T-Mobile Sidekick Slide

Pros: Great form, smallest sidekick yet, cool disco light, very attractive. Support from T-Mobile has been fabulous.

Cons: "Nag screen" if you don't subscribe to web services, memory slot behind battery is bigger problem than I anticipated.

Summary: I was looking for a cool phone with decent camera and full thumb pad for text messaging. Sidekick Slide had those features and much more. Liked the look and solid feel of Slide, never liked the 'swivel' sidekicks in the store.

I soon learned this device has some quirks for non-web/data subscribers. First problem: upon startup the device waits indefinitely at a screen that says "activating account, please wait up to 48 hours...". What it ought to mention is "type 'MENU+L' to bypass web activation." You must hit MENU+L every time you recharge or turn off the phone (unless you subscribe to web/data). That's just a minor annoyance.

The device comes with a pretty good 1.3 MP camera, but only holds 4 pictures unless you insert a memory card. I had read in other reviews that the memory card was "inconveniently located behind the battery." What they don't say is the onboard memory in your device is ERASED when you remove the battery. Goodbye address book, photos, calendar, etc.--all will be wiped clean every time you do this.

In their defence I imagine most gadget reviewers test phones with all the bells and whistles enabled, and thus would never find these limitations.

Why didn't the manual mention this? As the first phone tech explained to me, the device is geared toward the web-users, at the expense of non-web subscribers. While web subscribers' address books and photos are backed up on T-Mobile servers, non-web users have to learn the hard way to manually copy addresses to their SIM card.

If you install expansion memory before your first use and you subscribe to the full web services you will love this phone. Even without web it's a good phone, but hopefully this CNET user review can help you avoid some suffering.

Last word: T-Mobile customer support has been fabulous. Short wait times, techs always have the answer. Clearly the company has a great support database and the techs have decent English skills. A+ service.