Here is what Howard Wong has to say about the Agora vs G1.

This is more blackberry-ish in style, slimmer and so in a way its a bit more “humble” and makes you wanna compare it to a blackberry.. which sort of allows Agora to scale back on memory features (256 meg, 128 meg flash, no WIFI).  Also I think they were smarter about battery life by supplying a 1300mAh battery as opposed to G1′s 1150mAh.. G1 most prolly uses more power anyway.  Clearly Agora’s niche is to bridge mainstream PDA users to Android.. a very smart move because quite frankly, most people don’t know or care about where mobile applications come from. I believe this phone to be a much more humbler/accessible stage to feature android apps.

Looking back, I think Tmobile should’ve released something like this and steared clear of IPhone envy.  One of the first things I said to myself when I first played with the G1 was, “I can’t believe google allowed this to be the first phone.”

I still think the 4 buttons should be electro-sensitive like the touchscreen.  For such mainstay controls, they deserve to be on par with the touchscreen.  At least with this new Agora phone I won’t complain because interaction through the touchscreen seems more like a bonus whereas on the G1, it seems required.