**A Hands-On Review of the HTC G2**

As I sat down to review the HTC G2, I couldn't help but think about how this phone is designed to work seamlessly in foreign countries. The fact that you can simply push the "talk" button and have it translate for you is a game-changer. If you're in a foreign country, you don't need to worry about pronouncing complicated phrases or using a specific language. This feature is especially useful when traveling abroad, as it eliminates one of the biggest barriers to communication.

One of the most interesting features of the G2 is its keyboard. The phone comes equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the screen. When I say "slides out," I mean it literally - this isn't your typical slide-out keyboard like you see on flip phones or some other Android devices. Instead, the entire keyboard lifts up and pulls out, giving you a nice big space bar and decent key depression. The keys themselves have a rubber feel to them, which is great for typing.

Speaking of customization, one of my favorite features of the G2 is its customizable buttons at the bottom of the phone. You can set these buttons to do just about anything you want - from opening specific apps to launching your preferred camera mode. I also appreciate that this phone has a relatively slim profile, making it easy to toss into a pocket or purse without feeling too bulky.

Of course, no review would be complete without mentioning the camera. The G2's 5-megapixel camera is certainly not going to replace your standalone camera or video recorder, but it'll get the job done for quick snaps or videos of your dog pooping (sorry, had to!). And don't even get me started on how great the build quality is - HTC has a knack for creating industrial-feeling phones that are both sturdy and comfortable to hold.

**Software and Performance**

One thing I did notice was that the G2's pinch-to-zoom scrolling can be a bit rough at times. Now, I know some people get caught up in the 800 MHz versus 1 GHz debate, but for me, the difference is negligible - mostly, it comes down to how well the software is optimized for the hardware. And in this case, HTC's software is optimized beautifully for the G2's processor.

Another area where I was a bit disappointed was with the browser performance on some of my tests. While it didn't crash or freeze, there were moments when scrolling through web pages or viewing videos felt a bit choppy. But overall, I've been very happy with the G2 - it's a phone that I could easily use as my daily driver.

**Overall Impression**

All in all, I'm thoroughly impressed with the HTC G2. It's a solid choice for anyone looking for an Android device, especially T-Mobile users who can take advantage of exclusive deals and promotions. The customizable buttons, great build quality, and overall performance make this phone a standout in its class.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give the G2 a solid 4.5 - it's not without some minor flaws, but those are easily overlooked when you consider the phone's many strengths. If you're in the market for a new Android device, I highly recommend checking out the G2.

