Google's G1 mobile phone is out. Here are some advantages and disadvantages

G1 is Google’s first commercial attempt at mobile phone.  In the US you can only get the G1 from T-Mobile: Google follows iPhone’s rollout path with a single carrier and a negotiated pricing.  The G1 sells for $179.00 + monthly voice plan + monthly data plan.  The initial cost is a bit cheaper than iPhone.  The following is what I identified as advantages and disadvantages of G1.

 

Advantages

Open source platform – G1 is based on Android.  This allows potentially many different applications being developed in the future for your G1.

QWERTY keyboard for easy texting and messaging – Touch screen keyboard lacks the touch we are used to when typing.  Many people are not used to touch screen keyboards.

 

Disadvantages

No MS Exchange connectivity – Any cooperate users will not be able to access business email.

No multi-touch screen support – The touch screen only recognizes one touch on the screen even if you have multiple fingers touching the screen.  For example, on iPhone you can expand and contract a photo by expanding and contracting with two fingers while touching the screen.

Less memory than iPhone – G1 contains only 1GB of memory compare to iPhone’s 8GB. 

 

The lack of Exchange support prevents G1 from penetrating into the lucrative cooperate users market.  I won’t expect Google to support Exchange anytime soon since that will be in conflict with server side application strategy (Google apps).  But I do expect a 3^rd party to provide an application with Exchange support.

 

Overall, I think Google has the right direction – people moving away from stationary devices (from desktop to laptop to mobile devices), but they missed the mark(by Google standards) on their 1^st release of a mobile device.  Multi-touch screen allows more intuitive human machine interaction.  The lack of Exchange support is critical error.  I was looking for some big game changing device from Google; a device with open source, Exchange connectivity, multi-touch screen, GPS, WiFi, and a kill app.  They gave us no killer app on a water downed iPhone with keyboard and open source.  Apple doesn’t have strategic initiatives (server side applications) that conflict with iPhone product features; they can easier release a iPhone with a keyboard and provide a toolkit to programmers.