New G1 - Android powered 'Google' phone arrived today.

Why? Well, I needed an easy way to SSH into some machines while away from my desk and simply didn't trust anything from MiccieSoft.  I went searching high and low for an open source solution (it's far nicer searching high, by the way), and eventually stumbled upon the Android platform - as a part of the Google World Domination Plan.

Anyway, there's shedloads of GPLd apps for Android, all open to peer review, and after disassembling the code to check for nasties, I found my perfect SSH client.

So what do I think about the phone?

First impressions are good, but the battery is minute - in size and capacity.  Be interesting to see how it goes.

The G1 is limited in a couple of ways - mainly in that it isn't running on a finished Android platform that fully supports the "Dream" hardware (Dream is the model of the phone - rebranded in the UK as the Google G1).  Therefore little things like Stereo Bluetooth, video recording and the like - not essential, but handy, simply won't work - yet.

I'll play for a couple of days to see what I think - but I reckon the WiFi, Bluetooth and inbuilt GPS will drain the battery pretty fast.