you're right. the original demographic of the sidekick was the Deaf community (btw Deaf people don't like to be called "hearing impaired"). They were doing two-way texting YEARS before the hearing world caught on. The Sidekick enabled the Deaf community to communicate much more effectively than the old two way pagers. The sidekick not only provides real EMAIL on the phone (no character limitations), it also provides Deaf people a way to have their TTY phone access on the go. The other area that Deaf people are way ahead of the hearing world is video phones. They all have them now and rarely use TTY anymore. Video phones allows them to call each other directly and talk face to face.... Just a little Deaf education...

It depends on who you talk to. I upgraded to a sidekick 3 in June of 2006. It's "supposed" to be 22 months before you get a discount to upgrade. I called twice hoping that I could talk them into a discount so I could get the LX. Both people said no. I finally decided to just do it anyway, but had trouble with the online upgrade. So I called to have them help me upgrade and the guy I got that time got me a $50 discount and a $50 rebate (making the phone $299 instead of $399). So, they CAN give you a discount...tell them to check with their supervisor.

Also, if you are thinking of upgrading, it's good to do it when the new version first comes out because then you can sell your older model for more money...I'll be putting my sidekick 3 on craigslist and should be able to get about half the cost of my new sidekick back...