It needs redesign. It looks terrible! Just my point of view on the look. I don’t speaking about UI. I didn’t try it!

nice

How exciting. I’m curious to see all of the features and functionality! Thanks for posting an inside peek.

-Natalie
http://www.topolewski.net

did you have to make a deal with t-mobile like with the iPhone and AT&T???

It looks good. I think the iPhone still has a better design but the UI could be an improvement (I haven’t played with the Andoid yet though).

On a side note: I hope the advertisers (Sprint) don’t mind the promotion of another phone in the same article as their ad.

Wow, I had a bad impression of the g1 from other photos, but these ones make it look sexy. I feel that it’ll be great in person! Now to save some $.

To be honest I thinks it looks very bad. The curvature looks like the phone is ready to crack, and the coolness factor is around -5.

The rear 3/4 view on the packaging makes me think of someone with a bad back who can’t stand up straight… but I’m still excited about seeing/trying out this phone.

You’re awesome for scooping one up to report on it for all of us! Too bad the G1 is just plain ugly. I read an article (here’s where the ability to remember names would be usefull) with a quote from a german car designer. He said something like “ugly design confuses me, it costs the same to bend the metal this way or that way, so the only excuse for bad design is ignorance.”

agreed it looks a little ugly, but i’m so excited for the wealth of apps. and creativity this is going to unlock for all of us. good things to come in terms of software and capabilities and just fun/ridiculous apps. people will come up with. once more phone companies are willing to carry this operating system, there will be more attractive choices to choose from.

yeah this looks like shit

You people have been brainwashed. Just because a phone hasn’t got ‘shiney’ looking features, metallic gloss finish and a big logo on the side you think it’s ugly. Aesthetically this phone has been stripped down to the basics. Which ironically makes it stand out more in the cell phone market, and that says a lot.

This phones beauty/(ugliness) can’t be judged through photos. Material choice and 3d is something that you can only experience in real life with a hand held product like this.

If it works as simple as it looks then this is a step forward for cell phones and where it’s true beauty will lie… Have you been on google.com? I can’t imagine their logo on the side of an iphone (aesthetically) or being associated with a phone that doesn’t do things as simply as they can be done.

In my opinion, this phone is a breath of fresh air… My only complaint, not a fan of that split line…

the design looks lame

Honestly ~ i wasn’t sure what to think of it, ultimately it was on the list of things that had to be experienced, since there is so much potential with the open source android platform.

I was actually quite surprised how nice the phone itself feels, and am liking the simplicity, quite a bit, although i do wish the keyboard had keys that were raised a bit higher. Hardware wise, it feels good - and looks best in black ~ it’s a tough one to photograph well for sure, but if you get a chance, i’d say its definitely worth poking at in person.

Brainwashed? In this day and age our utilitarian devices should have a decent design aesthetic. Otherwise why go to all the trouble of designing anything? Simple does not have mean stripped down. It looks broken. This thing has set product design back 10 years. I do want to see the UI though.

I would have to agree with consensus on this one: it’s ugly. It looks like they spent more money designing the box than they did the appliance itself. No personality. Which for a “landmark product” is unforgivable.

where is the style? honestly?

I am deterred from all of these phones simply by the idea of being contractually obligated to pay upwards of $100/month to some greedy company with a lousy network.

I’m beginning to think that maybe society has just conditioned us into thinking we need mobile phones to get by. When my current Verizon contract expires in January, I intend to give up cell phones as a personal experiment. Long term contracts are no different than indentured servitude.

Actually…I dont think its ugly…I think its vintage. The design looks like a late 90s palm pilot. Which makes it kind of nostalgic, but it also makes it look like an old palm pilot lol. I wish they would start making devices look less “modern” and more classical. Like a rococo phone with alot of scroll work in white and gold, or like a black gothic looking phone, or a greek classical phone…this whole black and shiny glass shit is getting way to predictable.

ps copper would be a nice color for a phone, and the oxidation would be a fun to watch, since it would always be changing…

personally… i like it…. but dont think i will get one any time soon…

add me to your myfavs… hahaha

jonathan
dailydesignspot.com

I think the original design for the G1 by mikeandmaaike(.com) was actually prette good.
Unfortunately Google managed to screw it up in the production phase…

im ordering mine tomorrow, if they don’t have one at the store.

What the? It looks like a refurbished palm pilot from 2001!? It already looks dated. What were their ID guys thinking?

hmm… it looks pretty cool, but I don’t know if I can give up my new Iphone.
Tabitha @ http://www.fromsingletomarried.com

It looks like something straight out of Back to the Future!

In the way of full-disclosure, I’ll tell you I like my Thinkpad R61, specifically because the designers wasted no effort on fancy bevels or anything that wasn’t functionally motivated. Also, I am hopelessly smitten with the iPhone, both in design and function. I don’t own one, and have only played with (quite) a few in stores, but looking at every other phone (including the LG Dare) convinces me only more strongly that Apple wields the best design intellect in the current market.

That said, I have also played with a G1, and I think the styling is simple and functional, not unlike my Thinkpad. The build is solid, the materials are strong, and the pivot motion to expose the keyboard feels authoritative. For roughly the same money, both in unit cost and monthly fees, I’d go with an iPhone; but if I can get a substantially lower monthly cost for a phone with a physical keyboard and a touch screen and an open app marketplace, I might just sign up.