[Full G2 Review] The T-Mobile G2 is an Android 2.2 Froyo powered smartphone that was released in October 2010. It features a physical landscape QWERTY keyboard with a unique hinge mechanism. The G2 is sporting a 3.7-inch Super LCD screen with a 480x800 WVGA resolution. Inside is an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor with 512MB of RAM and 3.7GB of ROM. The G2 smartphone also features a five-megapixel camera with LED flash and autofocus. Read on for the latest G2 news, reviews and videos:
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by Joe Levi | February 10, 2011 12:14 PMRead OnBrandon and I agree on many things, but (contrary to popular opinion) we're different people with different preferences. These preferences may be superficial, but when it comes to our launchers, the gloves come off! Brandon recently showed us why he thinks LauncherPro is the best launcher for Android. With respect, ADWLauncher EX is even more amazing! To keep the comparison on level ground I'll compare the "unlocked" version of LauncherPro (US$2.99) to the "EX" version of ADWLaucher (US$3.15). You can customize almost every aspect of ADW Launcher EX, or use one of the presets as a starting ...
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by Joe Levi | February 9, 2011 9:29 AMRead OnHoneycomb, Android 3.0, was recently announced by Google to help establish a foundation for tablet devices. We've been lead to believe that Honeycomb will only be available for tablets, not smartphones. That's not sitting well with many of us, including this developer who is working on a Honeycomb theme for CyanogemMod 7 that he calls "Honeybread". No, it's not really Honeycomb, the OS is Gingerbread (Android 2.3), but the look and feel, along with the colors are very much Honeycomb. To get started you'll need to have CyanogenMod 7 installed on your phone. After that, the steps are pretty ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | February 8, 2011 5:34 AMRead OnT-Mobile has announced a two-day Valentine's Promotion kicking in Friday, February 11 until Saturday, February 12, where all T-Mobile phones, including the latest and greatest, will be offered for free. Signing up for smartphone qualifying plans on two-year contracts, customers will be able to choose from 30 phones in Magenta's line-up, including the popular T-Mobile myTouch 4G, HTC HD7, T-Mobile G2 and Samsung Vibrant. On the other hand, TmoNews ran a Rebate Form for the two days where T-Mobile lists the free smartphones, as well as those requiring a purchase which will later be returned ...
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by Joe Levi | January 25, 2011 1:52 PMRead OnAround two years ago T-Mobile signed on to a grand experiment: Android. Not long after the G1 arrived. It was a smartphone with a physical keyboard, a fair amount of speed and storage -- and a lot of potential. Many devices and several revisions to the operating system later and the G2 has finally arrived! Some would argue that the G2 is incorrectly named, and should be the "G3" -- an Android phone named the "G2" was previously released by T-Mobile's European cousin. Naming aside, let's dig right in! Specifications The G2 is powered by a Qualcomm MSM7230 processor running at a respectable ...
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by Joe Levi | January 18, 2011 11:25 AMRead OnGenerally speaking, flashing a custom ROM onto your phone is a fairly simple, straight-forward process -- once it's rooted and a custom recovery image installed. With CyanogenMod 7 (CM7) there's a little more to it. First and foremost, CyanogenMod 7 isn't fully cooked yet. It's functional enough to be my daily driver, but it's still in the RC0 phase (meaning it's not ready to be called a "release candidate"). In fact, at the time of this writing there are only 3 "nightly" builds available (though this will have likely increased by the time you read this post). Following any instructions ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | January 18, 2011 2:29 AMRead OnThe T-Mobile G2 scored a 4.5 out of 5 in our review and one of the things we liked about the device -- in addition to the great build quality -- was the speed at which it operates and processes anything thrown at it. If you haven't already picked one up but you're considering it, now could be a good moment as T-Mobile is offering the phone at the best price ever. Grabbing a T-Mobile G2 with a two-year contract until Thursday, January 20, 2010 will grant you the device for free. So hurry up, you still got a couple of days to get your hands on the device advertised to take advantage of 4G ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | January 5, 2011 5:43 AMRead OnHTC is showing off its actual 4G-enabled Android-powered device line-up in the current issue of the Rolling Stone magazine where, besides the T-Mobile G2 and the just announced Sprint EVO Shift 4G, we meet the Verizon Thunderbolt and the AT&T Inspire 4G. We have previously met the HTC Thunderbolt (aka Incredible HD or Mecha) featuring a huge 4.3-inch display and LTE capable radio to fit Verizon's 4G LTE high speed data network. The HTC Inspire 4G first popped up when we brought you the news of the manufacturer filing for a trademark on the name. We hinted that it will most probably refer ...
