Sidekick iD reviewed
By Chris Ziegler 
posted April 13th 2007 12:46PM
posted April 13th 2007 12:46PM
A Sidekick for the low price of $99 is enough to get any Danger fan excited -- but just what do you give up in exchange for the price break? That's precisely what T-Mobile is about to push out the door to give the cash-starved (and the frugal) among us a taste of the older, higher end Sidekick 3. LAPTOP Magazine had the chance to sit down and put the iD through its paces, pointing out the glaring lack of MP3 playback, camera, Bluetooth, and expandable memory. On the flipside, though, what's left is still Sidekick through and through: a messaging focus, mobile web surfing and the typical Hiptop form factor that makes voice calling just a tad awkward. More is lacking in the iD, though -- the lack of even 2.5G EDGE data is going to make serious surfing an exercise in frustration. Are there any old-school GPRS fans out there still? We thought not, but there probably are a few Sidekick-for-$100 fans. All told, LAPTOP was digging the myFaves integration (you're next, Sidekick 3 users) but found the nixed features a little tough to swallow, suggesting folks might be better served saving up a little extra coin for the 3 or a Motorola Q to get mobile multimedia done right.
The SideKick itself is a nice idea (especially for younger people), nonetheless, I don't really see why they bother creating a lower end model.
The SK3 is fine already (you can always buy one from eBay or Amazon, cheapish.) and in my opinion the unlimited IM/TXT/Internet package is too expensive, simply because of the fact that you also have to purchase a seperate Voice package. *Whew*
If you can afford the $20 monthly data package for the SKiD and the 20-30 dollar phone bill, I fail to see why they couldn't afford a SK3.
This would be perfect if it included bluetooth. Leaving that out is a no-go nowadays. I could care less about data packages, web-surfing etc., because this phone would be great for messaging. But I can't deal with wires in the car, and NY law says we need a hands-free kit, so this is O-U-T.
This should have included support for EDGE. If you're going to strip out bluetooth, camera, mp3 player and expandable memory, then you should at least include support for EDGE. This is basically a Sidekick 2 without the camera.
You have to understand, "you people" who wish it still had BT. The Sk had ONE PROFILE for BT, and that was a headset. What a waste. PRetending you really need a BT headset for any practical reason is asinine. Say hello to 4 years ago.