The Hardware

Build quality, from early impressions, is pretty good. The 3-inch touchscreen is pretty to look at, while the plastic battery cover is surprisingly silky smooth to touch. The qwerty keypad slides out with a satisfying thwunk, and the buttons – while nowhere near as comfortable as the buttons on a Blackberry Bold, are responsive and well spaced.

The touch sensitive home and back buttons on the front vibrate a little when you press them, but I’ve found it’s a little too easy to bump them accidentally, even in the short time frame I’ve had with the phone.

The Software

The GW620 is running Android 1.5 (or Cupcake), rather than the 2.0 software seen in the likes of the Motorola Droid (which we hope Australia will see sometime soon). That means there’s no universal search, or any of the other really cool advancements listed in this post.

Like the HTC Android phones, the GW620 has been given a custom look and feel for the software from LG. It’s fairly simple, and doesn’t offer anywhere near the polish of HTC’s Sense UI, but it does keep things relatively simple. For example, browsing through the installed apps, it breaks them down into categories like Communication, Multimedia, Google Utilities and Downloads, making navigation a little simpler.

(Not quite a) Verdict

As I said before, this is a very early impression of the phone. I’ll be spending a fair amount of time with it over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for a much more thorough review.

The tireless tinkerers over at XDA have assembled a definitive guide to loading the Hero’s custom-baked Android build onto G1s. It’s fairly involved and a little risky, but hardly unfamiliar territory to HTC fans. [XDA, GetYourDroidOn—Thanks, Patrick!]

To be more specific, they actually say: “HTC Dream owners on Optus network will start receiving the upgrade to Android 1.5 (Cupcake) from late July.”

So if you’re a Dream owner, I wouldn’t panic if August 1 rolls around and you’re still on 1.0.

[Optus Twitter feed – Thanks Daniel]

As we’ve known for a while, the next big update will be called Donut. This will be followed by Eclair, then finally, Flan.

Not that this nonsensical naming convention has any bearing on the substance of the updates, but I can forsee having a tough time getting too hyped up about Flandroid, or for that matter whatever comes next. Android 2.5 Brûlée? 3.0 Treacle Tart? 3.5 Amaretto Sorbet? Forget Linux—I’m hungry. [InformationWeek]

MakerBot founder Bre Pettis compared the CupCake to the mythical Altair 8800—but you know, for 3D printing. Next on their list is a 3D scanner that’ll copy the design of objects so you can skip creating the 3D schematic yourself—turning CupCake into a replicator. We talked a bit about the possibilities of DIY object replication—Cory Doctorow’s Printcrime story came up, but for now you’re limited to 3D printing objects the size of cupcakes hence the name.

You can buy CupCake fully assembled for $US2500, but that takes part of the fun out of it—putting the $US750 kit together makes for a weekend of awesome. Besides that very nice Empire State Building model—the tip of which was destroyed partly at my behest to show how sturdy the Lego-grade plastic is—the coolest item they’d produced was a custom lens hood for a camera. Why buy parts when you can make them? Here it is in action, making a MakerBot coin:

[MakerBot]

AU: Worth noting that this is a US review (obviously). I had a Vodafone HTC Magic delivered yesterday afternoon, and will look to see whether anything changes locally over the next week or so.

TuneWiki Introduces Social Blip Technology with New Android Cupcake Release

TuneWiki’s Social Music Player App for Latest Google Phone Offers Worldwide Connectivity in Music and Lyrics through Facebook, Twitter and Email

(San Francisco, CA) May 20th, 2009-TuneWiki, the next generation social media music player, today announced its new app for Google’s Android 1.5, Cupcake. This new version of the app features Blip technology for increased social connectivity, offering to post the user’s current song on their Twitter or Facebook profile. The new social media capabilities come in addition to earlier TuneWiki versions, promoting a social network that allows users to add, edit and subtitle lyrics for audio and video files in all languages. This new version of TuneWiki is the most advanced and comprehensive social media music player compatible with Cupcake available today. Features found only in the Cupcake version include a home screen widget, allowing users to control TuneWiki without having to launch the full player, and the ability to organize and access different parts of their music collection directly from the home screen through live folders. TuneWiki for Cupcake is Bluetooth compatible and can be upgraded to an ad-free version for $4.99.

Features Include:
• Blip technology to update Facebook and Twitter with current playlist selection
• Android Home Screen widget
• Bluetooth wireless compatible
• Free Ad-Supported or Ad-free version available for $4.99
• Interactive Music Maps showing what other users are listening to around the globe
• Lyric subtitling for both audio and video, including the option to translate lyrics into 40+ languages

[TuneWiki]