Xbox wireless adapters are used to connect your Xbox wirelessly to the existing network (which is connected to broadband Internet) to enable online play in the comfort of your living room without the hassle of passing the cable network.

Wireless network at home provides the ease and portability. For the players, having the wireless network at home is a lot of benefits. With the Xbox, you can find a comfortable place for online gaming experience without the hassle of wires. How can you do? Do you need an interface that allows you to connect to the existing network through the radio frequency band. Xbox wireless adapter will act as the bridge that will allow the Xbox console to communicate with the network via the Airwave and then connect to the internet wild.

Identify your existing wireless standards

One of the main reasons is to build a wireless network at home is to share the broadband Internet connection with several computers or other network clients including the Xbox in the house. Now that the Xbox wireless adapter is adapted to the existing network? First you must identify your existing network environment that wireless standard that is: 802.11 b / g / no dual band. Dual-band frequency can be wireless G / A (802.11a / g) or Wireless N / A (802.11a / n) network standards.

Knowing that the existing network standard is, of course you need the adapter with the same networking standards. For example, if you use the Wireless-G Router for the network, you also need wireless-G adapter for the Xbox. However, this statement is not always true. Basically you can plug the wireless-N adapter with the existing wireless network-G. But, it is necessary to identify whether the card is labeled with the Wi-Fi certified. With Wi-Fi Certified label, the card is guaranteed to be compatible with the standard, as described in step (wireless b / g / n).

Y0u should choose the card from the same manufacturer of the router? Wi-Fi Certified labeled ensure that the card will be compatible with all wireless industry. Or you can identify the specific manufacturer to see if the card supports the Xbox console. Basically, the principle of Xbox wireless adapter is a wireless bridge. You can use any type of wireless bridges such as wireless game adapter with Ethernet port to connect to your existing wireless network.

Future Upgrade

Perhaps your existing wireless b / g network is not satisfactory for the daily activities that require more speed, more reliable connectivity and coverage, and is expected for the next update with the new wireless technology available today – with wireless n dual-band network. So you need the Xbox wireless adapter that is powered by the latest technologies available today: the 802.11n dual-band. With the adapter that supports the draft 802.11n dual-band technology, you will get the maximum throughput for the connection to the most powerful wireless router that supports 802.11n draft, dual-band, and QoS.

Wireless-G

If the existing network using the router with 802.11 b / g, and you’ll never plan for the future upgrade to 802.11n dual-band, then you should choose the Xbox wireless adapter with standard 802.11g. The card is cheaper than standard 802.11g with 802.11n.

Microsoft introduces two types of Xbox with standard 802.11g cards, one of which supports dual-band (wireless-G / A) and the other is 802.11g adapter that supports all wireless b / g / n networks.

D-Link DWL-G820 also introduces and DGL-3420 that are powered by standard 802.11g, but the DGL-3420 is a dual-band (wireless-g / a) version with a maximum speed of up to 108 Mbps in ideal conditions.

Wireless-N

For the Xbox wireless adapter with 802.11n, Microsoft also introduced the version with wireless-n dual-band characteristics. The adapter is designed for high performance and compact and is powered by Xbox 360 to eliminate adapter clutter. Also introduces gaming adapter TrendNet TEW-647GA, which is also powered by standard wireless-n. Linksys is also introducing WET610n Gaming Adapter from Linksys, which is powered by Wireless-N dual-band with the characteristic Italian.

If the price is different between the Xbox wireless adapter products are not very big different, having the wireless-N technology with dual-band would be very beneficial. If your current wireless network is based on dual-N band wireless router with throughput would be optimal. But if your current wireless network is based on wireless-g router, make sure your wireless-N adapter is compatible with standard Wireless-G.

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BUILD & DESIGN

The Nexus S looks like most smartphones available today, with a black exterior and a minimum of buttons and controls so that the overall look is streamlined and modern. Then again, you might have trouble picking out your phone if you put it on a table next to a few other smartphones at dinner, because there is nothing that really stands out about the Nexus S in a stylistic sense.

