T-Mobile Sidekick Reviewed

I'm nothing if not a toy junky, and when Danger sent me at long last, a review unit of their excellent little HoTop PDA/Cellphone, now known as the T-Mobile Sidekick. I jumped at the chance to get into the thing and get my opinions out there.

First up, lets talk about the form factor. This unit is much more comparable in size to my Nokia 5560 than a Palm 5 or Clie. About the same length,a little thicker, and maybe half again the width. You'll find it a little thicker than a Palm 5, but also a bit narrower. What really makes the unit stand out is that its screen does this sweet little flip thing to reveal a thumb keyboard that is actually usable.

The interface is usually a little wheel (which can be clicked as a button as well), a 'Back' button, a jump button, and a menu button. When the screen is flipped out, you have a keyboard as well. The interface largely revolves around a sort of spinning menu which quickly rotates to select your application (Calandering, Photos, Phone Calls, etc). It's surprisingly usable, but I did notice a few glitches- for example when trying to mail a picture, I couldn't return and send the picture... I ended up having to actually go to the pictures, and choose mail picture instead of writing an email and attaching it there.

I might as well mention it: the little $30 camera attachment is just a novelty. Its postage stamp sized pictures are amusing, but practically worthless. Thats probably fine with just 16 megs of memory on board anyway- you wouldn't have room to store a nice 1024x768 image anyway... I think it was more proof-of-concept in this model. And the concept works, so with any luck, a year or 2 will give us a HipTop with more memory and higher res.

The screen itself warrants mention. First off, it is a 16 scale of grey, backlit job that really looks quite stunning. Without going to a color screen, this is quite simply the nicest looking screen I've seen on a handheld.

I found the cel phone functionality to be quite usable. Rings have custom tones, and the sound is that multichannel stuff that sounds really silly thats all the rage with the kids these days. You can use an external ear thingee, or use it in the standard carcinogen position. Reception was fine, but may vary for you depending on how good the GSM network is in your area.

The web browser was also surprisingly functional. Typing in URLs on the built in keyboard is quite quick. Far faster than any graffiti handwriting recognition crap. It rendered the pages I looked at without trouble, although big graphics are quite slow, and requires some scrolling. Slashdot in light mode worked fine.

The PDA functionality is good. Contacts are interconnected with the cell phone functionality. You can use the calandering and TODO tools to keep track of schedules.

The unit also supports POP mail servers. This worked without hitch and was quite nifty. IMAP support would be nicer, but I suspect that it would be horribly slow over the phone's internet connection. There also is IM functionality, but no IRC.

There are a few nifty little games you can play as well. The form factor of the device is fairly similiar to a Gameboy Advanced, and when held in that position, makes a reasonable gaming platform.

Danger says that the phone can auto update itself as new features and bug fixes become available, so hopefully new and exciting features will roll out pleasing users with improved user interface.

Battery life is claimed to be 8 hours in use. I never managed to drain it, although I left it on quite a bit. But its still enough to easily make it through a day or 2 depending on your usage.

The thing to remember is that this thing costs just $200. FOr that you get a fully functional PDA, and Cell phone. You get a good keyboard, a web browser, and a remarkably bright screen. It's a little larger than a cell phone, a little smaller than a PDA. All in all, this is a great combination and one thats easy to recommend, especially at this price. If you have GSM network support in your area, this warrants a serious look. If the next generation adds a color screen, IRC, IMAP support, and maybe shrunk things just a little bit, I think this could truly have the integrated cellphone/pda I've been waiting for. Now if it just had 20 gigs of memory, we'd be all set. Course my fingers aren't crossed.

Buy a treo instead

[Mastedon]

My handspring treo kicks ass. Best form factor out there, palmOS, color. Choice of tmobile, cingular, or sprintpcs as carrier.

I highly recommend it for anybody looking to consolidate pda and cell phone.

Does it do ssh?

[geekd]

My main use for "internet anywhere" would be ssh. I am on call 1 week out of 6, and if there's a problem, I need to log into the server(s) affected and fix it.

Plus, with a remote term, you can basically do anything a unix box can do.

Anybody know if it can do ssh?

For $200, I'd definitly pick one up if it can.

Something to note...

[FortKnox]

First of all Circuit City has a $100 rebate on it atm, but something to note:

After 1 year, the 'unlimited internet' becomes something like $30 for 15MB a month. Good luck breaking your browsing habits after a year.

water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

[dubiousmike]

How come Sprint takes so long for cool phones that support their technology to come out?

I know they do eventually, but it sucks to be the last in line for *drool* phones. All of their new ones, I find pretty useless. Great - I can take a picture with a Sprint phone, but can ONLY send it to another Sprint user with one of the newest phones.

Bleh!

web development for handhelds

[X_Caffeine]

If T-Mobile wants their built-in web browser to be useful, they're going to have to provide some way for web developers to test out their pages on the devices. A few emulators for non-computer browsers exist (WebTV springs to mind), but not nearly enough.

