T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google

More than 60 percent of mobile phone buyers cite size, shape and color as their most important criteria when picking a phone, according to online retailer Simplexity. That's why the awkwardly-named T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google will succeed. While its innards are almost identical to the existing T-Mobile G1 (with one important software addition), the myTouch looks a lot more like the iPhone, and offers both better colors and customizable cases.

Of course, you give up one very important thing for the myTouch's svelte 4.45 by 2.19 by .58 inch (HWD) dimensions and relatively light 4.1 ounce weight: a physical keyboard. The myTouch is a touch-only phone, meaning you must enter all of your text on its responsive 3.2-inch, 480x320 touchscreen. Many people won't mind that, in this age of the iPhone, but some will.

The myTouch comes in black, white and a "merlot" red, in the nicest box I've seen for a retail phone in a long time. The fabric-covered case unzips around its side to reveal foam-cushioned compartments holding the phone, wired headset, power adapter, and cables. It's the first phone box I've actually considered keeping a phone in after it arrived. The myTouch's power adapter is an unusually pretty black lozenge, and the independent company SkinIt will offer customized back covers for the phone. It's safe to say this phone hits fashion points that the G1 completely missed.

Once you turn on the myTouch, though, you have a pretty generic Android experience, with one important new feature: Microsoft Exchange e-mail support. (There's no Exchange calendar sync, and Exchange contacts only show up in the Exchange e-mail client.) Setting up my Exchange account was a breeze, though it's a little disappointing that now there are three non-overlapping email clients on the phone: "Work Email" for Exchange, Gmail, and a generic POP email client. There's no option for a combined mailbox view. Exchange emails push to the phone as soon as they arrive, and although the emails are text-only, you can download attachments.

If you aren't familiar with Android, it's a Google-centric smartphone operating system with about 6,000 applications available right now. You can brush up on your Android knowledge with our of the current Android 1.5 operating system. The built-in functions include an address book and calendar that sync with Google accounts; a customizable home screen that you can drop icons of your choice onto; an excellent Web browser that handles full Web pages, but not Flash; and Yahoo, Microsoft, AIM, and Google Talk IM clients. After the myTouch launches, T-Mobile will offer an "App pack" with specially selected apps to help you cut through the thousands available. Since the myTouch is based on the same 528 Mhz Qualcomm processor as the T-Mobile G1, I'd expect the same app performance on this device.

The myTouch's on-screen keyboard is pretty good, though you'll want to tweak it various ways depending on how you use it. It works in portrait or landscape mode, though landscape mode has a big problem: the keyboard takes over almost the whole screen, and you can't see any context for what you're typing. You can turn vibrating feedback on and off, as well as typo correction and the display of suggested word completions—I found that the word completions made the whole thing ineffectively slow, so they went away immediately.

The 270MB of free memory on board and support for microSD memory cards up to 8GB (albeit with the memory card slot under the back cover) gives you plenty of room to add apps and files. The phone choked on my 16GB Kingston MicroSD memory card, but 8GB Kingston and SanDisk cards worked fine.