T-Mobile Sidekick 4G user reviews (pearl magenta)

Pros The slide out QWERTY keyboard is awesome. Don't like Touch screen typing and texting.
Has excellent video playback. Also has 98% the apps that you get/want with IPhone.
Has cursor ball that helps with Apps and accessing phone numbers & links

Cons Mostly quirks in Android/Samsung Programming
Phone will dim display to minimum by itself randomly even though Auto Brightness setting is checked.
Phone can reboot itself at inconvenient times including phone calls.
Gallery & GPS freeze up the phone

Summary I had a G2 phone as a first smart phone and the Sidekick was my choice because of the slideout QWERTY keyboard. Basically I wanted a texting & internet computer that happen to make phone calls. This does great things. I can use the 4G as a hotspot tethering for a laptop, I can use a superior Wireless signal for the internet if its better than my phone provider with the antenae of the phone. The Apps are amazing for dieting and eating and music and games. Growing up as a child in the 70's with Atari Combat and Pong and watches that had Pacman, it is truly amazing what these Smartphones can do. The Sidekick allows you to listen to music, view movies and tv, text and even write longer emails if you don't mind typing with little tiny keys. The characters on the keyboard have their own button & do not share with other characters.
I would call the difficulties with this phone mostly irking annoyances. The phone will reboot itself and freeze up at inconvenient times but no consistency. Sometimes once every two days and sometimes once a month.
I have seen the phone think for itself. It will randomly turn off the Auto Brightness settings on the phones and dim itself to almost unviewable brightness. This occurs as often when the phone is fully charged as it does when it is low on energy. It does this sometimes 1-2 times a week, sometimes 1 time a month or less.
The really awesome mapping capability will freeze up the phone at times but I blame the app makers for this. Google Maps is incredibly useful with a smartphone. It allows Routing of multiple stops, and choice of restaurants. IT allows access to reader reviews of restaurants posted on Google and this part of the function of the GPS on the phone. It seems to me that the google maps Application designers are too busy trying to outsmart themselves. The Google Maps of 4 years ago worked better and more consistent on my lower capability/memory G2 than did my Sidekick. Leave well enough alone please.
The gallery function on the phone operates very up and down on reliability. The bad part about the Gallery is that the phone will reboot. I believe it might be mostly a memory storage issue, as this is more common when more photos are held, but this rebooting/freezing issue happened when it had very few photos when it was new.

The touchscreen will sometimes freeze up after 2 minutes and you are forced to dim the screen and then relite the screen to get the touch screen to re-engage.

The Battery has about 5-6 hours of high use and about 12-24 hours with smaller use. I have noticed the battery life starting to diminish at 1 year. This is typical for most Cellphones I have found.

Overall it is a poorman's IPhone, and an excellent value. If you like type on a keyboard, play games, surf the net, and use it as a phone, this is a great phone. I find it functional with the touch screen but I am mouse, keyboard guy. The phone has a ball-cursor that operates like a mouse on a desktop/laptop. There are times that its ability to act like a stupidphone drives me crazy, but for the most part, I love the phone and the features and all the apps.

Some of the functions of Android phones that I love..... with the Calorie Counter App, you can scan the bar code of a food or drink product with your camera phone and it will access a data base and upload all of the nutritional info or lack there of. You then have the option of adding this to log a of your food and calorie intake.

The Shazaam app allows you to listen to music in a store, restaurant, car, house and it will tell you the name of the song, and link you to Amazon, Youtube and many other places on the net and also the artist info.

It also has an app that allows you to scan the barcode of a product in the store with your camera phone and it will tell you the other stores in the area that are selling the product and how much they are selling it.

It also has a front camera that allows skype and the keyboard is skype friendly.

Pros speed .. internet and the camera phone as well as the contact info to dial feature.

Cons the battery life

Pros Physical Keyboard, Messaging features, solid construction.

Cons Slow phone after about a month of use, resets constantly.

Summary I've had this phone almost for as long as the phone has been out, and....I don't hate it, but I don't exactly like it. At all. When I use task manager to check my ram usage, I almost always have hardly any RAM at all, even if I've closed out of every application possible to close out of. It's also painfully slow. I often end up just canceling out of whatever program I'm working on and either giving up on it or using my iPod Touch to complete the task.

Now, I mainly just use the phone for messaging and browsing Youtube. Almost every other application just ends up with me closing it in annoyance.

The messaging part of the phone is extremely nice, and I like it a lot. Sadly though, it resets itself constantly, and sometimes just reboots the phone too. With the 2.2.1(?) update, most of the hard reboot problems were fixed, but many applications just randomly close, or register something completely different from what you're trying to do.

In short, if you have choice, and you want an Android, try saving up maybe $50 more for a better phone. You won't regret your choice.

Pros nice screen, good apps, when they work, nice keyboard, etc.

Cons --phone/OS is buggy--it even re-booted itself WHILE I was talking with T-Mobile customer service about all this just yesterday
--too darn many buttons--you hand the phone to someone & they accidentally press one of the six or so physical buttons on th

Summary I am a big Apple fan, but I don't use an iPhone, primarily because I want/need a physical keyboard to type fast enough. I have used a Blackberry for years as a result. My latest Blackberry (Bold) started driving me nuts when it upgraded to System 6, b/c that system is a little too "fluid" for a non-touch-screen device (emails scroll off-screen a bit uncontrollably), and it also had battery/dying issues. So, I thought I'd try something new. I know the Sidekick is aimed at "hipsters who want to always be in touch," but it seemed to be what I wanted: effectively an "iPhone with a keyboard" (yes, an Android-based phone, but iPhone-like compared to a BlackBerry). Today, I'm bringing the Sidekick back to the T-Mobile store under the buyer's remorse program. Here's why.

--phone/OS is buggy--it even re-booted itself WHILE I was talking with T-Mobile customer service about all this just yesterday
--too darn many buttons--you hand the phone to someone & they accidentally press one of the six or so physical buttons on the phone & completely mess up what you were trying to show them (Same can happen to an experienced user if you're not super-careful.)
--battery life seems awful/charge lasts less than a day, with just casual use--people at the store suggested plugging the phone in multiple times per day, but that's not practical in my life
--most programs default to light text on dark background, which is unreadable in sunlight. I downloaded other email programs which are more configurable, but still are buggy. (For example, Mail Droid on Sidekick shows light blue text on a white background in "light" theme in the settings screen, making it unusable w/o constantly switching from light to dark to go between using the app & setting it up!)

All that said, if these negatives hadn't so gotten in the way--the rest of the phone is lovely (nice screen, good apps, when they work, nice keyboard, etc.)

Now, I'll use the BlackBerry again for a bit, but if it goes back to mis-behaving, I'm going to have to leave T-Mobile for AT&T & get an iPhone. I can get the tiny bluetooth keyboard case to go with it if need be. (I won't go to Verizon b/c I need decent service in Europe, which is why I've stuck w/T-Mobile for so long!) Sorry!