The Blackberry was great for a few years, but I decided to buy a used T-Mobile G1 on eBay and play around with the Android platform.

One thing that appealed to me was the simple one-click that allowed non-Android market applications on the phone. Another reason I liked Android was the ability to root the phone and gain additional services, such as Wireless Tethering over T-Mobiles fast 3G network. The tethering is invaluable when paired with my iPad or other WiFi devices.

I’m technical, but some initial postings made rooting seem rather complex. I came across a recent tumblr posting which laid out the steps to root a G1 in under a few hours.

I strongly recommend you first watch this YouTube Video from start to end to see someone do the process. Then read over this link and you’ll have a rooted G1 in a few hours.

Once you’re comfortable with the root process you can use other pre-configured OS images which are online, such as a rooted T-Mobile Android 1.6.

A couple issues I ran across during the rooting process are below.

1. Early on if bootloader flashes “No Image File” and then “Status 0″ … completely format your SD, via the device is a good step. (Your original 1.6 OS is still intact, just no data)

2. Around step #15 I was getting “Update Failed… Update Terminate.” … I got a new SanDisk microSD reader for $10 and recopied the .nbh file onto the SD card… it worked fine next try