**Additional Notes**

As I mentioned earlier, I'm john rettinger from Technobuffalo, and I can be found on Twitter at twitter.com/john4lakers. Be sure to check out our site for all your G2, Android, and tech news - and stay tuned for exclusive content and reviews!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up everyone john retton here from technobuffalo here the full review for you of the sequel to the android phone that started the android phone craze the t-mobile g1 this is its big brother all grown up let's take a look at the g2 so before i start my phone reviews i'd like to talk about call quality if a phone doesn't make good phone calls doesn't matter how good a browser is or what the processor speed is it's not going to be much use to you i'm happy to say that the g2 has a very strong radio i was able to pull in a very heavy nice five bars of t-mobile 3g really anywhere i went while other t-mobile phones generally hovered around four certainly the bar system is a bit arbitrary but it does appear as the g2 has a very strong radio a call quality was quite nice as well i had no white noise or popping on my end and the other end the collar had no white noiser popping on their end on a 20 call test i experienced no drop calls with each call lasting more than two minutes speakerphone is actually quite loud as well this is one of the nicest speaker phones that i've used you'll be more than able to sort of pop this guy on speaker put it on your lap if you need wire in the car and have no problem hearing all right so that aside let's go ahead and start talking about the specs so this guy has a 3.7 inch diagonal screen it's got a resolution of 480 by 800. it's got android 2.2 on board the 800 megahertz processor with 512 megabytes of ram it's got a 5 megapixel camera on the back with autofocus and led flash which is also capable of shooting hd movies at 1280x720 also known as just 720p it's got a 1300 milliamp hour battery which is going to get you about 6.6 hours of talk time this thing is by no means a battery usage champ uh be prepared to have to be close to a charger i barely got through a day before this thing would turn off on me and i'm a pretty heavy user so if you're logging on to a lot of exchange accounts or you're having push email sense you do a lot of web browsing uh you are definitely going to want either have a replacement battery or keep the charger with you it does have four gigs of storage built in which is quite nice and of course you can expand that with a micro sd card all right so let's talk about some of the build quality and what you're going to get physically on the phone itself i have long lamented about capacitive buttons i think that sometimes they don't work as well as advertised especially as well as physical buttons and i've gone on the record of saying i did not enjoy them on the nexus one however the g2 capacitive buttons obviously right there all backlit really do work quite nicely and they work almost as well as physical buttons so if you sort of had those fears like i did whether or not the capacity buttons are going to work don't worry and you can actually see them when they're not backlit as well so not sort of going to disappear like we've seen with some of the galaxy s variants i like the option of having the trackpad i don't use it very often but i like the fact that it's there sometimes you want to use it in a game or an application for simple navigation it's nice to sort of have that choice and this gives the user the flexibility to do that so this is very much stock uh android 2.2 but there are a lot of google add-ons things i actually hadn't really seen before and these are all things you can generally get from the android marketplace uh you got some cool things here you've got sort of a google sky map and go ahead and map your phone up to the sky you hold it up there's a ton of really cool sort of value add google applications here so you got listen google translate which is really kind of cool i want to show you so i was translating right here i was testing it from english to spanish hello how are you hola como estas you can actually use the uh voice capabilities here if you can talk to it so you can say hello how are you and i'll translate that into spanish kind of neat it's not going to do all your proper verb conjugation and whatnot but if you're in a foreign country and you gotta ask a general question this is really going to work very very very well kind of neat let's go ahead and push the talk button see if it'll talk to us so you have to pronounce it if you're in a foreign country you can just push it you can have that lady talk for you uh kind of neat uh one of the interesting things about the g2 i was making a joke there about that pull tab uh is the keyboard sort of the way this full keyboard slides out so it sits on top of the phone instead of just sliding straight out it actually lifts up and pulls out you can sort of see that mechanism right there and it does feel almost spring loaded it slides out very quickly and this keyboard is really an absolute pleasure to use i really like having a physical qwerty keyboard this one has a decent amount of throw despite being a modified slider as you can see sort of up top there's a decent amount of key depression when you go ahead and type it's got a nice big space bar sort of a rubber feel to the keys i also really like one of the things that's sort of nice about the g2 you have these three custom customizable buttons at the bottom to set for whatever you would like them to do it's really a nice way to customize the phone and you know make it yours so go ahead and slide that back i really do like phones that are relatively on the thin side this phone is certainly not the fattest phone on the