The modern age of mobile phones is a far cry from the way things were when mobile phones first made their presence felt. Starting out as then-revolutionary devices that carried, made and received calls from anywhere thanks to emergent cellular technology, the first generation of mobile phones quickly became outdated as technology began to pick up the pace of a downhill-rolling snowball. As life began to get more and more complicated with multitasking and mobility becoming even more important to the average person than ever before, mobile phones began to become more and more flexible and multifunctional – leading us to a modern “smart” age of phones that bring tons of entertainment value along with unparalleled functionality.
Motorola has been working hard to produce phones that help usher in and maintain that new age, with some hits and misses along the way. One of its newest releases is the i1 model, a touch-screen phone running on the Android 1.5 operating system. This new phone brings touch screen functionality to users with a responsive and intuitive screen, solid and rugged construction and passable call quality. It’s also got a 5-megapixel camera, although this delivers a photography experience below its indicated capability, and the Android 1.5 OS feels like a bit of a throwback considering the newer OS running on other phones now. Still, while it’s not the best Android-based smartphone out there, the i1 is a functional and effective touch-screen smartphone for most consumers.
As mentioned, the i1 sports a fairly rugged look, with a rubber and plastic casing that gives the whole package a rather sturdy and solid feel. At 4.65” long by 2.34” wide by 0.5” thick, this solid chunk of rubber and plastic strikes a somewhat compact outline, and is even fairly light at 4.63oz. It feels comfortable in hand despite its rugged exterior thanks to its back covert’s soft-touch surface. Its buttons also have the rubber exterior, and Motorola stands behind the rugged feel of the phone by saying the i1 is military-certified against rain, dust, shock, extreme temperatures, salt fog, humidity, solar radiation, and low pressure. Just don’t take it swimming with you.
The 3.1” HVGA display is good and sharp with 262,000-color support and 320×240 pixel resolution, and its capacitive nature gives it a leg up over other phones with resistive touch screens. The screen responds swiftly to tapping with not a lot of pressure, and many things to aid it can be customized such as the vibration feedback and orientation sensor. Motorola has somehow chosen to foreo the Motoblue software for this go-around, though, so Android users will be more familiar with this phone’s default Android settings. Home screens and app menus are customizable, with a handful of new widgets accompanying the host of familiar ones. You also get the standard virtual keyboard and the Swype text-entry method.
Android 1.5 somewhat limits the features available, thanks to Motorola’s choice of going with an older and more solid platform revision. Upgrades will be made available over the air, so don’t lose hope. All told, though, even as is the i1 is very useful with a lot of Google-based apps available right off the bat: Gmail, Google Talk, Google Maps and YouTube are among the many. However, unless you’re on Wi-Fi [which allows you to shift to a WebKit browser] you’re stuck with Opera Mini 5, which actually loads pages fairly quickly.
Other than this, the phone supplies you with Amazon MP3 store and Android Market access, and you also get GPS and Bluetooth. On the other hand, the 5-megapixel camera is fairly mediocre, but it’s thankfully outdone by the rather good call reception and transmission quality.
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