Instead of reading the lenghty T-Mobile G1 manual, here are 10 essential tips and tricks to get you off and away with your new shiny toy.

1. Dial by Voice
The G1 supports voice dialing, and you can easily call a friend by stating their name if you press and hold the Send key on the G1. Bonus Tip: If you want to add in another caller while you’re on the phone, press the Send key while in a call.

2. Use an mp3 as your Ringtone
We’re not big fans of people using mp3s as ringtones, since the music selection is often pretty awful. Nonetheless, we’ll tell you how with the G1. Open Music > Songs > and hold your finger on your song of choice. Next, select “Use as phone ringtone.”

3. Access the Applications Menu from Anywhere
If you’re surfing the Web and want to quickly bring up your music player to switch songs, you can quickly do this by holding down the Home button on the G1. This will quickly bring up your Applications menu. If you want to go directly to the desktop, just press the Home button once.

4. Turn on Wi-Fi
Phones don’t just automatically have Wi-Fi capabilities turned on. To do this, press the Menu key while you’re on the home screen.

Next, click Settings > Wireless Controls and select Wi-Fi
Open Wi-Fi settings to force the G1 to search for available networks.

5. Place your phone in silent mode on the fly
You just walked into a movie theater a few minutes late, and you want to quickly put the phone in silent mode without browsing through menus to do so. Avoid this by toggling silent mode without opening the G1. Simply press and hold the End key to put the phone in silent mode.

6. Add songs to a playlist
When you’re playing co-pilot on a long road trip, the music selection is up to you. Make the song selection smoother by creating a playlist ahead of time. On the G1, open up Music > Songs, and then touch and hold any song that you want to add to a playlist. A menu will pop up, and you’ll want to select Add to playlist.

7. Install a microSD card
You can install a microSD card for adding more storage or using your phone as a portable hard drive (see tip 9), and here’s how. First open the keyboard. Next, look for a small memory card cover below the Send key on the G1. Take your microSD card and slide it forward with the gold teeth facing down.

8. Typing Tips
Insert special character: Press ALT + Spacebar
Delete entire line of text: Press ALT + Delete
Turn on all caps: Press Shift Twice
Move cursor to end or beginning of text: Press Alt while scrolling Trackball
Insert a Tab space: Press Alt + Q
Highlight text: Press Shift and roll Trackball

9. Use your phone as a portable hard drive
The G1 supports high capacity microSD cards, which means you can add up to 16GB of storage to it. That’s as good as carrying a portable hard drive around with you. To treat your G1 as a portable storage device, you need to turn on mass storage.

Plug your G1 into your computer using a USB cable. Navigate to the home screen and select Menu > Settings > SD card & phone storage. Next, select Use for USB storage. Now a folder will pop up on your computer, and you can drag and drop music, videos, or any file of your choice onto the phone.

10. Cut, Copy, and Paste Text
Copying, cutting, and pasting text from Web sites or documents is easy with the G1.
To Cut, press Menu and x.
To Copy, press Menu and c
To Paste, press Menu and v

via TalkAndroid

1. Head on over to Joiku.com and download a copy of JoikuSpot Light. Sync to your phone.

2. Start JoikuSpot on your phone and hit yes when it asks if you want to share your connection with other devices – select your phone’s 3G connection.

3. Go to your laptop and search for available wireless networks. Connect to JoikuSpot and you’ll be able to browse the web via your Nokia!

4. Go to JoikuSpot settings and choose either WEP open or shared. This secures your network.

That’s it!

JoikuSpot Light Edition is a FREE and SECURE Mobile HotSpot solution that turns Nokia phones into a WLAN HotSpot.

JoikuSpot software is installed directly to the phone. When switched on, laptops and iPods can establish instant, secure and fast WLAN connection via the smartphone’s JoikuSpot HotSpot using the phone’s own 3G internet connection.

Multiple devices can connect to JoikuSpot in parallel and seamlessly share the same 3G internet connection.

The Dream looks like the iPhone, and is five inches long, three inches wide, touch-sensitive, swivels, and hides a full-sized QWERTY keyboard below. It also switches to landscape mode when it’s tilted. On the software side, it’s got Google’s own YouTube, plus email, text editing, and a virtual machine for handling the browser. Unlike the iPhone, the screen is also time-sensitive: Hold down your finger longer, and the area you’re controlling expands. The bottom end of the handset, near the navigational controls, is slightly beveled so it nestles in the palm.

Taiwan’s HTC is already considering manufacturing a commercial version of Dream, which Chief Executive Peter Chou says could be available as early as the second half of 2008. “We’ve been working on [Open Handset Alliance] designs for almost two years,” he says. “This is the best one we’ve seen.”