At 4.8-inches by 2.48-inches and 0.43-inches thick. the Nexus S is comparable to other large-screen smartphones available today. It does seem to be somewhat lighter than many of the other phones I’ve recently reviewed–when I first took it out of the box I looked for a battery to install, but it was already in the device. It might create a bulge in your pocket, but it won’t weigh you down. My key ring, with its large assortment of office and home keys, weighs more than the Nexus S.

Display
The screen on the Nexus S is simply beautiful. It’s a 4-inch WVGA (480 x 800) Super AMOLED display, so it is extremely sharp and bright. Even when I’m outside in full sunlight I can see the display clearly, which is a nice change from squinting and trying to shade the screen with my hand. There isn’t any ghosting during video playback, and photos looks especially vibrant.

It’s also the first phone with a Contour display, which means exactly what it sounds like — the screen of the phone is slightly curved. The idea is to make it more comfortable in your hand and against your face, when you’re using the Nexus S as a phone. The curve is quite subtle, I didn’t notice too much of a difference except that the phone does seem to fit in my hand a little better than other devices I’ve reviewed recently.

There is an anti-fingerprint coating on the screen, and while I can’t say that it works perfectly — there are still plenty of fingerprints on the screen — it does seem to extend the time between my compulsive screen wiping and cleaning sessions. I simply can’t stand smudgy screens, so something that cuts down on the frustration is a step in the right direction, and the Nexus S delivers on that point.

Keyboard
The Nexus S doesn’t have a physical keyboard, so you’ll be doing your text entry on the virtual on-screen one. This has been improved in this new version of Google’s operating system, so you’ll see slightly larger keys thanks to an optimized, clutter-free layout. It has punctuation at the top for convenience, and works quite nicely.

Of course you can bypass the keyboard entirely using Google’s speech recognition, which works amazingly well on the Nexus S. No matter which way you choose, text entry is fast and easy.

Other Buttons & Controls
The Nexus S has very few buttons or other hardware features. The power button is on the upper right side of the device, and the volume rocker is on the left.

The only other controls are the standard Back, Menu, Search, and Home controls underneath the display, the camera lens on the back, and the headphone jack and charge/sync port on the bottom edge of the device.

There is no microSD card slot, which is unfortunate. I know that everything is “in the cloud” these days, but I like to keep a lot of music, photos, and ebooks on my device, and the 16 GB of internal memory can fill up all too fast since there’s no option to add more with an expansion card.

PERFORMANCE

Under the hood, the Samsung Nexus S is powered by a 1 GHz Samsung Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor. It is extremely fast, carrying out my every desire almost immediately. The only slowdowns I noticed were network related (more on this point later).

Android OS 2.3 — sometimes better known by its code-name: Gingerbread – includes a number of small improvements throughout that leads to a better overall experience. There are more options on calendar appointments, and the new copy and paste scheme is truly delightful.

A simple tap on a word brings up the text markers, and you can move them to the beginning and the end of what you want to copy by sliding them to the proper spot on the screen. The word or phrase is then automatically copied to the clipboard. I love the new method, because it is so much easier to use and so much more precise than what previous versions of Android could offer. No more worries about random spaces or punctuation marks getting in the way because it is now much easier to copy exactly what you want.

Some Nexus S users have complained about some troubling glitches — random reboots, text messages being sent to the wrong contact, and some graphical issues with icons on the homescreen. I haven’t encountered any of those problems on this test device, but enough users have complained that it seems likely these aren’t isolated issues.

Communication
Unfortunately, call quality on this device is very poor. One of my test subjects likened it to “a tin can connected to a tin can” and another said that I sounded very tinny and distant. In both cases I could hear them on the other end very well, they just had problems hearing me. It wasn’t due to background noise either, because none of my callers were able to identify exactly what was going on the background (construction, children at a playground, a nearby fountain, or a busy street).

I don’t have a great deal of experience with T-Mobile, so this could be a network issue, but I live in a major city and tried the phone inside and outside of my office, at home, and while I was out shopping, with notable voice quality issues each time.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work great, though I’m not too happy about the new Wi-Fi settings screen. When you join a new network you don’t get the quick and simple user name and password box anymore; that area is farther down and requires scrolling past security certificates, etc. to access. I’m not sure why Google decided to rearrange things to make it more difficult to join a new network, but at least it’s the sort of thing you usually do just once when you set up the phone.

