T-Mobile Pulse

Google’s Android platform hasn’t had the smoothest of starts. The concept has clearly impressed people a great deal - you only have to look at the passionate and highly dedicated community which has grown up around the new operating system to see proof of that - but it’s taken longer than expected for it to capture the imagination of the mainstream.

Thankfully, things are changing. Companies such as Motorola, HTC, LG and Samsung - keen to chip away at the Apple’s worrying dominance of the smartphone arena - are all jumping aboard the GoogleTrain and consequently we’ve seen a notable increase in the number of highly-desirable Android-powered phones.

T-Mobile’s Pulse is a member of this Android invasion, but it’s possibly more significant than other phones because it’s attempting to cater for Pay As You Go customers rather than the big-spending contract holders that this type of device is traditionally aimed at.

As was the case with its first Googlephone - the T-Mobile G1 - T-Mobile has taken a handset produced by another company and re-branded it. In this instance it’s the U8220, produced by Chinese manufacturer Huawei.

In terms of design it’s a world apart from the rapidly-aging G1. In place of awkward, creaky aesthetics we have a well-rounded and reassuringly solid piece of technology.

The Pulse boasts a gorgeous 3.5 inch screen which feels like a breath of fresh air after using the G1’s 3.2 inch display and even rivals the iPhone when it comes to clarity and sharpness. The impressive size makes for easier touchscreen usage, too, although the virtual keyboard never seems to feel as accurate as it should.

Indeed, interface is one area where the Pulse doesn’t outscore the G1. To create that alluringly svelte frame sacrifices have been made: there’s no slide-out keyboard, so text input is purely touchscreen based. We never thought it would happen, but we genuinely missed the G1’s comfortingly tactile physical keyboard after tinkering with the Pulse.

T-Mobile has included a specially adapted version of the Android operating system which comes with a few neat embellishments unique to this hardware.

The biggest change over the G1 is the six-display Home screen layout - while the G1 has three customisable screens arranged horizontally, the Pulse has double the number. What’s more, they’re stacked in a 2x3 grid, which is an innovative choice when compared to other Android handsets.

It’s an interesting arrangement and gives you plenty of room for placing application shortcuts, clocks, picture frames and widgets. “Widcards” are another Pulse-specific upgrade to the Android OS. These are essentially live widgets which grant access to various facets of your phone - such as email, calendar events or SMS messages.

Despite the myriad improvements that the phone sports, the Pulse we tested is actually rocking Android 1.5 - or “Cupcake” as it's known amongst fans of Google’s OS. 1.6 (AKA “Donut”) has just become available to T-Mobile’s other Android phones but we couldn’t find any way of updating the Pulse to the newer version.

However, aside from lacking the new Android Marketplace layout, the augmented Pulse OS has many 1.6 features built-in - including the neat battery usage menu, which shows information on which applications are sucking the most juice.

In fact, the longer you spend with the phone the more apparent it becomes that the developers behind the customised OS have thought long and hard about how they can improve the overall experience.

You can alter the speed of window transitions, for example. This might seem like an inconsequential change, but it’s something that those of you who have used the G1 for any length of time will undoubtedly appreciate.

Sadly, in other areas the Pulse singularly fails to improve over the G1: the 3.2 megapixel camera produces fuzzy and ill-defined shots, although the colour balance seems to be better. Also, because there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, music lovers are forced to use an awkward adapter in order to plug in their favourite set of headphones.

Obviously, other aspects of the Android platform are going to be pretty standard across all phones. The Android Marketplace functions just as it did on the G1 when using 1.5 and the same issues remain; there’s a proliferation of sub-par applications and not many high-profile games to speak of.

Google’s tiresome insistence that apps are stored in the phone’s internal memory - rather than on an expandable microSD card - means that file sizes have to be as small as possible.

If you’re expecting games like iPhone classics Real Racing or Castle of Magic to appear on the Pulse, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed - but this is true of every Android phone, and will continue to be the case until Google relaxes its policy on app storage.

When you consider that second-hand G1s continue to sell for over £200, launching the Pulse at £179.99 on a Pay As You Go contact is a pretty incredible achievement. Aside from the lack of a physical keyboard, it trumps the G1 in every area and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to describe it as a potential rival to some of the top-end Android phones that are touching down right now.

If you’ve eyed Android’s sure-but-steady progress from the sidelines and have so far restrained yourself against making a commitment, then we advise you to seriously consider the Pulse. Google’s platform is gathering speed and it’s finally getting phones that are pleasing to the eye as well as exciting to use, and the Pulse is most definitely part of that charge - albeit at the cheap-and-cheerful end.