It seems like so long ago that the iPhone hit the market with a bang and it’s still considered by many to be the best cell phone you can get. Over the last year or two, many speculated about various concept phones and if any of them would be an “iPhone killer”, including me. One of those hopefuls was Google’s promise of a Google phone, which people quickly dubbed the “Gphone”. A few months after Apple brought us the second generation iPhone, T-Mobile announced the release of their Android-running G1 and people started to get excited about owning one.
I’ve seen a lot of other phones come out that seem to follow the iPhone’s lead in many of their features, but none have swayed me from my opinion that the iPhone is far superior. The only one that comes close so far is the HTC T-Mobile G1, so when I had a chance to compare the two side by side, I jumped on it. I played with the G1 for hours, taking pictures along the way before creating a comparison video and finally putting together my conclusions.
First, the technical comparison
(image from Wired)
(Note that the G1 also plays video)
One of the things I think the G1 really could have used is a multi-touch screen, but I guess I’m just spoiled by my iPhone. There have been rumors, but nothing solid yet. A standard headphone jack would be nice, too. You can always listen with USB headphones, but that limits your options. One area the G1 technically surpassed the iPhone was the built in camera. Delivering 3.2 mega pixels, it offers a much better picture than the iPhone’s 2.0 mega pixel camera.
Getting hands on
Part 1:
Part 2:
The videos above cover most of what I’ve played with, but here’s some of what I found that’s worth noting:
- The iPhone offers a sliding software lock and optional password protection, while the G1 employs the old method of hitting any button and then hit “Menu” to unlock the phone, but it also offers another cool option where you store a gesture pattern like a happy face or a cursive G and you repeat that gesture to unlock the phone.
- Both phones allow for multiple pages to display icons for key features and applications. The G1 sets itself apart here, though, allowing its owner to also display search boxes and widgets like the big clock we keep seeing in G1 photos. Better still, these can all be moved anywhere. The iPhone makes you stack your icons neatly, gravitating to the top left of the screen, but G1 is a wild child, letting you throw those suckers wherever you want. Rebel. To accommodate all this freedom, G1 tucks most of its icons in a little slide-out panel, so you can hide the stuff you use rarely and keep your key items on the main screens.
- Both platforms offer Google Maps. My iPhone has Google Earth. I’m not sure if the G1 offers Google Earth, but it includes Street View and Compass Mode, which is very cool. Just watch the video to see what I mean.
- Oddly, the Google Search app on the G1 didn’t work nearly as well as on my iPhone.
- It doesn’t appear that I can create picture folders in the g1 like I can in the iPhone, but that may just require more testing.
- Setting up email was incredibly easy on the g1. The iPhone requres me to go to the phone’s settings area to add or remove an email account which is a little annoying.
- Both phones offer easy access to a wealth of third-party applications, both paid, and free. They’re both, hands down, vastly better than the alternatives I’d become used to with Windows Mobile phones.
- Adding music with the g1 is as easy as dropping MP3s from my computer into the phone’s shared storage, but the sound quality pales compared to the iPhone. The iPhone’s music play back is loud and clear, while the G1′s is a bit muffled and tinny.
- G1′s roller ball can easily switch away from the text box in focus on accident if bumped, but is very handy in Street View. The integrated keyboard is tiny, but useful. My main problem here is that I have to physically slide it out every time I need to type something, which can be hard one-handed, unlike the iPhone, where the software keyboard just appears as needed. The mix of a hardware keyboard and an optional software keyboard that could be accessed with a quick tap would be a great improvement.
The time has come to finally launch the New Media Super Contest!
The New Media Super Contest has 72 prizes from over 50 sponsors worth over $4,200! Take a look at the prize and sponsor list below.
Premium Sponsors
While we link out to all sponsors as a way of thanking them for adding to our prize pool, we also wanted to thank the premium sponsors, who went the extra mile to add larger prizes to the contest.
Pinky Arcade [UPDATE: PinkyArcade gave us the run around for months until I finally just bought the PS3 myself for the winner]
The 5 member team at Pinky Arcade contacted us early on to ask if we’d like to have a 160GB Sony PS3 to give away in the contest. If you are a gamer, you would notice that this system isn’t released yet and it’s going to be the latest model for the widely popular, PS3. No strangers to giving away tons of free prizes, Pinky Arcade has already given away huge gift cards, consoles, and mp3 players. All these given away for simply playing some free games on the site.
BadEvan’s Gay Blog
Evan also joined up as a sponsor early on, not only by helping promote via Twitter, and other “new media”, but also by throwing in around $1,500 in advertising, reviews, and cash.
EcoPower and EcoVista
The other day, the sales team at EcoPower sent me an exciting email. They had heard about the contest and wanted to sponsor it with some unexpected, but cool, prizes. Their EcoPower and EcoVista products help you save fuel in your automobile and electricity in your home or office. The products are pretty inexpensive, too, so they offered up three of each!