The email and web browsing experience is also great, as I have come to expect on Android devices. Reading my Gmail or navigating from page to page on the Web is fast, with smooth scrolling and a rich experience.

There aren’t any social networking apps included, but you can get Facebook and Twitter clients on the Android Market, most of them for free.

Productivity
The Samsung Nexus S has all of the standard PIM apps that you would expect to find on any Android phone, including calendar, contacts, clock, calculator, and a News & Weather app that provides the local weather forecast and all of the top news and sports headlines.

Gingerbread brings some enhancements in this area, most notably with the addition of guests/invitations in the calendar app and time zone support for appointments. The new appointment interface is much cleaner than before, and more attractive.

The new features in Google Maps 5.0 with Navigation are quite impressive. Multi-touch allows you to use two fingers to explore 3D maps, dragging up and down to tilt and twisting to rotate the map. There’s a compass mode that reorients the map to the direction you’re facing, and improvements to map caching with offline rerouting means that you won’t lose your way even if you lose your data connection. I like being able to choose between driving, biking, walking, and public transit directions, and I was perfectly directed on each of my test trips.

There is no Microsoft Office compatible software included with the phone, such as QuickOffice, but if you receive a Microsoft Word or Excel document as an email attachment you will be able to view it with the built-in ThinkFree Write Mobile or ThinkFree Calc Mobile. There are also more productivity apps available on the Android Market.

Entertainment
The Android OS music player will keep you entertained listening to your favorite tunes. The external speaker will is capable of extremely loud volumes if you desire, with a minimum of distortion. Plus, there’s a video player if you want to transfer TV shows or movies you get off the Web. Just keep in mind that 16 GB storage limit I mentioned earlier.

The included YouTube client showcases web videos quite nicely, with full screen viewing and good sound quality.

Since the Nexus S is sold as an unlocked phone, you won’t find all of the games and demos you typically see on phones that have been more heavily customized by mobile carriers. I downloaded a few games from the Android Market and found that my usual favorites like Jewels and Sudoku played well, with no stuttering or lag and with bright vivid colors.

If you have some time to kill and want to play games or watch videos, the Nexus S can definitely handle your mobile entertainment needs.

Camera
The Nexus S has two cameras, one on the back that takes five megapixel still photos and can capture video as well, plus a VGA camera on the front for video calling.

The five megapixel camera takes excellent photos, even under difficult lighting conditions, and I’m impressed with the level of quality and detail I was able to capture.

White balance, flash, scene mode, focus mode (including macro), and exposure are all easily adjusted by tapping on the screen, though I was disappointed by the lack of any sort of zoom capability.

The only other issue is with action shots, as demonstrated by my photo of cars speeding by on a busy street. You might be able to capture some sports shots if you’re lucky, but you may end up with some blurring or may miss the shot if the camera isn’t able to work fast enough to keep up with you. It works best for portrait and landscape shots, so if you’re planning to take lots of kid or pet shots this might not be the best cameraphone for you.

Battery Life
You won’t have to worry about running out of juice with the Nexus S, because it seems to go on and on forever. I can get three days of relatively heavy use out of it, with Wi-Fi on, taking shots with the camera, constantly checking my email, and watching two or three YouTube videos each day.

You should certainly be able to make it through the day without having your phone go dead during your evening commute, and you might even be able to get away without packing the charger on a weekend trip.

CONCLUSION

I like the Samsung Nexus S, mostly because of Android OS 2.3/Gingerbread, the responsive nature of the device — I hate waiting for apps to open — and the nice camera.

It’s not perfect, though. While this smartphone generally performed well and I didn’t see any of the glitches that have plagued other users, I’m extremely disappointed with the voice quality of the device when I’m on phone calls.

Of course it’s important to have a great email and web browsing experience, and there are times when you have a few spare minutes to play games or watch a video on YouTube, and it’s great that our phone can do all of those things. But they should first of all be really good phones, and the Nexus S doesn’t live up to my standards in that regard. It is possible that the issues I experienced are all due to the T-Mobile network in my area, but that is impossible to know for sure.

If you have strong T-Mobile coverage in your area, or are planning to use the Nexus S with another GSM carrier such as AT&T, it deserves a closer look because it performed well in all other respects.

