After a nearly year-long wait, Google Glass #961 made it into my early-adopter open arms on Friday morning. I live in Portland, and while I could have flown down to the Bay Area for the full Glass indoctrination, I instead opted to go it alone and see what strange and serendipitous experiences might result for a lone technophile-turned-cyborg in the Pacific Northwest.
Here, that story begins — with an unboxing of course.
I ordered the “Cotton” color of Glass. At the time of ordering the bright blue and tangerine colors were sold out, but white was my first choice anyway.
When it arrived, the black outer packaging was about to fall off… a bit disconcerting considering Glass is a $1500 device.
“XE” Explorer Edition logo, for pre-orders from last year’s Google I/O
Glass came with sparse instructions, but at least there were a few arrows.
The front of the device, and what you’ll be looking through.
The 5-megapixel, 720p camera sits on an adjustable arm.
Google Glass is surprisingly lightweight, even more so than I’d expected.
The device charges via a micro-USB, included in the box.
Google Glass uses bone conduction technology so that what the wearer hears is amplified considerably.
The black and white micro-USB and microfiber pouch (with a hard case bottom) were nice luxury touches.
Glass comes with a sunglasses attachment and a clear lens attachment. Spoiler alert: They aren’t very stylish.
The clear and sunglasses attachments, sitting atop their respective microfiber protective pouches.
According to Google, the display is equivalent to a 25-inch HD screen from eight feet away.
Glass packs 12 gigabytes of memory for all the photos and videos you’ll be taking.
Looking through Glass really does feel like glancing up at a tiny TV screen. The image is reflected from the outside.
Much more is on the way for our Google Glass coverage. After I finally got the thing on my face, I wore Glass for 48 hours straight (excepting a few moments and sleep of course — no Scoble-style showering here).
Let’s just say that it’s been a really interesting weekend. Google’s evolution of the smartphone has surprised me more times than I can count, so stay tuned.