Platinum Sponsor Prizes ($100 and up)
Sony PS3 from Pinky Arcade [UPDATE: PinkyArcade gave us the run around for months until I finally just bought the PS3 myself for the winner]
$100 cash from JoeTech.com
Citrus theme license from Unique Blog Designs
1 Year of hosting on DreamHost from afrogtokiss.net
125×125 banner ad for one year from afrogtokiss.net
125×125 banner ad for one year from JoeTech.com
Text link AND 125×125 banner ad for one month from Anshul Affiliates
125×125 banner ad for one year from BadEvan.com
one month of pimping from BadEvan.com
one month of pimping from BadEvan.com
Site review on BadEvan.com from BadEvan.com
How to enter
There are a lot of ways to enter. If you do any of the following, you get entries into the drawing. Even though we have over 70 prizes already, making it easy for everyone to win, your odds of nabbing the Platinum prizes increase with each entry you earn. Most of the ways mentioned below are very easy and take very little time, so try a few or all of them and good luck! Entries must be earned before January 1, 2009 to be eligible.
- Tweet the contest at Twitter.com (must include “#joetech”) (5 entries/once per day)
- Tweet “@joetech I hope I win” at Twitter.com (5 entries/once per day)
- Follow joetech on Twitter.com (10 entries) (all current followers already entered)
- Blog about the contest (must include the pre-formmated contest html, unedited, with working links and images) (100 entries)
- Stumble the contest at StumbleUpon.com(10 entries)
- Comment on the contest post (1 entry)
- Subscribe to JoeTech.com via email (existing subscribers will be entered automatically) (20 entries)
- Subscribe to sponsors via email (20 entries each/participating sponsors only)
- Email me (joe@joetech.com) a blog post title or other detail proving you visited a sponsor’s site. (Subject must include “NMSC ENTRY” and you should include the url of the sponsor site.) (10 entries/once per day)
Badges, Buttons, Banners, and HTML
This contest is about spreading the word about new media and by new media. That said, it’s important for you to have the tools to help you promote it. It’ll earn you more entries, too. Below are some blocks of HTML to make it very easy for you to post about the contest or add a badge or button to your site or blog. Please note that it is important for the images to come from JoeTech.com (as they do in the codes below) so they will automatically update with new prize total information.
How to sponsor
Although the contest is already under way, we’ll accept sponsors and prizes until the very end. Currently we’re looking for more cash and electronics like laptops, iPods, etc., but feel free to be creative. Remember to think big. The better your prize, the more attention you’ll get in the contest. Premium sponsors will receive special mentions in contest posts, in addition to all the name recognition and traffic the contest will bring naturally.
To sponsor, just email joe@joetech.com with the subject “NEW MEDIA SUPER CONTEST”. Each prize should be worth at least $10 U.S. Include the details about the prize or prizes you are offering, the U.S. dollar value of each prize, your site or company name and the URL to link to. All sponsors will be added to the list as seen above and updates will be posted on every Thursday.
When I decided to put together the biggest contest JoeTech.com has ever seen, I set the bar high and decided that I really want this to be huge. I’ve been working hard to make that happen, and it’s starting to show. Currently, the prize pool is over $3,500 in cash and prizes and continuing to grow. I’m also looking for more large sponsors still. If you work closely with any company that you think might want to throw in a Macbook, other computers or electronics, lots of cash, etc., let them know about the contest. The updated info will always be at the following URL:
In this update, I want to talk about a lot of the prizes we have so far, some generous early sponsors, people who’ve promoted the contest already, and questions that have been asked.
Cash and prizes Let’s start with the generous sponsors and all the prizes so far. It’s still early in our sponsorship phase, and already we have over 63 prizes in our prize pool, including over $200 in cash, almost over 32,000 credits at Entrecard (about $190 value), a LOT of advertising on various blogs, blog and ad redesigns and reviews, a copy of the Citrus Theme from Unique Blog Designs, a bunch of advertising, Entrecard credits and cash from BadEvan’s Gay Blog, and Pinky Arcade’s generous sponsorship of a Sony PS3 game system. [UPDATE: PinkyArcade gave us the run around for months until I finally just bought the PS3 myself for the winner]
Early promotions for extra entries and bonus prizes
Last week, I told you that you can promote early and win more. Since then, there’s been some twitter posts, blog posts, forwarding the contest details via email, etc. It’s great to see so many people diving in and helping make this contest huge. Here’s just some of the links and mentions from this week:
If I missed you, let me know. As I mentioned before, I’m setting aside some of the prizes for people who promote the contest early. Just promote the contest with a link to it and you’re in for extra entries and prizes. Below are the HTML and BBCODE (for forums) for the banner shown at the top of this post and the badge (which you can see in my side bar). These will both update on their own as we get more sponsors and the contest launches.