Pros

• Latest version of the Android OS
• Excellent screen
• Responsive device
• Good photo quality, with accessible controls for white balance, exposure, scene mode, etc.
• Light weight
• Good volume and sound quality on external speaker
• Long battery life

Cons

• Extremely low voice quality
• No memory card slot
• No zoom on the camera

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BUILD & DESIGN

The Optimus T is a well constructed, comfortable phone. I say that because it just feels good in the hand. It is plastic throughout, and feels light, but not cheap. The plastic has a texture to it that adds to the quality feel.

Dimensions are 4.5 x 2.3 x 0.5, and it weighs in at around 4.5 ounces.

Screen
The display is a 3.2-inch HVGA (480 x 320) TFT LCD touchscreen. It is bright, and has great colors.

Although the screen is a bit on the small side compared to other devices, I think it is just right for an entry-level phone. My wife uses this device, and she is quite happy with the screen. She says ”I like that I can keep all of my apps/icons in the home listing page, but really like that I can bring them onto my opening pages (background pages?) so I can get the frequently used ones quickly. I like the ability to have different screensaver pages where I can either just look at my background picture or to place apps that I use a lot and quickly swipe between the pages. Also, the ability to turn the sounds on and off with just a quick swipe and not to actually unlock the phone is really nice!”

The touchscreen seems a little less sensitive compared to my G2, but it has not been a problem.

There is no light sensor like some high end-phones have now, so you’ll need to manually adjust the screen brightness, particularly if you use the Optimus T in the dark or in bright sunlight.

Other Buttons & Controls
There are four physical buttons for Menu, Home, Return, and Search below the screen. These are easy to use, as they are slightly raised.  The two center buttons (Home and Return) are actually a rocker surrounded by a chrome accent. This layout makes it easy to use them in the dark.

The volume rocker on the right is pretty straightforward and easy to use.

Interestingly there is no dedicated camera button like its Sprint counterpart has. Still, the Camera app came as a preloaded icon on one of the home screen pages, so it has been easy to find and use.

The microSD card is stored under the battery door above the battery itself, and a 2 GB card is included.

PERFORMANCE

The LG Optimus T runs the standard version of Android OS 2.2 (Froyo), the latest version of Google’s operating system.

It is powered by a 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7627 with Adreno 200 graphics. It also has 512 MB of RAM.

That 600 MHz processor should tell you this will not keep up with the big boys using 1 GHz Snapdragon processors, but it does perform surprisingly well. Normal tasks are smooth and it has no trouble with the built in live wallpapers. There are occasional slowdowns during normal operation, but they are barely noticeable.

Quadrant benchmarks put the Optimus T ahead of the Motorola Droid and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, not bad for an entry-level phone.

The stock browser handles large websites with ease. There is no Adobe Flash support, but this does not run very well on other devices with processors slower than 1 GHz.

Wireless/Call Quality
The call quality is quite good. I have not had any dropped calls, or data connectivity issues. Calls are loud and clear on both ends.

The Optimus T uses T-Mobile’s HSPA 3G network, and always seems to have a solid connection. Using the Speedtest app, I usually get between 1 and 2 Mbps down, and 0.5 to 1.5 Mbps up, which is much slower than my G2 on 4G obviously, but is more than adequate for normal use.

The Wi-Fi connection is typical of other Android OS handsets. It is easy to set up and connect to public hotspots as well as my home network. A nice touch on this phone is the inclusion of Wi-Fi calling and hotspot. Just like the recently reviewed T-Mobile G2, Wi-Fi calling was easy to setup and use, but does count against your mobile minutes.

This smartphone also has Bluetooth 2.1, A-GPS, a compass, and an accelerometer.

I paired my wife’s Bluetooth headset and tested it briefly, and I had no trouble with the process or sound quality. The speaker phone is clear and loud, and uses the same speaker as the ear speaker on the front of the phone. This is nice when it is sitting on a table when using the speakerphone.

Productivity
Many standard Android OS apps are included such as Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Calculator, Voice Search, Google Voice, and email. Together, these make an ordinary phone into a smartphone. They help you keep up with your schedule and your friends.