Via Forbes

Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we’re not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing — the Open Handset Alliance and Android — is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.

These phones which will be made are going to be available in the US on Sprint and T-Mobile by the second half of 2008—plus, it’s going to be available in China, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Spain on their respective carriers. The 34 members of the Open Handset Alliance developing this gPhone will throw in their expertise (example, Nvidia with their graphical abilities, Skype with their VoIPing) and offer the collective goods under an open source licensing agreement.

The software’s actually been in development for three years, starting from the Google acquisition of a company called Android Inc. The most important part of this is that the platform will be free for handset manufacturers to load onto their phones, beating out other operating systems like Windows Mobile, Palm, and Symbian in terms of price. Video after the jump.

With the launch of the European iPhone days away, T3 got their hands on an iPhone and found out that the firmware installed will be firmware 1.1.2 and not firmware 1.1.1 which is what they have in the States. Sounds good except for the fact that the current Jailbreak software is currently not functional – hacking will have to wait for a little while then.

Other things found out is that the phone supports 12 languages out of the box, along with special keyboards for French and German languages (we guess that the other languages see a more limited level of support).

There’s also bundled free access to The Cloud Wi-Fi hotspots, which we’ve already seen in the European iPod Touch.

Sprint have an offer going where only billionaires need apply.

“For a limited time, buy a Blackberry 8830 World Edition smartphone for 10.5 million dollars, and we’ll throw in your very own private island. Think about it: 10.5 million dollars… Now, that may not sound like a lot, but we think you’ll find that controlling the world with this smartphone from your very own island is worth more than the price.”

According to its special site, the phone comes bundled with with an “exotic island” for $10.5 million–$199.99 for the handset and $10,499,800.01 for the land. It even goes so far as to include a pull-down menu with options to use bank accounts based in such tax shelters as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

The India Street has reportedly been tipped off about the upcoming Google Phone dubbed the Gphone. What they have heard is that China’s e28 is going to be Google’s Gphone software and handset manufacturer. The image above is the e28′s latest smartphone and word on the web is that it is to be the Gphone. No word is out on specifications but only time will tell as Google is reportedly set to announce the Gphone in the coming weeks.  More soon.

“We’re calling the new line of devices ‘Shadow’ because they’re designed to help people stay effortlessly connected with those who are closest to them – the people you would choose to have with you all the time if possible – the people you love checking in with during a hectic day or to share special news,” said Robert Dotson, president and CEO, T-Mobile USA. “Shadow finally makes staying connected to people simple, fun and easy – and all without the hassle of using a complicated device. This is not a productivity tool. This phone is designed for people who have lives beyond work.”

The T-Mobile Shadow helps people connect through the phone’s innovative design and simple user interface. T-Mobile teamed with HTC, the designer and manufacturer, to integrate the phone’s form and function. This effort resulted in a communications experience that strips out the complexity of traditional multi-function phones – so people don’t have to wrestle with technology – and makes it more intuitive for customers to explore and try new ways to communicate.

Highlighting the phone’s distinct features and its complete ease of use, the T-Mobile Shadow offers:

- An enhanced myFaves functionality that allows more flexibility to communicate and connect. Customers can now call, send an email, text or instant message, and share a picture, video or voice note, with a push of the button right from the myFaves home screen.

- An enhanced user-interface integrated with the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 platform.

- A sleek, slider design, and a spin navigation wheel to scroll through the user interface, myFaves icons, and other core phone features.

- High-quality, 2.0-megapixel digital camera with video capture to record and share special moments. Plus, a multimedia player to listen to and share favorite music and video.

- Lights and sounds that differentiate one function from another, whether receiving an email, picture message or calendar appointment notification.

- Wi-Fi and EDGE-enabled high-speed Internet access to power Web surfing so that connecting to favorite social networking sites are quick and easy.

- A reminder feature, so customers need never forget another friend’s or family member’s birthday or anniversary with the ability to set reminders for these important days in the lives of their ‘fave five.’

- T-Mobile Address Book that lets customers import contact information from Yahoo!, Gmail, Microsoft Outlook and other email services onto their phone using my.t-mobile.com, and automatically back up their phone’s address book online.

The T-Mobile Shadow will be available in two tones – copper and sage. It will be available to T-Mobile customers beginning Oct. 31 at retail stores and online.

Miguel Helft of the New York Times wrote:

In short, Google is not creating a gadget to rival the iPhone, but rather creating software that will be an alternative to Windows Mobile from Microsoft and other operating systems, which are built into phones sold by many manufacturers. And unlike Microsoft, Google is not expected to charge phone makers a licensing fee for the software.