T-Mobile Sidekick LX user reviews (carbon)

Pros amazing screen; thinnest Sidekick yet; 3G

Cons battery life is worse of all Sidekicks; GPS isn't that great

Summary I've been a Sidekick owner since 2003. I've had the 1, 2, and 3, but I never bought the LX 2008 or Sidekick 2008. For me, I didn't see a big enough improvement over the Sidekick 3 to warrant a $100+ upgrade. However, the LX 2009 is a different story.
Without a question this is the best Sidekick to date. It's amazingly thin (for a Sidekick), the screen is beautiful, and best of all it's finally on the 3G network. I live in Sacramento, so every where I go it's using 3G. The web browsing is much faster than it was on my Sidekick 3. Calls are much, much clearer also.
I've heard that it has flash, but I don't think it does. The only videos that are able to play on it are Youtube videos. Nothing else will work. The video quality is not great, but I have seen worse. On 3G, they load surprisingly fast. Also, videos are not shown in widescreen, they are in 4:3 format. Which is quite odd.
It has a "better" web browser. You can view sites in almost full HTML mode, which I actually think makes it harder to navigate because you have to scroll right and left also. It can be switched off, and sites can be viewed in the mobile mode that Sidekicks users are use too. Web browsing is much, much faster. At least for me because I'm using 3G. Another nice new feature is that you can now copy pictures from sites and save them to your phone.
It has an upgraded camera, now 3.2 megapixels, and also records video. I never use either feature because 1) not important to me and 2) quality, although the best so far of the Sidekicks, still isn't that great.
It also has free apps for Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. I don't know how they work because I hate all of them. Just thought I'd mention it.
Now the cons. It has GPS, which uses Microsoft Live Serach. For being a free app, it's good. But compared to other smartphones that have GPS subscription services, it's terrible. It's slow, and it drains the battery extremely quick. The battery life is already bad on the phone. GPS is okay if you want to find a Jack In The Box nearby, and stuff to that nature.
The only other complaint I have, that I have never seen mentioned, is that it barely has any apps available for download. There are 11 total apps available, and that's including the free calculator. I had a few apps I purchased on my Sidekick 3, and was hoping I could buy them again for this phone (apps are not transferable when you upgrade phones... all the stuff that's free, like your address book and emails, transfers to the new phone, but the stuff you paid for doesn't, how thoughtful). I open the Download Catalog on my new LX 2009, and I don't see them there, I only see 11 apps, of course none of which were the ones had. I called T-Mobile and they said "Well if you don't see the apps, you can't get them. New apps are available all the time." So I can't get the apps that I had on my Sidekick 3 on my LX 2009. My Sidekick 3 had, damn, at least 30 apps available, and my LX 2009 has 11. Maybe, eventually, I will be able to get the apps I had on my old Sidekick on my new one, but not for now.
In the end, if you've never owned a Sidekick, now is the time to own one. Even if yor are a current Sidekick owner, now is the best time to upgrade because it actually has a lot more features than the other Sidekicks. This upgrade is worth the money. However, I still don't think it's a true smartphone. There are a lot better phones out there that do much more things than the Sidekick, I love the HTC Touch, but I've been a Sidekick owner/fan since 2003, and that swivel screen still gets me every time!

Updated on May 21, 2009

My bad, I meant to put 3.5 stars, not 4.