The Swype keyboard is pre-installed, and works great. For those that haven’t used it, Swype is a way of typing without actually pulling your finger away from the screen to complete words. What you do is draw a line to all of the letters of a word, and it will recognize the word. If there is more than one word recognized it pops up with a box and you select the correct one. Since there is no physical keyboard, the touch screen keyboard must be easy to use and accurate, and this one is.

The notification area has a row of toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, data, and mute when pulled down. The app tray also has a couple of slight modifications which is app grouping. The top section has pre-installed apps, and downloaded apps are below. You also have the ability to add categories in the app tray and move apps around in them. My wife’s thoughts, “I was able to easily understand the touch screen keys and quickly learn to toggle between symbols, numbers letters etc… which I still really hadn’t figured out on my old button phone. This phone was also easy to get used to where to touch, slide through lists etc for me to get around. It was much easier to adapt to/learn than I thought it would be.”

Entertainment
The built-in Music and Movie players are not exceptional, but work well. If you want to use the Optimus T as a music player, though, you’re probably going to want to get a larger memory card. The 2 GB one this device comes with won’t hold a big music or video collection, but you can go up to 32 GB.

There is also an FM radio built in, and the radio app is easy to use. You can scan, save favorites, and search.

There are several game demos pre-installed (My wife likes Doodle Jump).

According to her, “I have found it easy to locate new games and download them”. That’s because this model includes the Android Market, an on-device store for finding, buying, and installing apps.

If you’re into social networking, Facebook and Twitter, apps are readily available.

Camera
The 3.2 megapixel camera in the LG Optimus T does not include a flash, but pictures are still very good, much better than I expected.

LG does a god job with its camera here. The camera app has a nice interface compared to the stock Android one, and gives you more control over your pictures. It is also easy to zoom using the volume key on the side of the phone.

Navigation
Bundled software includes TeleNav. There is a monthly charge for using this navigation app, but it is one of the best available, with lots of bells and whistles.

But if you don’t want to pay extra, you can use the standard Google Maps, which offers basic navigation.

Also bundled is DriveSmart. This is an app that, when enabled, minimizes driving distractions by silencing notifications, routing calls to voicemail or a Bluetooth headset, and optionally auto-responding to calls and texts. DriveSmart Plus, a downloadable upgrade (available soon), automatically detects vehicle motion, and adds parental controls.

Battery Life
The battery life is excellent on the Optimus T. A 1500 mAh battery is included, and with normal usage this can last days.

After the initial geek out period of playing around with it, my wife only charges it once every few days, and even then it isn’t especially needed.

CONCLUSION

Overall the LG Optimus T is a very nice phone. You get a lot of bang for your buck on this one.

It performs well, has good battery life, and is a good size for daily use. I think LG hit the sweet spot of functionality and price with this device.

Pros:

• Good design, feels light without feeling cheap
• Capable processor
• Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) with Swype pre-installed

Cons:

• No Adobe Flash Support
• Small screen for games and movies
• No Camera flash

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BUILD & DESIGN

The G2 is a very well built, solid phone. It’s plastic with aluminum accents and battery door, giving it a high-quality feel. It’s substantial without being heavy. It feels comfortable to drop it in my pocket to carry around, and I hardly notice it is there.

Screen
The 3.7-inch WVGA (800 x 640) Super-TFT touchscreen is very sharp, and seems to have the right amount of sensitivity. On my old T-Mobile G1, I often found myself needing to swipe more than once to get the screen to change or browse through apps. I rarely need to do that on the G2.

The on-screen keyboard (for use with the device in portrait mode) is also accurate, and I rarely miss a letter, which for me is an accomplishment.

This device also has a sensor near the top of the screen that detects ambient light levels and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. This works surprisingly well, and only occasionally seems to get dim briefly when in normal light, but usually will correct quickly.

Overall I am very impressed with the screen quality and touch sensitivity.

Keyboard
One of the big draws for me to the G2 was the hardware keyboard. Even though touchscreen keyboards have improved, I still prefer a physical keyboard when doing any lengthy typing. I thought the G1 had one of the best hardware keyboards of any phone I have used, and was anxious to try its successor.

