about it being shit, is far fetched. I personally can't use the phone, I have short fat fingers. I will work it out though. Would I rather have a $300 iPhone and pay Jobs his stuff? No.

The phone is ok, it's not one hand user friendly though. It's smaller than I thought, and it doesn't have the umph. I'm looking for. I'll use it for a year...fuck it. The programs will work itself out as well.

I am severly disapointed in the camera though! It's FANTASY FEST in Key West, and I can't take freaking picture of naked women without them reposing!!!!!!!!!!!! Epic fail on the camera, thank god, my boy has a shit ass camera to takes pics with, who else could take pictures of sudo felatio?

[cheng @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:30AM]

do you really need root access to perform fellatio?

[spellprince @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:14AM]

Bye bye iPhone, R.I.P hahaha

[Michael Scrip @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:30AM]

Sure... T-Mobile only has to sell 10 million of them to beat the iPhone. :)

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:47AM]

Not to mention stopping my family of six from going and buying iPhones tomorrow. If $1200 = iHappiness, we're sold!

[tnkgrl @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:45AM]

My unboxing: http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/unboxing-the-htc-dreamt-mobile-g1/

[engadget.mlc @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:47AM]

Thank you engadget.

A quick check on the old Pearl 8100 before going to bed and I quickly hopped online to a janked-up t-mobile site that was having some serious trouble. But I got my order in, and the rep said that it was (with overnight shipping), still likely to hit me by Thursday.

That's one for me, one for my wife. Now I don't have to go stand in line (41 degrees? for real?) or deal with my wife being in meetings all day. That or I wait a couple of weeks and cancel my order...

Cheers.

[engadget.mlc @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:50AM]

And now the order status says that I ordered at 11:02 PM CT on 10/22/2008.. Well, it's 10:49 **AM** CT on 10/22/2008, so something's not quite right.

Such begins another wireless rabbit-hole.

[silver @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:05AM]

I'm waitin for HTC HD with Android

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:24AM]

Same here. I love the Android OS, but hate the phone. It has amazing features but I dislike the looks greatly...

Waiting to see Android on many more devices like HTC Touch HD....

[rex2745 @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:36AM]

idk if i should get the white or black is because i think alot of people r gonna get black and i hate when i see like someone dat i know with my same phone but im a guy so black looks cool but white does also any ideas people?

[SConnor @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:47AM]

Oh no, my iPhone is old news I've wasted all that money what should I do? Such a shame because it does everything I need and and it does it really well.

But if some of the geniuses on here are saying the iPhone is dead then it must be true. If only I'd waited.........

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:26AM]

"Everything you love about the web, now on a phone."

Correction: All Google services you love, now on a phone!

[Ricky Ricardo @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:48AM]

Which is still everything you love about the web

Correction stand corrected.