Google Phone The HTC Dream (also marketed as T-Mobile G1 in Europe and the US) is an Internet-enabled smartphone with an operating system designed by Google and hardware designed by HTC. It is the first (and as of April 2009, the only) phone to the market that uses the Android mobile device platform.[1][2] The phone is part of an open standards effort of the Open Handset Alliance.[3] It was released in the US on October 22, 2008, in the UK on October 30, 2008,[4] and will be available in other European countries including Austria, Netherlands, France and the Czech Republic in early 2009[5]. It was released in Germany in February 2009 with a QWERTZ keyboard.[6] As of March 10, 2009 it is available in Poland under a local mobile brand affiliated with TMobile as Era G1.[7] In the US, it is priced starting at $179.99 for new and existing T-Mobile customers if purchased with a two-year T-Mobile voice and data plan, and $399 without a contract.[8] Contrary to claims made by TMobile representatives, the handset does not need the data plan to work, however, the Access Point Name (APN) settings need to be changed to make the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS-Picture Messages) work.[9] The Dream comes in black, bronze (not in the UK), or white.[10] On 5 February 2009, the phone was released through Optus in Australia, as the HTC Dream.[11] On 21 February 2009, Singapore became the first country in Asia to introduce the phone. It was sold by SingTel between $25 – $159 under various contracts.[12] [13] Telefonica will also launch a version of the phone in Spain[14] with slightly modified control buttons.[15] Hardware Display: 3.2 in (8.1 cm) TFT-LCD flat Glass touch-sensitive HVGA screen with 480 X 320 pixel resolution. The Glass touchscreen eliminates the need for use of a stylus as it uses a capacitive touchscreen. The display switches from portrait to landscape mode when the keyboard is opened. Users can interact to bring up or move content with a finger touch, tapping or touch-drag motion.[16] The touchscreen hardware is capable of multitouch gestures[17], but Android does not currently support it. CPU: The MSM7201A is an ARM-based, dual-core CPU/GPU from Qualcomm and contains many built in features including 3G and a GPU capable of up to 4 million triangles/sec. It has hardware acceleration for Java,[18] but this does not accelerate execution of Android applications, as they are targeted to the Dalvik VM, not the Java VM. Keyboard: The HTC Dream has a sliding full 5 row QWERTY keyboard. It also comes with a set of 6 navigation buttons: -phone (green, black in UK) – make outbound calls, receive incoming calls, or open the dialer.
-home (black) – displays home screen with shortcut icons for some applications and a drawer containing all applications on the phone. -trackball – navigate among items on the screen or scroll in text fields. -back (black) – return to the previous screen. -phone (red, black in UK) – end currently active call or put phone into sleep mode. -menu (black) – display the contextual menu for the current screen. -a touchscreen keyboard is scheduled for Q1 2009. There is also a pair of volume buttons on the left side of the phone, and a camera button on the right side. Audio: In place of a headphone jack, the Dream (like many HTC smartphones) has a mini-USB-compatible ExtUSB jack [19][20] that carries audio signals alongside the regular USB signals, and can be converted with a dongle (now shipped with the phone) to support any standard 3.5 mm headphone. The standard headset includes a clip-on microphone and call answer/hangup button. The Dream supports audio files in MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, MPEG4, WAV, MIDI, and Ogg formats.[21] Camera: The HTC Dream has 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus functionality.[22] The Dream can play H.264, streaming, 3GPP, MPEG4, and Codec 3GP files.[21] There is no light ("flash") for the camera in low light conditions. Video recording is scheduled for release in 2009. Storage: The HTC Dream has a microSD card slot and comes with a 1GB memory card (2GB in UK). It has been confirmed to work with capacities up to 16GB, and may work with even larger cards. [23] Battery: The HTC Dream has a user-replaceable, rechargeable battery stated to offer up to 130 hours of standby power. Orientation and location: The HTC Dream provides an accelerometer for sensing movement and which way up it is. It also has a digital compass, giving it complete orientation data. The Dream includes a GPS receiver for fine-grained positioning, and can use cellular or wifi networks for coarsegrained positioning. Software The HTC Dream runs the Android Operating System. Most Android software developers write their applications in Java, but since Android does not directly run Java bytecode, they need to be compiled first to a unique non-Java bytecode before they can be executed on an Android-powered phone. The Home screen allows the user to place icons for applications, contacts, and