The G2′s keyboard is accessed by pushing on the bottom in landscape mode (the left side in portrait mode), and it rises up and back, then folds down flush again. This is called a “Z Hinge” by HTC, and has proved to be a bit controversial. Many find it too easy to open, possibly a result of some loose hinges in early batches. I am happy to say that I have not had this problem. I can hold the phone upside down and the keyboard does not fall open for me. It only opens and closes when I intend it to.

Although I would rank the keyboard below the one on my G1, it is still a very good keyboard. The G1 had 5 rows of keys, with the fifth being a dedicated number row, which I found very useful. The G2 has four rows of keys, and therefore you have to use the ALT key to enter numbers.

There are also three user-assignable buttons. There is an app called “quick keys” used to assign them. I set mine up for email, messaging, and Docs to Go.

Overall the keyboard is very good, and the buttons have a good feel to them. They are raised slightly and give good tactile feedback when typing.

Other Buttons & Controls
The front side is taken up mostly by the touchscreen, but there is a trackpad centered near the bottom, just below four touch-sensitive buttons for Home, Menu, Back, and Search. These buttons took a bit to get used to for me. The G1 had physical buttons, and were easier to hit since you could feel them. Still, once I got used to them, I became much more comfortable, and have fewer misfires.

The trackpad is centered below the screen, and has a small border around it that lights up for notifications, and is fairly easy to use. The G1 had a similarly-located trackball, but I find the G2′s trackpad much easier to use.

The left side of the device contains a volume rocker, and a Micro-USB port. The top has the power button and 3.5-mm headphone jack. The right side has a camera button and a battery door release.

The volume rocker on the left, and camera button on the right side both are raised enough to be easy to operate, but not so much that they are easily bumped.

Overall the button layout is very intuitive, probably because of the similarity to the G1.

PERFORMANCE

Performance is where the T-Mobile G2 shines. It runs Google’s Android OS 2.2, AKA Froyo, with little carrier modification. This should mean it will be one of the first in line for any operating system upgrades in the future. It is basically “vanilla” Android, with a bunch of preloaded Google apps. Most of these apps I would have installed anyway, but some people prefer a minimum of pre-installed software.

Although it has a processor rated at 800 MHz, it feels faster than many 1 GHz devices. This is due to the architecture of the Snapdragon MSM7230 processor, and the Adreno 205 GPU. I ran a Quadrant benchmark and it placed higher than the Nexus One with Android OS 2.2, and that model runs a 1 GHz processor.

Don’t let the megahertz on this device fool you — this is the fastest phone I have ever used. I played with the Samsung Vibrant, and the My Touch 4G at the T-Mobile store, and the G2 felt the snappiest overall.

Of course the real test is how well does it play Angry Birds? I can happily say it is silky smooth on the G2, and there has not been a single second of slowness or hesitation while playing it. For those that don’t know, Angry Birds is a large graphics intensive game that can test the performance of many phones. It ground my G1 to a halt when playing it.

I use an app called Touchdown for work email and calendar synchronization, and it opens very quickly. So far I have not found an app that really slows it down.

For those of you who are daring, the G2 has been rooted and overclocked to 1.9 GHz, with a Quadrant benchmark of 2800, which is insane fast.

The phone has 512 MB of RAM, and 4 GB of internal storage plus a pre-installed 8GB micro SD card, which is expandable to 32 GB.

Wireless/Call Quality
With all of the capabilities of smart phones today, they still need to make phone calls, and the G2 does not disappoint. There were early complaints of radio issues when the G2 was released, but a maintenance release in early November seems to have fixed it. I have not had any dropped calls, or data connectivity issues. I can clearly hear callers, and they hear me clearly as well.

I often use a Bluetooth headset, and that is clear and loud as well. The speaker phone is a tad tinny, but works adequately.

I generally have a solid connection to the T-Mobile high-speed data network, which is indicated in the notification bar with an H when connected to 4G. Using the Speedtest app, I usually get between 4 and 5 Mbps down, and 1.5 to 3 Mbps up, which is pretty good since I am near the edge of the 4G network in Minneapolis.  Using the browser is fast and responsive, and market downloads are amazingly fast. I downloaded a large 28 MB game in under a minute.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections are rock solid, and I never have a problem connecting via Wi-Fi to coffee shop networks, or my home network. I use a Bluetooth headset, and once paired, it automatically connects when I turn on my headset. Also included with the latest maintenance release was Wi-Fi calling and tethering. Wi-Fi calling was easy to setup and use, but does count against your mobile minutes.