block but gives you the option whether or not you want to use the on-screen keyboard or the slide-out keyboard and speaking of on-screen keyboard it should say that this guy will ship with swipe so if you're a fan of swipe and you don't want to take your finger off the screen uh the g2 is going to serve you quite well camera is a fairly unremarkable picture for 5 megapixel camera that's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a camera phone certainly not going to replace your whatever you use as your standalone camera so you're not going to replace your video recorder as well it'll get the job done for a quick blog or a video of your dog pooping but for the most part keep another camera handy uh build quality is absolutely fantastic htc sort of has that industrial feel to their phones the metal back really makes it feel nice and heavy in the hand but not too heavy that it's cumbersome really just feels quite good all right so this does have flash 10.1 support and does work quite well go to open up the browser here here's a technobuffalo go ahead and start to see content start to play there's a flash banner up there uh one of the things i was not happy about was actually the pinch to zoom scrolling here now i am on a flash page but it wasn't as smooth as i've seen on other android devices and i will say that is not a symptom of the 800 megahertz processor uh people get very caught up in 800 versus a gigahertz gigahert rather and there really isn't that big a difference mostly the speed of a phone is going to be how well the software is optimized for the hardware and this software is actually optimized very very well for the hardware so you're not getting a slow phone by any stretch of the imagination with the 800 megahertz processor uh you are going to be able to do everything you need to do watch your videos uh check out all your content things are going to work very well and i did like really what showed me the was keeping up was there isn't any of that checker box scrolling uh when i go ahead and scroll through a web page or any views um i would have liked the browser to have been a bit smoother um but that was sort of one of the only shortcomings that i had with the g2 uh overall i've been very very very happy with the phone uh this is a phone that i could definitely use in my daily driver if i was on a t-mobile so if you are a t-mobile user it's a very clear choice you're going to get a great phone good build quality good sound quality a great customizable operating system and for the flexibility for future upgrades uh you can't go wrong with the g2 on a one to five scale i give it a very solid four and a half i would have liked to have seen a bit of a better camera and better browser performance for those are just nitpicky after what is an overall very very excellent device i'm john rettinger from technobuffalo be sure to check out the site for all of your g2 android and tech news for exclusive content check me out at twitter twitter.com john4lakers and i'll see you in the next video byewhat's up everyone john retton here from technobuffalo here the full review for you of the sequel to the android phone that started the android phone craze the t-mobile g1 this is its big brother all grown up let's take a look at the g2 so before i start my phone reviews i'd like to talk about call quality if a phone doesn't make good phone calls doesn't matter how good a browser is or what the processor speed is it's not going to be much use to you i'm happy to say that the g2 has a very strong radio i was able to pull in a very heavy nice five bars of t-mobile 3g really anywhere i went while other t-mobile phones generally hovered around four certainly the bar system is a bit arbitrary but it does appear as the g2 has a very strong radio a call quality was quite nice as well i had no white noise or popping on my end and the other end the collar had no white noiser popping on their end on a 20 call test i experienced no drop calls with each call lasting more than two minutes speakerphone is actually quite loud as well this is one of the nicest speaker phones that i've used you'll be more than able to sort of pop this guy on speaker put it on your lap if you need wire in the car and have no problem hearing all right so that aside let's go ahead and start talking about the specs so this guy has a 3.7 inch diagonal screen it's got a resolution of 480 by 800. it's got android 2.2 on board the 800 megahertz processor with 512 megabytes of ram it's got a 5 megapixel camera on the back with autofocus and led flash which is also capable of shooting hd movies at 1280x720 also known as just 720p it's got a 1300 milliamp hour battery which is going to get you about 6.6 hours of talk time this thing is by no means a battery usage champ uh be prepared to have to be close to a charger i barely got through a day before this thing would turn off on me and i'm a pretty heavy user so if you're logging on to a lot of exchange accounts or you're having push email sense you do a lot of web browsing uh you are definitely going to want either have a replacement battery or keep the charger with you it does have four gigs of storage built in which is quite nice and of course you can expand that with a micro sd card all right so let's talk about some of the build quality and what you're going to get physically on the phone itself i have long lamented about capacitive buttons i think that sometimes they don't work as well as advertised especially as well as physical buttons and i've gone on the record of saying i did not enjoy them on the nexus one however the g2 capacitive buttons obviously right there all backlit really do work quite nicely and they work almost as well as physical buttons so if you sort of had those fears