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by Joe Levi | January 4, 2011 7:32 PMRead OnIf you're not lucky enough to have a car dock made specifically for your Android-powered phone, check out some of the "generic" alternatives. In this case you're not going to get a Bluetooth connection or power pass-through, but at least you have your phone placed in a convenient location, and up out of the cup-holder to someplace more useful! One of my Christmas presents was the Arkon SM514 which fits the T-Mobile G2 (HTC Desire Z) very nicely. It has a full range of motion and locks snugly in place, and holds the phone very well. It doesn't have any sort of power pass-through, which ...
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by Joe Levi | December 22, 2010 7:03 PMRead OnOne of our viewers decided to go the extra-mile and cooked up an unreleased version of CyanogenMod ROM, complete with the Gingerbread bits from the AOSP for the T-Mobile G2. What's it like? In a word, it's awesome! Is it ready to eat? Not yet. This is basically an unofficial "preview release" of what will become CyanogenMod 7. It hasn't met the "release candidate" stage (yet), and most of the custom CyanogenMod bits are missing. The camera (both still and video) don't currently work, GPS is slow, Wi-Fi is buggy, and the soft keyboard is Japanese. Calling, Bluetooth, and basic functionality ...
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by Joe Levi | December 17, 2010 12:55 PMRead OnIf you've got an Android-powered phone and have rooted it (temp root should work just fine) with this sweet little app you can not only overclock your phone, but you can underclock it, too! "Clocking" in this context, for those of you who don't know, is setting the speed at which your CPU runs. Making it run faster than default is overclocking, and making it run slower than default is underclocking. Overclocking generally makes your device faster, but at the cost of battery life, heat-buildup, and the possibility of instability and shorter component life. Underclocking generally makes your ...
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by Joe Levi | December 10, 2010 11:56 AMRead OnSome people don't like the way the keyboard on the T-Mobile G2 and HTC Desire Z lifts up and back (rather than sliding). They've voiced concerns over what they call the "fragility" of the hinges, and the ease in which the keyboard can unintentionally open or close while beings used in various positions. I don't share these concerns, and haven't had any problems with my keyboard opening or closing when I didn't want it to -- unless I was using it upside down. Be that as it may, one particularly adventurous tinkerer has found a way to adjust the mechanism to keep the phone closed a little ...
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by Stephen Schenck | December 7, 2010 8:17 PMRead OnIf you're anxiously awaiting the arrival of Gingerbread for your Android handset of choice, you may have gotten a bit of a shock when an LG employee on the company's Facebook page claimed that Gingerbread hardware requirements meant that the latest Android release won't be coming to any devices with a CPU running slower than 1GHz. Responding to a user's question about when the Optimum S would see a Gingerbread update, LG posted that the phone's 600MHz CPU wouldn't meet the 1GHz Gingerbread cut-off. Google hadn't said anything about minimum requirements, and the Android developer community ...
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by Joe Levi | December 1, 2010 7:11 PMRead OnThe T-Mobile G2 was supposed to come with 4GB of internal storage, yet when devices (including my own) starting hitting the shelves, Android was reporting a little less than 2GB available. Theories flew about where the "missing 2GB" was. Some claimed that many of the G2s accidentally got the storage chip intended for the HTC Desire Z (essentially the same phone, with half the internal storage). I even jumped into the fold, hypothesizing that the "missing 2GB" had something to do with the way T-Mobile and HTC were locking the phone, to automatically revert any changes to the ROM -- the ...
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by Joe Levi | November 28, 2010 6:18 PMRead OnStand by your computer screens early tomorrow morning! Best Buy is offering the T-Mobile G2 (my current daily driver) for sale for a whopping $0.00, with new two-year contract activation! You read that right! Free!! Of course you're tied to T-Mobile for two years, and upgrades aren't eligible for this killer deal. The G2 is currently overclockable above 1.5GHz (almost double its stock speed), can be permarooted, and CyanogenMod 6.1.0 RC3 is available and very stable. Regardless, you'll have to act fast! This is an online-only special, and only Cyber Monday, which is tomorrow, November ...
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by Joe Levi | November 18, 2010 1:44 PMRead OnThis morning, HTC released the sourcecode to the T-Mobile myTouch 4G's kernel. This doesn't mean much to the average Android user, but to developers and modders it means that ROMs and tweaks can be developed to enable all sorts of customizations and optimizations. Along with the myTouch 4G kernel, HTC also published a pair of "Maintenance Releases" for the T-Mobile G2 and Droid Incredible. This isn't the entire sourcecode for the device as some other news outlets are reporting, it's just the kernel, not any proprietary, closed-source bits. Even still, it's good news all around! Source: HTC ...