BANNER HTML:
BANNER FORUM BBCODE:
BADGE HTML:
BADGE FORUM BBCODE:
Questions and answers When will the contest launch?
You can get early entries as mentioned above, but the contest truly launches on November 12, 2008.
When does the contest end?
The contest will go until January 1, 2009. That may seem like a long time, but it gives us more time to get new sponsors and more time for our loyal readers to gain more entries. All of the entries will be gathered up as early as possible in January and prizes will be awarded as soon as we can draw all the names. I’m shooting for January 10.
Can I still become a sponsor?
Yes! You can become a sponsor at any point until January 1, 2009. Of course, the early sponsors take advantage of more links and press like the upcoming NMSC Contest Sponsor Love post.
What do I get as a sponsor?
Sponsors not only get the benefit of giving back to the community of bloggers and the people who read the blogs, but you will also receive links back from all the blog posts about the contest both here and on participant blogs across the web. Premium sponsors will be mentioned often and sometimes even placed in the contest creative as I’ve done with Pinky Arcade and Bad Evan in the banner image above.
What should I give as a sponsor?
You can give tangible items, cash, advertising, or Entrecard credits. So far, we have a lot of Entrecard Credits and advertising. While we’ll certainly accept more as prizes, we’d love to see more sponsors like BadEvan.com and PinkyArcade.com offering up electronics and cash. You should sponsor at least 1,000 ec or your prize should be worth at least $10. Really, though, you should be thinking $20 or more in cash or consumer electronics like iPods, TVs, laptops, digital cameras, etc. The more exciting your prize, the more attention you get in our posts and announcements.
I want to sponsor a bunch of prizes! How do I do it?
Just send an email to joe@joetech.com with the subject “NEW MEDIA SUPER CONTEST”. Include the details about what you would like to sponsor, the name and URL of the site responsible for each prize
Who can win?
As long as I or another sponsor can legally send your prize to you, you can win.
I’m betting you don’t want a trojan or a virus. That’s why I’m featuring a prime example of how some people get viruses and trjoans on their computers.
You have a virus!
Don’t believe everything you read. One of the tricks used to get you to install malware is to present you with a situation where you feel like your computer is at risk and you must correct it with the software that pops up. This was the case this morning, when I was searching Google, in my regular keyword ranking check. In my search results was the Average Joe Tech Show (which is not me, by the way), but it didn’t link to the site I’m linking to here. When I clicked the link to visit the site, the browser window shrunk to the size of a Windows alert box. It said that my computer might be infected and I should scan for viruses. I jut hit the ESC key to see what it would do. My browser window size was restored and it redirected to this page:
Does it look professional and trustworthy to you? It’s actually just a creative way to make you think that your computer is being scanned and has been found to have viruses all over it. I can see how this could trick those who aren’t very computer savvy. After a few seconds, it auto-starts a download for the “fix”, which is undoubtedly a virus or more likely a trojan.
Since I’ve been programming computers for two decades, I decided to not download it and infect my whole system. This site was really pushy about it, though. Every time I canceled the download, it restarted it for me. After I got bored with it and got a few screen shots, I just closed the tab. Minutes later, the search result in Google had already been removed. Admittedly, I’m not sure how the result got there in the first place. If you know, fill us in.
Other tricks
This isn’t the only way people are trying to scam their way into your computer. There are several other ways that you should be aware of. Here’s just a few:
“You have a postcard” email
These try to get you to open an attachment that’s supposed to be an ecard, and who doesn’t like getting a card from a friend. Variations try to get you to visit a malware site to pick up your ecard.
“Your tracking number” email
These are terribly annoying. They claim to include tracking information about a package from (mostly) UPS or another carrier. Instead, they include a virus or trojan zipped up to prevent detection.
“Naked blond with big…” email
An oldie, but a goody, this one entices you with the promise of the forbidden. Not only do you get a virus, but you get to blush explaining how you got it.
“Your email was blocked” email
This new one seems to be spreading a bit. The email claims that you’ve been caught sending spam or doing something equally as bad with your computer and the sender is going to forward the attached log files (proof, allegedly) to your internet service provider. With a halo over your head, you seek to prove your innocence, starting with the log file. As soon as you open that sucker up, it’s too late.
There’s plenty more, but the theme is often the same. They entice you with curiosity or fear to convince you to visit an infected link or open an attachment. When you do, it’s all downhill from there.
What if I fell for this?
First and foremost, your computer should be protected by some virus scanning software like Norton, McAfee, F-Prot, etc. If it isn’t, fork over the $40 or $60 and get on that. Too many times, I’ve seen someone I know save the cash and then wind up with a huge mess of viruses and trojans.
That said, there are a number of ways to cleanse your computer. Here’s a few tutorials:
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