like i did whether or not the capacity buttons are going to work don't worry and you can actually see them when they're not backlit as well so not sort of going to disappear like we've seen with some of the galaxy s variants i like the option of having the trackpad i don't use it very often but i like the fact that it's there sometimes you want to use it in a game or an application for simple navigation it's nice to sort of have that choice and this gives the user the flexibility to do that so this is very much stock uh android 2.2 but there are a lot of google add-ons things i actually hadn't really seen before and these are all things you can generally get from the android marketplace uh you got some cool things here you've got sort of a google sky map and go ahead and map your phone up to the sky you hold it up there's a ton of really cool sort of value add google applications here so you got listen google translate which is really kind of cool i want to show you so i was translating right here i was testing it from english to spanish hello how are you hola como estas you can actually use the uh voice capabilities here if you can talk to it so you can say hello how are you and i'll translate that into spanish kind of neat it's not going to do all your proper verb conjugation and whatnot but if you're in a foreign country and you gotta ask a general question this is really going to work very very very well kind of neat let's go ahead and push the talk button see if it'll talk to us so you have to pronounce it if you're in a foreign country you can just push it you can have that lady talk for you uh kind of neat uh one of the interesting things about the g2 i was making a joke there about that pull tab uh is the keyboard sort of the way this full keyboard slides out so it sits on top of the phone instead of just sliding straight out it actually lifts up and pulls out you can sort of see that mechanism right there and it does feel almost spring loaded it slides out very quickly and this keyboard is really an absolute pleasure to use i really like having a physical qwerty keyboard this one has a decent amount of throw despite being a modified slider as you can see sort of up top there's a decent amount of key depression when you go ahead and type it's got a nice big space bar sort of a rubber feel to the keys i also really like one of the things that's sort of nice about the g2 you have these three custom customizable buttons at the bottom to set for whatever you would like them to do it's really a nice way to customize the phone and you know make it yours so go ahead and slide that back i really do like phones that are relatively on the thin side this phone is certainly not the fattest phone on the block but gives you the option whether or not you want to use the on-screen keyboard or the slide-out keyboard and speaking of on-screen keyboard it should say that this guy will ship with swipe so if you're a fan of swipe and you don't want to take your finger off the screen uh the g2 is going to serve you quite well camera is a fairly unremarkable picture for 5 megapixel camera that's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a camera phone certainly not going to replace your whatever you use as your standalone camera so you're not going to replace your video recorder as well it'll get the job done for a quick blog or a video of your dog pooping but for the most part keep another camera handy uh build quality is absolutely fantastic htc sort of has that industrial feel to their phones the metal back really makes it feel nice and heavy in the hand but not too heavy that it's cumbersome really just feels quite good all right so this does have flash 10.1 support and does work quite well go to open up the browser here here's a technobuffalo go ahead and start to see content start to play there's a flash banner up there uh one of the things i was not happy about was actually the pinch to zoom scrolling here now i am on a flash page but it wasn't as smooth as i've seen on other android devices and i will say that is not a symptom of the 800 megahertz processor uh people get very caught up in 800 versus a gigahertz gigahert rather and there really isn't that big a difference mostly the speed of a phone is going to be how well the software is optimized for the hardware and this software is actually optimized very very well for the hardware so you're not getting a slow phone by any stretch of the imagination with the 800 megahertz processor uh you are going to be able to do everything you need to do watch your videos uh check out all your content things are going to work very well and i did like really what showed me the was keeping up was there isn't any of that checker box scrolling uh when i go ahead and scroll through a web page or any views um i would have liked the browser to have been a bit smoother um but that was sort of one of the only shortcomings that i had with the g2 uh overall i've been very very very happy with the phone uh this is a phone that i could definitely use in my daily driver if i was on a t-mobile so if you are a t-mobile user it's a very clear choice you're going to get a great phone good build quality good sound quality a great customizable operating system and for the flexibility for future upgrades uh you can't go wrong with the g2 on a one to five scale i give it a very solid four and a half i would have liked to have seen a bit of a better camera and better browser performance for those are just nitpicky after what is an overall very very excellent device i'm john rettinger from technobuffalo be sure to check out the site for all of your g2 android and tech news for exclusive content check me out at twitter twitter.com john4lakers and i'll see you in the next video bye\n"