T-Mobile (and Handspring, and Palm, and Nokia, and...) need to get cracking. And developers need to start taking CSS-driven design (with separate stylesheets for SCREEN, PDA, PRINTER, TV etc.) seriously.

Or a Kyocera 6035

[Andy Dodd]

A lot of people think the Kyo 6035 has an even better form factor - You can't dial on the Treo or use it as a phone without lifting the flip, wherease the 6035's keypad is externally accessible and there is no need to open up the phone to use the phone features. PalmOS based just like the Treos, and since it has a greyscale screen it has excellent battery life. (Many of the people on the Smartphone Source boards only put their phone on the charger once a week or so... *8 hours* of battery life for this Danger piece of crap? You have to be kidding me.)

As to the data charges one of the people who replied to the parent commented on: I use Verizon's Mobile Office service, which gives me free "dialup" internet access. The only thing I pay for are my minutes, which are billed the same as voice.

For those who have a 6035 with Verizon: Ditch Mobile Web, just set up a connection with #777 as the number and qnc/qnc as the user/password. (Note: This also works if you're using a Verizon phone with a serial cable as a modem for another PDA or laptop.)

If you absolutely need a color screen, get a Treo (and deal with Sprint's bad coverage) or wait for the Kyocera 7135, due out either this month or next. The 7135 has:
16M RAM
PalmOS 4.1
SD memory slot
Built-in MP3 capability (Including MP3 ringers)
2.5G Sprint Vision/Verizon Express Network capable
Reflective color LCD screen

Unfortunately it's a StarTac-style flip phone. :(

Bandwidth pricing

[sheddd]

I almost ordered a T-Mobile PocketPC a couple weeks ago until I figured out what bandwidth costs. They want $20/month for 10MB transfer. Ouch. The voice capability probably sucks 64KB/sec so if you look at it a certain way,

10,485,760B (10MB) = 65536B (64KB)*seconds
Seconds = 160!

So I can get 300 or so minutes per month @ $20/month but $20 only buys me 1 minute 40 seconds of data transfer. Damn they're trying to stick it to the early adopters!

I just bought one last night!

[GuNgA-DiN]

Now I have to wait for 3 painfully slow days before I get it in the mail. :-(

I've heard nothing but good things about these units. My two biggest questions for the sales person were this:

1) Does it use a standard 2.5 mm jack that most other cellphones use for the headset?

2) Does it come with (or can I buy) a desktop charger?

She didn't know the answer to number 1 and the answer to number two is "not yet". It comes with a travel-type power supply. But, there was not a nice desktop stand unit available yet.

I can't WAIT to check this thing out! The price is right and the features are great! Why hasn't anyone else been able to come up with one of these before?

One thing that should be noted -- The $39.95/mo. unlimited data rate is only good for one year! After that it becomes $39.95/mo. for 15 MB of transfer and $3.50 / Mb after that.

I got one

[wizarddc]

I have a danger hiptop/sidekick. I got it because I wanted a pda with a keyboard. That could do web and email. But the big selling point for me was integrated AIM. Plus unlimited data. So far, the battery ran good for about 20 hours, which is plenty. Plus, you have to factor in new factor, where I'm playing with it everywhere, not just when I need it.

Don't know what it is, but I really don't like the palms. I don't want a touch pad, or handwriting anythng. The keyboard on this thing rocks. Plus the scroll wheel does everything you need it to, and it's relatively quick at doing it.

I haven't gotten into the to do/calendar/PIM stuff yet, but I'm not sure Ill use those excessively. Although the contact manager just makes sense, and makes speed dialing really easy.

I'm giving my own +1 Wicked moderation to this cool little device.

Btw, you can see some of the pics I took with this thing on www.hiptop411.com [hiptop411.com]. I'm MediumDave on there, and yes, that is my dog ;)

Re:Or a Kyocera 6035

[Sparks23]

Actually, I'm a 6035 user, and I want the 7135. Not for the color or anything else, though I admit the MP3 ringers would be amusing...but Packet, my 6035, is just too darn BIG. I miss my little StarTAC; I got the 6035 because my StarTAC met an untimely accident involving a cement parking lot and a heavy vehicle and was rather unsavable...the 6035 was inexpensive for me because it I was eligible for upgrade, and I liked the idea of being able to hotsync my phone list.

However, I do remember now why I stopped carrying around my Visor in the first place; the Palm's form-factor is just too big to fit easily in a jacket pocket or something, and I don't want to always carry my purse. If the 7135 folds up and fits in the pocket of my windbreaker, then I'll definitely be picking it up.

Other than the size issue, the 6035 is a wonderful phone; I love the ease of use of Eudora to check e-mail and SMS is much saner. It also has, amazingly, the best speakerphone of any cellular phone I've ever seen; when home, I leave the 6035 in the hotsync cradle by my computer (to keep AvantGo fairly up-to-date) and if someone calls I can just use it in speakerphone mode. Also very handy when left on hold. ;)

If the 6035 (and Verizon) just supported GPRS, it'd be perfect. I would love to be able to have an instant messenger open without having to be dialed into Verizon's #777 PPP service...