I’ve been comparing V’s iPhone to my G1 for a while now. If you are wondering who wins, its my old Sony Ericsson dumbphone. If you need a phone that does everything that a phone should do, it does it better than these smarter guys.

The iPhone looks great. You can’t beat how even the worst apps look so good. However, if you want a smart computer in your hands, this isn’t it. Sure you can check email and browse but you can’t background apps, everything is tightly controlled by Apple making it very frustrating for a tech buff like me to appreciate.

The G1 shine in these areas. However, it’s also its pitfall. I’m running cyanogen’s modified ROM. It gives me the latest and greatest in Android releases which I cannot get officially. But I also get random crashes, extreme slowness at times and other quirks that make the phone unusable at times. You could argue I could stick with the standard Google ROM. But then I’m running software that is a year old. Also, by running the official ROM, it does resolve all my issues. I can still run multiple apps in the background. This still makes the 500Mhz processor crawl to a halt at times. Since Android cannot control what apps are good or bad, or how much processing times each app takes up, it ends up making the phone unusable. If I stop all backgrounding apps, the phone is useful again but then, its just the iPhone.

So does iPhone have it right then. Yes and no. The ‘closed’ Apple policy has advantages. It can control things like user experience by blocking on not providing certain features (ie backgrounding, full bluetooth control etc). Users end up with a phone that works well under most circumstances and with ample battery life.

Android provides users with the platform ‘openness’. However, this leads users frustrated with a phone that could potentially run terribly slow or drain the battery within hours of use.

I think Android has the right approach. A lot of the problems are limitations of hardware. A faster processor, better battery can go a long way to alleviate the current issues. The openness is a more important aspect to maintain. Early adopters will feel the pain.

In the meantime, if someone has an old SE phone, I’d love to have it.