If you were to pick up the G1 without turning it on, you wouldn't necessarily see the difference between it and many other smart phones that have been on the market for a while. The real difference comes when you power on the unit and you're greeted by the friendly green cartoon android.

As a platform, the Android OS is very capable, but it's full of rough edges and user-unfriendly design. If that sounds a bit like the way you might describe something like, say, Linux then you won't exactly gasp in shock to find that Android's built on the Linux kernel.

The first screen you're presented with when you turn on the G1 is Android's desktop. It shares features with both the iPhone's Home screen, in that it has the icons for all your applications front-and-center, as well your typical computer desktop, since you can arrange your icons on it to your heart's content and pick your own background wallpaper. You've also got three different "panes"; from the main screen you can swipe to the left or right and you'll find two other desktops on which you can place icons. The full list of applications resides in a drawer that you can access by tapping the tab at the bottom of the screen, if you're in portrait mode, or the right side, if you're oriented in landscape view.

I actually quite like this approach. Most people don't need quick access to all of their applications, so it makes sense to give you a place to keep the most frequently-used ones, kind of like the Mac OS X's Dock. While the iPhone allows you to arrange icons on your home screen, Android gives you a little more flexibility in how you can use empty space: you can put your icons only at the corners of the screen, for example, or you could have the desktop entirely blank for a minimalist look. The icons do snap to an invisible grid, though, so you can't have them arranged willy-nilly.

You're not limited to adding applications to your desktop, either. You can also add bookmarks, shortcuts to individual contacts, music playlists, even folders into which you can drag those items to keep them organized. There's also the ability to add widgets, though by default there are only three on offer: a clock, a picture frame, and a Google search box.