other items on three virtual desktops. It also supports widgets, although thirdparty applications may not yet install their own widgets.[24] It comes with a web browser powered by the WebKit rendering engine, the same one used by the Safari and Chrome web browsers. Pre-installed software applications provide access to many Google services, including GMail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Talk, and a YouTube video player.[21] The Google Maps application supports map, satellite, traffic, and street view. Street View uses the accelerometer and digital compass to align the view on the screen with the actual orientation of the phone. In the United States, the Dream also comes with an application for accessing the Amazon MP3 music store, allowing users to browse and legally purchase DRM-free songs.[25] The HTC Dream offers two different sources of location information for applications such as Google Maps: a GPS receiver built-in to the chipset, and radio-tower location based on a database of mobile phone tower locations. In addition, the Dream includes a digital compass; it allows one to turn the phone showing the local map to orient it correctly (the map is not turned on the screen, North is always up). Included with the device is the Android Market application that allows users to download new software applications from third-party developers. Developer Edition On December 5, 2008, Google announced the Android Dev Phone 1, a hardware unlocked version of the HTC Dream. With this version, the user is not only able to use any carrier, but also has complete superuser access to the device which is not found in the retail version. The advantages to this version is that it gives full access to the internal files of the phone, in particular changing and re-flashing the bootloader and operating system.[26] This version also has pre-installed developer programs to aid in the development of Android apps. This version is sold for US$399 and is only available to registered members of the Android community which is open to all developers for a US$25 fee.[27] Depending on the country, the additional shipping charges (which include tariff and tax) may amount to a substantial fraction of the base price; for example, shipping charges to United Kingdom are $128.25, to Germany are US$134.31 and to Poland US$162.
References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. ^ Montgomery, Justin (July 8, 2008). "T-Mobile's HTC Dream, The First Android Phone?". Retrieved on 2008-08-03. ^ Holson, Laura M.; Miguel Helft (August 15, 2008). "T-Mobile to be first to use Google's Android". Retrieved on 2008-08-20. ^ Holson, Laura; Helft, Miguel (2008-08-14). "Smartphone Is Expected via Google". New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-08-15. ^ "T-Mobile G1 Hits the UK". T Mobile press release. ^ "Android G1 - T-Mobile Google Phone". ^ "T-Mobile G1 - Das Internet-Handy". T Mobile Germany. Retrieved on 2009-02-28. ^ "Era G1" (in Polish). Era GSM online offer. Retrieved on 2009-02-15.
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^ Topolsky, Joshua (2008-09-23). "T-Mobile's CTO on G1 unlocking and tethering -- plus a few details you might have missed". Retrieved on 2008-09-25. ^ "How to get MMS picture messaging working on a T-mobile G1 without the data plan". ^ "Feature details on the T-Mobile G1 with Google phone". ^ http://personal.optus.com.au/web/ocaportal.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Template_wRHS& FP=/personal/mobile/mobilephones/htcdream&site=personal ^ http://home.singtel.com/news_centre/news_releases/2009_02_20.asp ^ http://www.techtickerblog.com/2009/02/05/singtel-announces-htc-dream-g1-for-singaporeand-australia/ ^ http://www.techtickerblog.com/2009/02/12/telefonica-welcomes-htc-dream-to-spain/ ^ http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/02/12/htc-dream-coming-to-spain-via-telefonica-getsa-facelift/ ^ "T-Mobile G1 review, part 2: software and wrap-up". Engadget. October 16, 2008. ^ "G1 capable of multi-touch input? Looks like it.". MobileCrunch. November 17, 2008. ^ "MSM7201 Chipset Solution". Retrieved on 2008-10-04. ^ "T-Mobile G1: Specification". HTC. September 23, 2008. ^ "T-Mobile G1 impressions: what we love, what we don't". Engadget. 2008-09-24. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. ^ a b c "Android for Dummies". TechPluto. September 18, 2008. ^ Feature details on the T-Mobile G1 with Google phone ^ "T-Mobile G1 review, part 1: hardware - Engadget". Engadget. October 16, 2008. ^ "Robotripping: hands on with the Android SDK beta". Ars Technica. August 19, [2008]. ^ "Customers Get Quick and Easy Access to Over 6 Million DRM-Free Songs from Amazon MP3 On New T-Mobile G1 Powered by Android Software". Amazon.com. September 23, 2008. ^ "Google introduces developer G1 phones". arstechnica. December 7, [2008]. ^ "Google unleashes unlocked G1 on developers". CNET. December 6, [2008].