Productivity
All of the standard Android OS apps are included with the T-Mobile G2, such as Gmail, Contacts, Calculator, Voice Search, Google Voice, and Email.

There are a few nice, extra touches bundled, including Quickoffice for viewing Office Documents such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Also, there is an App called Car Home. Basically this places large square icons on screen to make it easier to see and select while you are using your smartphone in the car. It has six buttons per screen which are customizable, but default to Navigate, Phone, Voice Search, Contacts, Music, and Exit. There are four screens to swipe through and other buttons can be added.

Other bundled apps include the most common Google apps such as Maps, Sky Map, Google Earth, Goggles, Translate, Listen, Shopper. Twitter, Facebook, and Photobucket. The Facebook and Twitter gadgets are set on one of the screens, but can be removed if wanted.

The Swype keyboard is pre-installed, and has quickly become my favorite touchscreen keyboard. Swype is a way of typing without actually pulling your finger away from the screen to complete words. What you do is draw a line through all of the letters of a word, and the software can recognize it. If there is more than one word recognized, it pops up with a box and you select the correct one. I have gotten to the point I am opening up the hardware keyboard less often because of the accuracy and speed of swipe.

Entertainment
There are no “extra” apps bundled for entertainment on the G2, but for most the stock Android OS apps are adequate.  The built-in Music and Movie players are not exceptional, but work well.

There are many apps both free and for purchase in the market, so there are options. Speaking of options, there are several web browsers available, but honestly I really like the built in browser. I have tried a few others but for various reasons I end up going back to the stock browser. It just works, and with Adobe Flash installed, I have not been to any websites that give me problems.

Camera
The camera is a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and is capable of HD 720p video recording.

Still images are quite amazing. They rival my Canon 8 megapixel point-and-shoot camera for clarity, and colors are crisp.

The LED flash is usable, and can come in handy in dark situations. Of course it only really helps in close-ups, and will not be of much use more than 3 or 4 feet away.

The stock camera app has adjustments for flash, zoom, white balance, location, focus mode, and exposure. Pictures can also be uploaded to Photobucket or Facebook.

I took a couple of videos in HD, and I was surprised at how well it performed. It has some blurring if there is too much close-up movement, but far away (sports events) it works well.

Battery Life
The battery life is excellent on the G2. I always found myself taking every opportunity to charge with my G1, and even carried a spare battery. Now I can get through an entire day with moderate usage and still have battery to spare.

A 1350 mAh battery is included, but after market 1500 mAh batteries are available, as well as 2800 mAh with an expanded battery door.

A typical usage day for me is like this:

Unplug my phone at around 7:30 AM, check mail, and get the kids off to school. I drive to work using a Bluetooth headset, and my travel time is roughly 1 hour from leaving the house and arriving at work. During my commute I am getting push email from work using Touchdown, and Twitter, Weatherbug, etc are updating every 30 minutes. Usually at work I will occasionally check RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter, email, and at lunch play a game, read news, etc. I have plenty of widgets running and updating all day. I usually use my phone for calls about 1 hour out of the day, and then the drive home is similar to the drive in. I can web surf, play games, check updates etc all evening. At around 9 PM I will have about 40% battery left.

On my old G1 my battery would have died in the early evening with the same usage pattern.

Overall I am quite happy with the battery life, and I haven’t really taken any battery saving steps yet.

CONCLUSION

The T-Mobile G2 is by far the best smartphone I have used. I am still constantly picking it up and playing with it just because it is a joy to use.

Everything is quick, and the battery lasts long enough that I don’t need to worry about it. It works well in all areas, and should be quick to receive operating system updates like the upcoming Gingerbread due to its stock Android OS.

Pros:

• Excellent design
• Fast processor, ample memory
• Keyboard mostly well laid out

Cons:

• No dedicated number row in keyboard,
• Not as thin as many devices
• Long-term use of Z Hinge unknown