T-Mobile G1 Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Marianne Schultz Published on November 05, 2008 Comment on this |
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| The G1's music playback capabilities are good, offering playlist support, automatic library updating, and more. The G1 also includes a native application to purchase and download music from Amazon's MP3 music store, which sells DRM-free music. We'll take DRM-free music over the alternative any day. The bad news is that the G1 doesn't come with any syncing software, though PC users can get by with Windows Media Player. Add this to the fact that the G1 doesn't have any video playback capability out of the box, and the G1 is a bit hobbled in the multimedia area as a result. | |
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Accessing Music Software (7.06)
To determine how easy it is to get to the music software, we time how long it takes to get a song playing, starting with the device at the home screen in the unlocked state. On the G1, the music software is in the main menu, with no shortcut button or icon on the main screen by default. The G1 was pretty quick in this test, taking only an average of 2.83 seconds to complete it, making it the second-fastest device among our comparison phones, behind the Sidekick LX. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Dedicated Music Controls (2.0)
The only thing the G1 has in the way of dedicated music controls is the volume up/down rocker on the left side. While on the home screen with music playing in the background, no other buttons control music playback in any way. Playing music does put a music playing indicator in the menu bar on the home screen, and "pulling down" the menu bar by flicking it downward with your finger reveals an alert that can be tapped, which brings you to the music player right away. This functionality from the home screen earns the G1 an additional point.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (6.0)
The first view in the G1's music application is of 4 large buttons through which you can view your music by Artist, Album, Songs, or Playlists. At the very bottom of the screen is the title and artist of the last song that was played, with a virtual play button next to it that will take you the playback screen with additional information and controls.
The Music application's main view
The Artists, Album, Songs, and Playlists buttons show you exactly what you'd expect in the succeeding screens.
The Playlists view The Artists view
Playlists can be added and modified on the G1 directly, though creating them is horribly unintuitive. To create a playlist, you first need to find a song, artist, or album you want to include in the playlist, then tap and hold on it to bring up a contextual menu where one of the options is to add it to a playlist. From the next menu, you can create a new playlist or select an existing one. The tapping and holding required for this functionality is odd - it's not one found consistently in the G1's other applications out of the box where the Menu button is the one to call up options to manipulate items. In the Music application, the Menu button offers different options than the ones that can be found by tapping and holding on items.
Contextual menu
One of the contextual menu items after tapping and holding on an individual songs is the option to use it as a ringtone. This is a superb feature to have directly from the music app, though we wish we could be more selective about which part and how much of the song is used for the ringtone.
Pressing the menu button brings up 2 options: Party Shuffle and Search. Party Shuffle creates a playlist of all of the songs in your library in random order. Selecting Search brings up a list of all of the songs in your library where you can search through them using the keyboard. This search function is quite flexible - typing in any part of a song's or artist's name will narrow down the results. Songs cannot be rated in the G1's music application or assigned to genres, so searching by these criteria is not possible.
The G1's music application recognized the ID3 tags on all of the text music files we loaded in WMA, MP3, and AAC format. Music cannot be assigned a rating or genre, though album art is supported. The G1's music library is automatically updated when songs are added and removed from the microSD card. The G1 does not have any equalizer settings or presets or visualizer functions.
Online Song Downloading (3.5)
The G1 includes the Amazon MP3 store as a native application out of the box. Downloading music can only be done when the G1 is connected to a Wi-Fi network, for which we only award half the points we normally would. The store can be still be browsed when connected to a cellular data network, however. The Amazon music store offers DRM-free music, which offers the ultimate flexibility to be able to listen to your music on other devices. Additionally, songs from the Amazon store have a higher bitrate than other digital music stores, meaning they offer better quality than the music sold through other online music services, such as Apple's iTunes music store.
The Amazon music store application
Most songs in the Amazon store cost $.89. Purchasing songs requires an Amazon account, and all purchases will be billed to the credit card or bank account you have on file with Amazon, not to your T-Mobile account.
Streaming (0.0)
The G1's User Guide states that streaming audio is possible - links clinked in the browser should open the Music application. However, we could not get this to work with our test streaming site or any other site with MP3, Real, and WMA streaming options.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The G1 does not offer native podcast subscription and download support. The only way to get podcasts on to the G1 is to connect the G1 to your computer with the included USB cable and drag and drop the podcast files into the Music folder in the G1's file structure, or use Windows Media Player if you're using a PC.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The G1 does not come with any music or other syncing software. If you're using a Mac, any music transferred to the device must be done by dragging and dropping files through a USB connection to your computer. Any music you purchase on the G1 directly through the Amazon store must be manually moved to your computer if you wish to make a back-up copy of it. Users with PCs can use Windows Media Player, which will recognize the G1's microSD card as a mass storage device that can be set up to sync media.
If you're not using Windows Media Player or if you use a Mac, the only way you can create playlists on your computer to import to the G1 is by doing it manually - the User Guide instructs you to create a text file, type in the exact names of the songs you want to include, and save the file with a specific file extension to the SD card in the G1. This could add up to a lot of work if you want to create a playlist of 100 songs in a specific order.
Music Formats and DRM (5.0)
The G1 had no trouble with our music test files in WMA, AAC, and MP3 format. Beyond this, the G1 can recognize AMR, MIDI, WAV, and OGG Vorbis files. The G1 does not support DRM-protected files of any format.
Music Interruption (10.0)
When there's an incoming phone call, music will stop playing and the screen will switch to show the caller ID. When a call is rejected or ended, music will begin playing again. Both transitions are quite abrupt and resuming play could be unpleasant if you listen to your music at a high volume.
Video Software Access (0.0)
The G1 does not have any video playback software, so it earns no points for this entire section.
Video Controls (0.0)
Not applicable.
Video Software & Organization (0.0)
Not applicable.
Video Sync with PC (0.0)
Not applicable.
Video Formats (0.0)
Not applicable.
Video DRM (0.0)
Not applicable.
Video Playback Smoothness (0.0)
Not applicable.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
Not applicable.
Video Streaming unscored
We don't test video streaming capability since there are a variety of standards and formats. The G1 does include a YouTube application out of the box, much like the iPhone 3G, through which video can be streamed easily.
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