T-Mobile MyTouch3G Wifi fail

I’m a huge Apple fan since switching to Mac a few years ago, and even have myself an iTouch (iPod Touch), but could never bring myself to buy the iPhone as I wanted a more open platform.

I’ve been holding out for a later rev of the Google Android based G1 from T-Mobile for some time, and given I lost my latest insurance phone yesterday (think I subconsciously got rid of it as I disliked it so much) I decided to go buy the MyTouch 3G today.

Initial impressions ..

1) not as slick as the iTouch.
As expected, the interface didn’t feel as slick. This could be because I’m just used to my iTouch .. we’ll see on this one.

2) Wifi connectivity problems.
This is a serious problem. I’ve had problems all day getting it to connect to my Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 which was set on WEP encryption (I know, not so secure, been meaning to change it for a while). The MyTouch found the network fine, I entered the password, but it would simply NOT connect. On top of that, my 3G coverage appears to be pretty spotty, so for much of the day I’ve played with this thing it’s been really really sluggish.. painfully so. I even upgraded the firmware on the router to see if that would help.

After some Googling I saw many people complaining about wifi connectivity on the MyTouch… and I was pretty unimpressed as I’m using fairly old technology on the router and no device has *ever* had a problem connecting until now. Seems that it has a problem with WEP security! I changed to WPA2 Personal, AES, added new password, and checked my other regular wifi devices could connect and things were working as before. I tried the MyTouch with the reconfigured security, and this time it connected just fine.

So heads up, the new MyTouch 3G doesn’t play well with older WEP security.

~~~~

EDIT: 2009-09-03

After a few days, some more feedback:
- missing hundreds of contacts, also gone from gmail web contacts
- remaining contacts screwed up, missing details
- fave contacts gone missing/unfaved
- web browser slow and clunky
- email very buggy and intermittent, cant find emails showing up in other email clients

The deleted contact thing is an ultimate no no. I’m done, taking it back to the store and getting an iPhone as soon as I get some time.