I stopped in the T-Mobile store near my office yesterday to finally get a hands-on look at the new G1, a.k.a., the first Google Phone. It's even worse than I expected. I never evem turned the thing on, because after playing with the handset for a minute, I knew I wasn't interested. It's big, it's plastic, and it feels funny. The closest thing I can compare it to is holding a Mattel LED football game from the 80's. I'll never get a phone with a sliding screen, because I know, between getting stuffed into a pocket, tumbling around in my messenger bag, and falling on the ground, it'll be broken within the year, not to mention coated in grease and dust in all the joints, crevasses, and undersides. But worst of all were the buttons, which are small and give very little tactile response when pressed. They're round and smooth, little chiclets, about the same size as the buttons on a Blackberry Curve, but much less elevated from the handset. There's very little click response when pressed, so I felt like a clumsy oaf with stubby paws when trying to type. Those two issues alone are reason enough for me not to give it another thought.
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