I get a feeling everyone in this thread did not buy the G1 because they liked the G1, but solely because they are google fans that buy anything google throw at them.
If you people really liked the keyboard, you would be praising the two last phones from blackberry.
physical keys, ctrl+a/c/v/z! it even have a gimmick that acts as a touchpad. and bloatware-less android (well, less than a pure-google anyway)
only downside of those phones is nobody managed to get root yet. But that is more an android issue. And some people might actually prefer a phone with no root entry points anyway.
I think that's a take that is obviously wrong for many people. The g1 was fun because of the hardware, and it didn't have an expensive plan, it was easy to write apps for. I liked the keyboard, I could put music on it that I controlled. It was my phone, instead of that mba thing, the blackberry. It was the perfect device for me at the time.
I can only speak for myself but I got it because it looked like an awesome pocket ssh console. And it was. Connectbot was ready to go on launch thanks to the sdk and emulator that was released ahead of time.
Android being open source was a huge factor too but I probably would have stuck with the Treo 680 for a while longer if it wasn't for the keyboard.
And I do use a BB key2 right now :) At least until I get my fxtec pro1.
BB seems to have stopped selling the Key2 in the US a few months back so I really hope my current one holds out long enough.
If you people really liked the keyboard, you would be praising the two last phones from blackberry.
physical keys, ctrl+a/c/v/z! it even have a gimmick that acts as a touchpad. and bloatware-less android (well, less than a pure-google anyway)
only downside of those phones is nobody managed to get root yet. But that is more an android issue. And some people might actually prefer a phone with no root entry points anyway.