Small Review:

Depending on what you like in a phone, this could be your calling. I liked almost everything about this phone (except for the bulkiness) and its use with Google was awesome. You want to talk about fast? Just try this one out for a change.

The Add-On’s:

• A 3.7 inch LCD display
• 800MHz  from Qualcomm MSM7230
• 512MB  of RAM
• 4GB of internal memory
• 8 GB of storage with the Micro Scan Disk
• A board that comes out of the side of the phone
• If you have HSPA available it can run on this
• A LED camera that has 720p and 5 megapixels

The Upside:

• Good quality product
• Very good clarity and clear picture
• If you can get HSPA, it’s really, really fast
• Responds  extremely fast

The Downside:

• May not be light enough for some people
• I didn’t like the board
• When it comes out of the phone, it can sometimes have some annoying effects
• “Too many applications, not enough Android

The Main Squeeze:

When I started to do this review, I was more excited about updating my regular phone from the G1 version to the G2. I thought that since the G1 Had worked so well for me, there would be no reason why the G2 wouldn’t. After taking a second look, I realized that although this is a great phone and there a lot of people out there who are going to be attracted to it, it just wasn’t the one for me per say. It all depends on your taste and what kind of applications and such you like on your phone.

What’s On It?

The body of the phone and the colors and design are very, very cool looking. I liked how they mixed the black and steel look and got away with the phone still not looking too much like a MacBook. When you hold it in your hand, you can feel how good of a product this is. Even though it is a little bit heavy, it still feels like it was made with good quality products and could probably get thrown around a bit. This design is really one of those phone designs that you can’t help but respect.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice phone, but depending on how you consider phones to be “solid”, you have to take into account that this thing is actually quite heavy. It’s not atrociously heavy, but it is heavy enough for you to notice it’s presence if you have it lying somewhere in your clothing.

Having a sliding keyboard can sometimes be tricky and it can even be a more annoying feature than a helpful one. While I truly, truly appreciated the design and the fact that they incorporated a board, I didn’t think that it was done well enough. I had some simplistic problems with it. One thing that could be fixed could be the hinges. They’re flimsy and would more than likely break after a short time of using the keyboard (especially because you have to pull it in and out so much). It’s really kind of the same problem that a lot of users were having with the previous model.

This G2 opens up to access the keyboard in a more angular fashion. If you have had a previous phone that opened up just like a normal slider, then you could easily fall into the trap of trying to open it wrong just out of habit. Then you could break it because the hinges obviously aren’t really worth a hoot. It won’t even open unless you’re pushing correctly to open it It does pose a small, but still red flag issue for those of us who are right handed and don’t want to have to put both hands on the phone just to get the keyboard open.

Whenever you first access your phone, it happens to get out of its’ lock mode. When it does this you can’t accidentally hit buttons you wouldn’t otherwise hit if the phone were a bit bulkier in width. It all depends on how the user holds a phone. Whether or not it’s just me kind of depends on that, but I did have a rather hard time getting myself to not touch buttons that I didn’t want to just because of the way I was holding it.

There is also too much room from where the keyboard opens up to where it shuts. This kept catching my skin and started to get kind of annoying after a while. I’ve had to actually train myself to open it properly so I don’t end up injuring myself. This is a first for a device that could possible draw my blood.

Many of the buttons are awkward to me. While some are accidentally easy to press when you don’t want them, some are hard as hell to get to click because the face of the button is so deep into the phone. One thing I know won’t happen is the battery falling out because I hot something the wrong way. That bad boy is tucked in there quite nicely. For charging, it’s nowhere where it needs to be if you were to use a charging cradle because it’s not appropriately located on the side of the phone.

You can switch your different cards through the batteries rear area as well. I understand that it’s probably more physically efficient to stick the Scan Disk there, but I go back to old school and want something a little easier to access on the outside.

The main function buttons were put in a great spot and I really have no complaints about those as they always worked fine for me and didn’t give me and hassle. I could go even deeper, but I don’t want to waste your time as you probably want to go out and by the thing right now.

Competing with the iPhone 4, it’s clear and crisp screen was something I really enjoyed, but still wasn’t as good. It’s still hard to beat the iPhone 4’s picture quality but this did actually come close with its beautiful LCD screen. I liked the fact that it didn’t have any kind of unwanted shock value in the dark and felt natural.

QWERTY Board:

Trust me, there are going to be some disagreements about what I think and what you think about this keyboard. In all honesty, I really thought it wasn’t all that great. Depending on which fingers I am going to use to hit my letters with, they feel differently when I lay into them. Maybe it’s just my personal typing style, but there is nothing natural about the way it feels to me. It may just be different for you, who knows.

By no means am I banging the QWERTY keyboard, it just may not feel quite right to some and it may feel perfect to others. The nice thing about this is that you shouldn’t have a problem promoting the thing and you can decide for yourself whether or not the comfort level is there for you or not.

Taking Pictures:

This is nothing special compared to other camera phones that I have encountered over time. Visually, there is always some kind of blur because the lens is kind of small quality. What I hate the most is how stuff can get into the lens area so easily. I wouldn’t knock it completely because it does have it moments where the pictures come out good (especially when you utilize the awesome flash on it).

This is a compilation of picture I took with the G2 and none of them are really very impressive.

You might want to stick your own applications on there because what it comes with really is kind of generic.

Software and performance

I really enjoyed the speed of this phone and I have no complaints when running all kid of things on the G2. It did things like playing games so easily, it was completely thoughtless and I didn’t have any kind of lagging waiting or freezing. It was just smooth running all the way.

Browsing is also good on here and I could relate it to how nice and easy it is to browse on the iPhone.

You won’t have to add too much at any given point to this phone. What they are starting to do is enable you with all the solid applications as this is appealing to the consumer that they won’t have to do it on their own. So, be prepared to have a large variety of applications to check out on this phone.

But if you don’t want a couple of the applications on your phone, you may not have a choice. Some of them are permanent and that wasn’t too cool with me as I like to customize everything.

Sometimes it will go off without being told to do so. I don’t have a clue why. Even when I’m using the phone for personal use, things like the light behind the board just go off all of the sudden. It’s a little annoying. Other than a couple little red flags like this one, I really didn’t see anything else that would make me throw the phone out.

What I Conclude

This was a great meshing effort for a phone. I like how fast it is most of all. This is just like carrying a personal computer with you everywhere. It may be just a little on the heavy side, but some people will appreciate this more than they would if they had a lighter version. Every person is going to see this phone differently so just make sure it’s right for you before you go and spend your money one it. Otherwise, I’ve given you my opinion and you can do with it what you will.