After all the
buffoonery over what exactly T-Mobile intended to call its newest entry-level Danger device, they've ultimately decided to just go back to basics, drop the acronyms, and christen it simply "Sidekick." Make no mistake, though -- this little puppy is a far cry from your daddy's Hiptop launched way back in 2002, thanks to a 400 x 240 WQVGA display, 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, and a microSD slot. Though it's being billed as the
iD's spiritual successor, the Sidekick comes dangerously close to
LX territory, so it should see some solid movement at the $149.99 asking price on a two-year contract. What's more, the Sidekick becomes Danger's first device with user-customizable shells, available directly from sidekickshells.com for $14.99 a pop (we've got both a really bad and a really frickin' great feeling about the ridiculous sorts of designs people are going to be coming up with there). The whole shebang goes on sale starting today. 'Course, if you can't get out to a well-stocked T-Mobile store for the next few hours, be sure to check out our quick impressions and gallery on
Engadget Mobile, yeah?
posted Jul 30th 2008 12:01AM
ZZZZ...
3G?
Price without a contract?
$299.99
I don't know why people hate on the Sidekicks! It's great if you don't need Exchange and has one of the best QWERTY-boards and IM clients on any phone!
I don't own one (my main phone is N95-4), but this phone does one thing and one thing well... messaging!
No WM Sidekick yet?
WM = Windows Mobile
"WM = Windows Mobile"
Thanks for the clarification, there. You had my head spinning with your clever little acronym.
Yeah, I'm annoying.
Why are you being ranked low? Microsoft recently purchased danger so it's not out of the realm of possibilities.
I used to own Sidekicks but the OS is absolutely horrible. It's made almost entirely of Java which means it's slow to respond with _everything_ and it had too many bugs to be useful when I used to use it.
Besides that, WM would at least be open. The current OS they use is closed up just as much as the iPhone. You can only put applications on it via their store (which, of course, costs a pretty penny).
Windows Mobile is not open. But yeah, you can install a lot on it and it's quite a powerful mobile OS.
iPhone rip-off.
Now that is a stupid comment.
im sorry but the sidekick was out LONG BEFORE even rumors about the iphone started spreading.
This is just like the first sidekick, which came out way before the iPhone. If there were any similarities, which there aren't, it would be the iPhone ripping off the Sidekick.
ha
Haha low ranked. This is hilarious! There will be a picture of a BlackBerry (Curve or Bold), not even the thunder, and people will call it an iPhone rip-off and be serious.
Learn to take a joke.
"Don't feed the trolls."
-Bridge user
Um.
Joke.
"...2 megapixel camera with video recording capability..."
Is it sad that you can no longer assume that any camera has the ability to record video? Is this what the iPhone has done to us?
No, I think that it's merely a reaffirmation of the fact that they can fit a video camera into such a small package for a fraction of the price of the iPhone. Essentially, they've used this subtle marketing move to let people know who the real phone manufacturers are.
Now, T-Mobile needs to roll out that 3G network of theirs...
Isn't this better than the LX? What does the LX do that this can't? This has a better camera+video....as an LX owner I'm pissed.
Only the higher -rez camera, it seems.
Maybe they're catching on to Apple's naming scheme? Good for them.
Sidekick (with camera and bluetooth)
(also known as the fifth generation Sidekick with video camera)
If you need more help identifying your Sidekick, please look at some arbitrary numbering scheme used in your serial number.
boooo @ this phone..
not interested.
i think you are, after all, you made the effort to post
the purpose of commenting on a blog is to voice your opinion. In my opinion, this phone is not appealing. Kill the grade school mentality.
LOL, this is funny on so many levels.
needs more bezel
I'm glad they have a basic sturdy, updated Sidekick, and with a nice screen at that. But in the world of 5MP xenon flash cameras, multi-touch UIs, animations, desktop web browsing, 3.5" screens, quad-band HSDPA connections, push e-mail and open mobile platforms, maybe it's time to move the Sidekick brand forward?
To clarify: I understand T-Mobile USA and the Sidekick line are value lines. But I pointed out all that to demonstrate all the changes since 2002. There's also the problem of RIM, which provides good smartphones in the same price segment ($0-200) - and there's no saying Blackberries can't be cool too. The exchangeable covers go a long way to differentiate the Sidekick - but I think to survive, the Sidekick needs a fundamental re-thinking.
I am not disputing the rest of your post, but the sidekick line, which runs the danger os, does have push e-mail.
Now how come you didnt indepth review this phone, but you did with another phone with an 'i' in front?
Soooo...maybe I am completely missing something here, but is the printing on the sides of the screen upside down or are the talk and hang up buttons on the top of the phone? :)
They're oriented correctly.
It looks like one of those things that you use to measure your shoe size.
WQVGA sucks. To get 80 characters in fixed type font on screen you need a minimum pixel width of 640 (so you can guarantee 8 pixel width per character). Even 40 years ago .. computers displays tried to show 80 characters by 24 lines on their displays.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/FortranCodingForm.png
Seriously though 640 pixel width is when web pages like ny times etc. can be viewed zoomed out and still be readable.
Computers 40 years ago had 2-inch portable screens?
Let's buy a phone cuz the world's greatest marketing machine tells us it's the one to have, that's a good idea!
It's good for the little kids who wants to have a clunky, transformer type looking device to play with. They can text message all day long while sitting next to each other during lunch breaks.
