Sidekick III shows up on the FCC

As soon as a Sharp-made handset shows up on the FCC with a whole bunch of confidentiality-request paperwork affixed, you know it's gonna be good. Sidekick fans, feast your eyes on the real deal up in the grill (yep, all those pics were legit), and the um, naked, battery-less tail end of the Sidekick III (model PV200). Can't be long now, can it? And yes, this confirms pretty much much of the info we'd already heard about the forthcoming device: 1.3 megapixel camera, expandable memory (miniSD), and Bluetooth.

[Mathew @ Apr 22nd 2006 3:31PM]

is better show up in canada faster than the delay we've been having with these phones in the past...

[minusX @ Apr 22nd 2006 3:36PM]

Question: When did you guys nab this up? It's not on the FCC website.

[minusX @ Apr 22nd 2006 3:39PM]

I stand corrected, for some reason it wasn't under "Danger" filing it this time, odd.

[Matthew @ Apr 22nd 2006 3:42PM]

Yawn....
What a dissapointment. I mean, this phone has featues that are getting very old. No wifi? No 2MP camera? No video playback? Ouch!

[sam cook'd @ Apr 22nd 2006 3:54PM]

*NUT*

sorry need awash cloh ive had asn sidekick since the bw version 1st hit n im more excited athan ever

[Ricky R @ Apr 22nd 2006 3:54PM]

Can someone please put the link up for the FCC page about for this product

[Vision77 @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:00PM]

This thing better be able to at least play Mp3s. I think thats a memory card slot on the left of the backshot photo. If not T-Mob has just shot themselves in the foot. In the US anyways. Honestly the SK has become thier flagship device. Why in the hell would they do a half@$$ job on the features. I have an upgrade coming up. Looks like I won't be using it. I'll stick to my Unlocked Treo650. Hope Palm release that super firmware update soon >:]

[stobert @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:07PM]

Matthew, what will satisfy you? Dangers OS is multithreaded, allowing users to I.M., surf the web, write an email, all at the same time. Can a Treo do that? Plus, you'll be able to buy two of these for the price of your typical "smart" fone, meaning you'll be able to have a meaningful conversation with yourself. You especially will find this useful, 'cos no one cares what you say.

[Vision77 @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:27PM]

stobert
Wow where have you been. The treo will eat the sidekick alive. You probably should do your home work on the smart phones before blab. I have sent email on my treo while listening to pocket tunes. Oh right now I'm streaming music from my home pc to my treo using Ptunes and gloonet. The bottom line is this: the treo gives you more options than the sidekick. And, this new version of the sidekick does not look like it will be able to compete with the treo. Any worthy phone should be able to play mp3s, send emails, take photos, have bluetooth, play video, and should have some sort memory card slot. Go through that list and tell me how much of that the sidekick has. The treo has all of that.

[Cliff @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:28PM]

#8 (stobert) The Treo 700w can multithread. It also has mobile versions of Microsoft Office on it too. :)

[Necro @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:35PM]

News flash losers. The sidekick wasn't made for the same dorks that use treo's. In other words there's more money to be made getting children to buy their product than old enterprise farts. BTW I'm doing this on my sidekick.

[Necro @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:47PM]

News flash losers. The hiptop wasn't made for treo like users. In other words there's more money to be made from children than old enterprise farts. BTW I'm writing from my hiptop.

[Cliff @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:50PM]

11 (Necro) I've got one, idiot. I'm a 21 y/o college student -- definitely not an old fart.

[quay @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:50PM]

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TZK @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:54PM]

Cliff, make sure you know what you are talking about when you speak of technology - especiallu multithreading. You have no idea what it really is - admit it.

[ferrarik1 @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:54PM]

well, im excited, that means i get to sell those POS to stupid kids

[Marie Williams @ Apr 22nd 2006 4:57PM]

Vision77 -- my boyfriend has a treo. It crashes many, many, many times a day. Often it won't even boot successfully without hard reseting and recovering his data from the memory card that he keeps plugged into it just for this pupose. Oh, and it took him 10 days of solid messing around to get his software installed when it was new... and there was that time the screen turned all yellow... My sidekick II has only locked up once in the year I've had it. And if the 600 multi-tasks that would be news to him. He always tells me that it won't. While meanwhile I have an ssh window open to two machines while loading a webpage while chatting to 3 people on aim. Sure you can't get as much software, but it does what it does better than a treo, and it is rock solid while it does it.

