Recently I got to see a google android phone. I am sorry to say that I was un-impressed. Given Google’s well known penchant for simplicity and usability in design, I expected a phone that at the very least was usable. My first opinion was “its clunky as a brick!”. This couldnt have been designed by google. Since google only made the platform, my guess was that the design shop employed by the phone manufacturer, HTC, didnt really do a good job. My friend, who owned the phone and works closely with telcos told me that google had extensive design oversight since this was the launch vehicle for the platform.
When I then heard about needing a google account to do most things on the phone, I was even more surprised. Isnt this supposed to be an open platform for folks to write applications and such… if so we should be able to use any authentication mechanism.
From a usability perspective, I had some irritants.. the screen not changing orientation as I turn the phone…this is one of the most common ways in which I read stuff on the iphone when there is lots of text. The icons werent as bright and clear as the iphone.
However, one place where this phone beats the iphone is that it does work as a phone. Compared to the dropped calls and other horror stories reported by most folks and on this blog, nobody seems to have problems making phone calls on this phone!!
So I would say this phone is a good start and hopefully the next revs will focus a lot more on design.. at the same time I hope there is tremendous acceptance of the platform for applications. Maybe this will be phone that will want me to switch from my ages old clam shell phone and enter the new world of 3G touch screen, gps enabled phones.
Filed under: mobile | Tagged: android, google, htc, iphone, review