Technically, the LX has nothing better. Even though the LX has an update currently being rolled out that adds bluetooth functionality and video, along with other small things, this one has basically all the same features, an exhangable covering and a better camera. So yeah, this one is better.
They said that their aim is to keep the LX as their "luxury line"...so I'm betting the LX will get an update too! Well, at least I hope for t-mobile's sake...
Now, why can't they rollout those same functionality updates to the iPhone again??
Sidekick hasgood ergonomics, but features suck!!
I hate my Sidekick 3.. But I love it too.. It texts really well.. Can I put a custom ring on anything? NO.. Can I put a picture for caller Id ? NO My nokia 5300 did WAAAYY more then the 3.. Plus It doesn't have a calculator?? WOW.. COOL... I hope the new Sidekick has worked out all these kinks...
I'm going to venture a guess: you don't own a sidekick 3.
I do.
Yes, you can put a picture for "caller" ID.
Yes, you can download a calculator for free.
If you own one, you must be a damn fool!
It's not nice to talk to yourself like that Erik...
I don't think the Sidekick is competing with other smart phones, even though it could easily have. If the BlackBerry and Sidekick had a little mingle and sprouted kids, that'll be something grown men (or just me) would go for.
Do you add the shells on top of this or is that the stock shell? Why isn't that Sidekick naked?
No 3G...No deal...period!
3G/iPhone is a rip off... gotta buy it at apple store that cost 200/ pay 30 bucks for the phone each month? wtf... Then you got a plan with your family 69.99... wow How much did i jst spend? 2 year contact too and 2nd year no warranty or anything so if you screw it up then your jst screwed.. Go straight to trash and say bye bye =x
hms t-moblie sk is good but they should upgrade it better to the technology today... should have at least 3 megapic camera... At Least touching screen and something to save battery for the sidekick so battery last longer... My sk 3 never last more than 10-14 hours..and what happens if you forget to charge... my LX doesnt last more than 1 day and like a few hours... What am i suppose to do? Carry a charger?
I've been waiting for this, but only because T-Mobile's Sidekick Data plan is the cheapest way to get a mostly-data-with-ability-to-make-calls-without-a-voice-plan solution. $30 a month and I don't have to tack on another $30 for 200 voice minutes I won't use.
I have the Sidekick iD and I love it.!!! Exceptfor the fact that when I send text I have to wait for it to finish sending before I can start to write the next one. Why can't the at least let me write it and send it once the other one is done sending kinda like you can click print on a computer 20 times and they just wait in line to be printed. I would eget this phone because it smaler than the iD but I want it on prepaid... =(
P.S. I have a camera and an iPod so I don't need to have a high rez camera and super speakers for music.
Also check out the full review at www.squidoo.com/sidekick
Why is everyone so uptight about 3G?
From everything I have read it sucks down the battery faster than Wi-Fi, but doesn't have the speed or reliability of Wi-Fi.
Screw 3G, I get my data free and faster through Wi-Fi.
If you honestly don't understand why people would want fast data speeds when they're not in the range of a WiFi hot spot, then I'm not sure how I could possibly explain it to you.
To be honest I'm really not impressed by this. It would be great for teenage girls who have nothing better to do than to take pictures of one another and text until their thumbs fall off but for those of us in the world who don't have such a need for a grandiose system like this, it's worthless.
Really? Little girls? Just because it's targeted at a younger audience doesn't mean it's a poor phone.
I have an SK3 and it's fucking awesome. Edge is plenty fast and I guarantee that with the SK's awesome keyboard I can text faster than 90% of the people on engadget.
The custom shells for this phone are just the icing on the cake. Can't wait to pick this up :)
Well, I'm not a giggly little gal, and I think this phone looks awesome. It doesn't try to look too sleek, like every other phone company these days. If it manages to have a good web browser and play multimedia, I may just scoop one of these up.
I'm dying to know:
* How's the battery life
* How's the speaker
* How's the vibrate
These are the things that have varied between versions of the sidekick and I would be worried about them if I decide to get this.
I'd also like to know if there's an even better one just around the corner. I know this one's kind of a cost-reduced sidekick lx, so I'm wondering if I should hold out for one in, say, October?
its so funny to see everyone call everything an frikkin ipod/i-phone ripoff
Just for the record, my wife bought one of these yesterday ($299.99 without a contract extension) to replace her aging Sidekick iD, and the system software refers to itself as "Sidekick 2008" in all on-screen menus and dialog boxes.
So it looks like the marketting department is calling it "Sidekick", but the genuine name of the device is "Sidekick 2008".
In addition, the phone is actually pretty awesome. It's no smart phone, but it is a huge improvement over the iD. The camera is high quality, the web browser is much snappier than the iD's, the screen is beautiful, the bluetooth works like a champ, the phone itself is significantly smaller (roughly the same size as my 60gig 5G ipod but a little longer), and the mp3 player software is pretty darn good. It comes with a 512mb microSD card, but it's SDHC compatible so $40 on Newegg will expand it to 8gb.
I haven't had a chance to test the battery life yet, but it seems pretty decent so far.
dude your fucken annoying. shut the hell up. you hhave that much time to spare that you just HAVE to come here and talk shit about a fucking CELL PHONE? come on people. grow up. Do you really think your hurting anyones feelings by saying "sidekicks suck"? i dont give a fuck what you think about our choice of phone, it is, afterall, OUR choice. And we made it, and you made yours. If you dont like it dont come to this site. Get the hell over your selves and your lame personalities.
OH! ive got a good idea of something better you could do with your time!
go put a dick in your mouth.