[Gossipninja @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:09PM]

I have an SK2, and I love the formfactor, but If Danger/t-mo don't have the features needed to stay competetive then the "oohh it's a sidekick" element won't be enough to cater to any market. Everyone who sees my phone envies it because there phones are not as capable but most next generation cell phones are bundling much of what the SK2 can do and more such as capture and watch videos/mp3/upload your own ringtone (which technically the SK can do but T-mo has turned that and MMS off.) Even phones not billed as smart phones have a wide array of features now. The only thing I see that has been the saving grace for the SK2 is the all you can eat data for 20 bucks. I know some people with new fancy phones but they don't use the IM, or email or what have you due to costly data usage. If the SK3 wants to be the premiere phone for both the youth market and techies, and anyone in between it needs to have a few things.
MP3 - Even 64 MB with a removable media slot will suffice. I don't expect my phone to replace my mp3 player
Bluetooth - As much as those ear pieces kinda annoy me,to be cutting edge in cell phones, you gotta have BT.
Camera - It needs to be better quality, even 1.3 would be fine, Video would be a plus but not necessary
Web browser - It is a great web browser but there are some features i wish they would add, namely allow you to zoom in on a photo on a website. I would love to read Penny arcade and actually read a map on my phone.
And if they could add swf/flash support. I want to kill time watching stupid flash cartoons on my phone.

[Vision77 @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:09PM]

Necro

Wow you're on the little bus. If you actually read the posts you would see that for the most part I am talking about the features a phone should have. And if you are going to shell $400 bucks and not have these features you have proven my point. The thing is, that just about all age groups will want to have some sort of multimedia experience on thier phone. The sidekick does not look like it will be able to satisfy all of the demands of its users. Oh and I will playing snes, nes and genisis roms on my treo what about your sidekick.

[Iggy @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:15PM]

LoL Sharp thought they could get 45 day confidentiality of this stuff, thing is the FCC doesn't seem to care.

Iggy :)

[sam cook'd @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:17PM]

13. 11 (Necro) I've got one, idiot. I'm a 21 y/o college student -- definitely not an old fart.

cliff ya missing the point of his statement
treos WM5 and palm devices are geared towards buiness users....the SK line of devices is geared towards general users...2 different markets... the average user of an SK is under 25 while i think treo is between 30-40... thats y its not gonna have all the office essentials in it cause it doesnt need it...its gonna have the basics just like da BWSK, the CSK, and the SK2but the give u the basics in a form and price and size and most of all a USER FRIENDLY device...im not gonna bash WM Blackberry and Palm based devices but many former SK users who try 2 get there 'fix' on these devices normally return to the SK i did after 3 months on a blackberry

[sam cook'd @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:25PM]

hey gossipninja

BT
EDGE
MiniSD
all confermed

n the browser thing can b fixed with an OTA
my main wish is that Danger will open up the software more so the SK can build up a larger catalog of software not just ringtones and games

[Robert @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:47PM]

The picture seems to show a Mini SD slot. I assume there will be some sort of media player capability so MP3's should be possible. It opens up a lot of possibilities, video playback, file storage. Mini SD's have come down in price lately, can be found for $40 or $50 for a 1 GB card.

[Fox McCloud @ Apr 22nd 2006 5:53PM]

Something I'd like to mention...

I love Symbian Smartphones.

I've got a Sidekick Color, a Sidekick 2, a Pocket PC Phone, an N-Gage QD, a Nokia 3300, and a Siemens CF62T (NOTE: I've never done anything beyond a phone call on the SK2 since it's actually a friends phone I'm borrowing). I love them all, but I use the N-Gage. I've got several reasons for that, but here's what I'd point out to everyone.

1) The N-Gage has bluetooth, while the others don't. Despite what many people think, bluetooth rocks the house, period. If for nothing else, I can control my music (on windows OR linux) with it via Bemused, and I can beam files stored on my 512MB MMC card to whatever I need to, wirelessly. In fact, I use bluetooth to network not just my phone, but also to network my laptop to my linux storage server. PAN is the greatest.

2) SymbianOS is the standard. I know most of the sidekick users here will kill me for saying this, but I'll say it anyway: the proprietary (sorry for spelling there) OS on the Sidekick sucks. You can't upload or download whatever you want, and making applications for it is impossible - unless you can get a deal with T-Mobile to distribute it, you can't. Worse still, it can't recieve files via MMS/SMS or even install programs through the browser. My N-Gage does all of that.

3) N-Gage Arena. I inly play about 4 or 5 actual games on my N-Gage, but there's nothing on earth quite like playing Red Faction on a cell phone against some guy from china or finland or india. Internet gaming is the future, agreed, but with an N-Gage, worldwide doesn't require a power outlet and a TV to plug up.

4) Range of applications. Right now my N-Gage has everything you've all mentioned, but here's a short list with less than half of what's on it: WAP Browser, HTML Browser, Opera Mini, eMail, 3 IM clients, 2 SSH Clients, 3 VNC Clients, 16 Games (I only play 4 or 5 - any lemonade tycoon fans out there?), 3 Filesystem browsers, Call Blacklist (I get no telemarketers), 7 Media Players (3 Audio, 4 Video), Weather Viewer, PDF Viewer, QuickOffice, and CellTrack (can be used to triangulate yourself, good if ya get kidnapped).

That's about a third of them, plus I've got 2 hours of music and a 2 hour movie (the replacements - the only file on here I paid for) and still have 180MB+ empty on the MMC card. Can somebody show me a Sidekick doing all that? Didn't think so.

5) Wanna waste money? Buy a camera phone! Eight studies now show that less than 4% of people with a camera phone have taken any more than a test picture. I'm proud to be in the 96% majority on that one. Nuff said.

6) It's not square. Several of you mentioned that the Tero is somehow the official phone of "old farts" but I can happily say it's not. It's the official phone of people who give over 400 bucks for a phone that has PalmOS and/or Windows on it. The Treo is a good phone (between a Sidekick and the Treo I'd pick the Treo, though I might pick a Sidekick 2 first, not sure) but it is what it is, and it's a PDA. It's not really a phone. It's merely a PDA with phone call capability. That puts it one step above the original Sidekick though, because it was a dog turd with a cool multicolor wheel and phone capability. Still, the N-Gage just has a cooler shape.

7) Don't forget the QD part. Many people ask me if I have to hold my N-Gage QD sideways. I tell them no. Because I don't. The sideways speaker of the original N-Gage is fixed on the QD - it's now placed on the front. In addition, the QD has a faster processor, more internal memory, and best of all, it looks more badass. That, and it plays games better too. Of course, even if it had the sideways speaker, why wouldn't I just use a bluetooth headset?

That's why I love my N-Gage. Please mail any complaints about my post to [e-mail]. Thank you.

[hay112 @ Apr 22nd 2006 6:10PM]

Has anyone heard anything about screen resolution? If it's the same crap resolution, then who cares...

[JR @ Apr 22nd 2006 7:14PM]

half of your are complaining for no reason can you READ? the 2nd picture basically tells you all the features which are upgrades:

Bluetooth
minisd- which most likely means video/mp3 support
1.3 megapixel- which is an obvious upgrade from the last camera

and why in the hell would you compare a treo to a sidekick they are for 2 different markets. treos are for business users and sidekicks are for the younger set who like to im/ text message and show off at the same time.

[James Rice @ Apr 22nd 2006 7:18PM]

I am a 24 year old "business" user and I have a Sidekick II, and I had a Sidekick I previously.
Yes, its annoying that all the software is proprietary, but the sidekick has the most comforable keyboard.
I thought about switching to a MDA... but have held off thus far.

[Bob @ Apr 22nd 2006 7:24PM]

if you look closely at the upper right corner it clearly says


"1.3 mp" camera


yay!!!!!

[wErSa @ Apr 22nd 2006 8:40PM]

forget about the skIII. i recently purchased a HTC WIZARD (Cingular 8125) and everyone asks the same question, "is that the new SK3?"

my reply is simple, "No, its the side kick killah!"

ditch the kiddie phone and get with the adults.

[Necro @ Apr 22nd 2006 8:50PM]

CLIFF, No offense but you're probably an old fart in the making. Maybe one of those college students that will talk about your college well after 10 years have past. BTW I used to work for PalmOne. And I know their particular market is for old farts in the making and old enterprise farts. Made for them by them.
Enjoy that bluetooth headset that you have hanging around your ear! Dork!

[Adam Chance @ Apr 22nd 2006 8:54PM]

I owuld love to get a Treo, but I dont think t-mobile carries them anymore, at least not the new ones.

[divinity @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:00PM]

It's about damn time! hehe

[recon @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:02PM]

is it me or does it look like the miniSD slot will be under the battery. Meaning you will have to remove the battery to accesss the the sd card. Is that bad and it really doesnt matter? Also, I read here:
http://mobilehipster.com/t-mobile-news/video-on-the-sk3-t-mobile-set-to-release-first-widespread-us-umts-network
that video wont be supported at this time as Tmo's EDGE network is not fast enough for video. So it looks like, "possibly", that the miniSD will be for audio use and storage. Given that, I would probably say that the resolution will be the same as the old Sidekick II as well. Helps keep cost down. All in all this comment is speculation on my part. It's possible that video can be taken with the 1.3m pixel camera. wait and see, wait and see.

[recon @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:05PM]

woops i meant to say "is that bad OR does it really matter?"

[Adam Chance @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:18PM]

Also doesnt t-mobile allready have a phone that does all this?

http://t-mobile.com/shop/Phones/Detail.aspx?tp=tb1&device=8802ddeb-1ee4-477a-9608-d9cd1e2a903f

[recon @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:38PM]

True, but at what price? I own a sidekick II and i priced how much it would cost for my same service to be on the MDA and it turned out to be about 10-20 dollars more(that unlimited text is the kicker) I've debated with myself (to MDA or Sidekick; still no verdict). Love the style and appeal of the sidekick (for me everything works well) but theres the openess of the MDA, ringtones, video, mp3(IMing will cost me too much) To be perfectly honest, the sidekick does virtually almost everything i want, I just want faster internet and video. If i can get that with the with ver.III and keep the same services and cost, then i'm good.

[Baxter Madu @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:43PM]

My apologies in advance to Veronica Mars and the rest of the normal populace that prefers Sidekicks, but this device scares the crap out of me.

As a new york city subway rider, we have to put up with the occasional idiot kid blasting regaetton from their nextel/sidekick (ringtone), no matter how crappy the speaker is. If this thing can play MP3s, it will become the new boombox - no train car will ever be safe. F*cking sidekick, I've been riding around here for years and the ONLY people who have them are kids and dumbasses.

Here's the proof: when an ENORMOUS data breach occurred with Paris Hilton's Sidekick (all notes, contacts, pictures were leaked were leaked to the net), sidekick sales went UP!

[Baxter Madu @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:45PM]

Here's the link from engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/01/paris-hiltons-hacked-sidekick-means-higher-sales-for-t-mobile/

[drago @ Apr 22nd 2006 9:48PM]

I'm 18 and there's no way I would be caught using a treo. Its like using a calculator to text. Besides SK is where its at they're much cooler looking. Me and all my friends have one, and I know if brought a treo to a party I would get laughed at big time. Tmo for life!

[recon @ Apr 22nd 2006 10:04PM]

Baxter, LMAO,

I'm sorry to hear about your gripe. I laugh 'cause, well, I help to put
those ringtones on those nextels you're talkin about and I know that
website for music for the sidekick, being a native of new york, I have
the whole picture in my head of seeing these youngsters loudly excited
about their day and showing off their new sounds. Let me be of aid to
you by saying that those model phones weren't made for playing music and
so don't have the type of headphone jacks needed to listen to music.
With mp3s in mind with the Sk3, perhaps, headphones will be implemented.
Then again, to be cool with their peers, they just won't use the
headsets. Dang, I guess I wasn't much help. ;-)

[Dave Zatz @ Apr 22nd 2006 10:27PM]

Have we learned the dimensions or weight of the SKIII? It looks rather large...

[Echid @ Apr 22nd 2006 11:42PM]

Its has GSM 850...finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This looks so great, I have wanted a Sidekick for a while now and I finally can get one!

[webmetricsguru @ Apr 22nd 2006 11:45PM]

I recently switched from the SideKick II to the TMobile MDA. I will switch back to the SideKick III when it comes about because I like how the SidkKick operates better. The SideKick III will have all the same features as the TMobile MDA has today - but I bet they'll be bundled a lot better.

It's not the features - the MDA has all the same one's that will be part of the new Sidekick - the problem is the phone is a pain to use, easy to drop, low on battery life, and the internet browser does not work as well as the SideKick's did.

When you add the BlueTooth, Memory cards, 1.3 MegaPixel camara - you'll probably end up with a much more useable device than the TMobile MDA.

I will say that I'm getting to like the MDA more, now that I'm easing into useing it and taking videos, stuff like that. But I would not even bother to try to listen to Podcasts on it...I'd eat up too much battery power doing that. Even when you don't do much of anything, your power can drain down pretty quickly with this phone.

My reccomendation - if you have a SideKick II, wait till the SideKick III comes out - don't get the MDA as you'll end up doing the same thing I'm going to do...switch back to the SideKick III.

[JScott @ Apr 23rd 2006 12:02AM]

Cell phones will become commodities one day. Soon they will come free inside a cracker jacks box. Prophecy No. 1

[Necro @ Apr 23rd 2006 12:30AM]

Honestly guys, video on cell phones are not that cool. All of Europe has had 3G for some time and they're still not watching streaming video over their phones. Why!? Because video over cell phones is just lame. I assume a 40 year old product marketing dude at Verison or T-MO has no clue what to do in this space so they copy Apple's lead and apply it to the mobile space. I predict they're scheming on how to bring the Myspace experience to the mobile world. Lame! Can't you think of something better!? Hey maybe a Google app? Lame! Johnny come lately as usual.
BTW Cliff probably drives a Prius and is probably wearing his BT headset while reading this comment. Also, I predict you'll talk about the good ol days at Northwestern or Berkley 20 years after you've graduated. Ya Loser!

[Prester John @ Apr 23rd 2006 1:41AM]

I guess I'm just an old fart (just like all the young'uns on here will be old farts some day - grin), but if I remember correctly, the main purposes of a cellphone are to talk on and text with... much more is superfluous. There's a stereo pretty much everywhere I go, and I have a nice mp3 player for the rest of the time. And unless I'm actually WATCHING a normal TV (or my 'puter screen), I don't need to have video available. My cell is there to be present and unobtrusive, in the event I need to call or be called.

[cool8man @ Apr 23rd 2006 1:57AM]

I like the Sidekick devices because it has the best QWERTY keyboard of any device on the market. It also has the best AOL Instant Messenger client of any portable device on the market. I also found email and text messaging to be far better than the Windows Mobile experience. Nothing compares to having a scroll wheel for web browsing. The OS is also really clean and easy to navigate. The battery life is excellent for this type of phone and the form factor is decent, although I'd honestly prefer something more RAZR/iPod nano like. The screen is also excellent in sunlight and indoors and has a sensor that helps adjust the screen lighting based upon how much light it has. This feature also helps to preserve and maximize battery life.

However I do have a number of problems with the Sidekick in that it is T-mobile only so there isn't a high speed broadband network available for the device. I can't add a lot of the cool applications to the device that I would on a Windows Mobile or even Palm device. I would like to add applications like the Sling Media player (to watch TV) and Skype to my Sidekick, but this is simply not possible because of the T-mobile limitations and because of the locked down nature of Danger's OS. Hopefully I will at least be able to access music and video through ORB.com on the new Sidekick, but I question whether that will be possible with the proprietary web browser that the Sidekick has.

I think HTC is kind of like the old Dell or "beige box" of the smart phone industry and unfortunately they don't really seem to get it. The sidekick is not perfect and I think other companies could do far better (maybe they can't because of patent issues), but as an all in one phone I think the Sidekick line is unfortunately the best that's available. I really wish HTC could put out a hardware device that was on par with the Sidekick (5-line spacious keyboard, ambient light detecting screen visible in direct sunlight, long battery life, scroll wheel for web browsing and navigation, and in a pocketable size).

[YOUREallTOOLS @ Apr 23rd 2006 2:34AM]

The bottom line is most of you are fricken tool boxes. Not just a tool, but the whole box. Who gives a rat's ass about the pro's and con's of a SK3 vs. a Treo vs. a whatever. You'll never convert a SK enthusiast to a Treo user and vice versa, so stfu with all the name calling and all the "this phone is better than this one because of BLAH.." The only people who are going to buy the SK* are the hip and the wannabe hip. The only people who are going to buy the Treo * are the business professionals and the wannabe business professionals.

[Miguel @ Apr 23rd 2006 3:34AM]

For the people who wanted the link to the FCC website, JUST CLICK THE PHOTOS AND IT SHOULD TAKE YOU TO THE WEBSITE.

[Goodman @ Apr 23rd 2006 8:39AM]

I always thought comparing the features of a Sidekick to the features of other smart phones missed the point. It's like the Macintosh... it's not just the features, its how well they're implemented. The Sidekick is easy to use, has the nice fat keyboard, multi-tasks well, and is stable. It's also far cheaper than competing smartphones, and offers dirt cheap data service. I love my Sidekick, that's all. It's good to have the internet in your pants. :-)