T-Mobile Sidekick user reviews

Pros Sidekick 08 features one of the best QWERTY keyboards, features a basic black design that can be customized with swappable shells,Sidekick 08 includes a 2-megapixel camera

Cons It doesn't support any 3G networks or Wi-Fi,

Summary Sidekick 08 is a solid option for many users--as long as they're not all about business.

Pros I loved the sidekick and it's internet capabilities which was why I bought it in the first place, at first, it was a useful device with organizer, IM apps, and texting features

Cons Within 20 minutes of talking on the phone, the battery is drained and is always indicated by the annoying "wheel of Furtune" like tone you are most likely to hear when the wheel hits $0 dollars instead of the grand prize of $50,000

Summary OVerall by dec, i'll have the MY touch, this phone is epic fail to the core

Pros has a spacious keyboard and a unique design.

Cons everything else

Summary This is hands down the worst phone I've ever had. It's probably the worst phone ever created as well. I've brought this phone into the store four times because the phone shows a graphic of the sidekick with x's over its eyes. Then it randomly turns off and then doesn't turn back on. The first time it turned off the store replaced it with a refurbished version. The next two times were simple battery replacements. Finally during my latest visit, they gave me an excuse that said the sidekick system was down. I didn't believe any of that. I wanna run this phone over with a car.

Pros Decent speed browser, keyboard layout, Quick Find feature, pretty good call quality, picks up reception where both of my Samsungs didn't, good camera, multimedia messaging is pretty fast

Cons Reboots and freezes a lot, deletes things sometimes, "Sad Sidekick" (somewhat akin to "Sad Mac") pops up every so often, lags on power-up, drops web browser connection a lot

Summary As stated in the topic, the Sidekick isn't a spectacular phone, but it is definitely the best phone that I have ever had. While, of course, it isn't going to be able to hold its own against smartphone behemoths such as the iPhone or the Blackberry line, it is a great phone for teenagers and young adults who want the "all-in-one" experience, but not necessarily the hefty pricetag that these phones typically carry.

The Sidekick 2008 is routinely bemoaned for still being on the EDGE network (though I hear that this is rectified for the new Sidekick LX), but I find that, for my purposes, the EDGE network is just fine. Google loads in mere seconds, while more graphics-intensive websites take around 2-3 minutes to load--which, for me, is not a terribly long wait. I can read most webcomics (Questionable Content comes to mind) on the Sidekick with >60-second load times, and the quality is not compromised at all.

The main problem I have with my Sidekick is due to the fact that I travel to Canada quite frequently (Vancouver, BC, specifically). My 'Kick always works fine while in Canada, but when coming back over the border, the switch from the Canadian Rogers Wireless back to the American T-Mobile really has an adverse effect on it. The phone freezes up, displays "Sad Sidekick", and then goes into a state where it repeatedly turns itself on and off, never even making it to the splash screen, until I remove the battery, and blow on the connectors (kind of like you have to do for the old NES game cartridges). However, after putting the battery back in and waiting anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes, the phone is in working order again, although it plays a little wonky with the "MyFaves Activity" section. So, it's not exactly the end of the world, but it's a bigger inconvenience than I would like to deal with every time I come back into Washington. However, I doubt that this is a problem with the actual Sidekick line--it might just be a unique problem to my 'Kick.

I personally have no problem with the call quality, on speakerphone or otherwise, and none of the people who I call seem to note any difficulty hearing me while we are speaking. Something I find slightly troublesome, though, is that after about 30 minutes talking on the Sidekick, the phone heats up to the point where it becomes physically uncomfortable to hold, and the battery life indicator becomes a little blinking thermometer. But, as I text and instant message much more than I talk on the phone, this is not a huge problem for me--I am rarely ever on the phone for more than 30 minutes at a time.

The still camera and video camera are fine for my purposes. If I want to take a picture that is meant to look nice or artistic, I prefer to just use my camera, but for quick shots to send to friends (over the incredibly fast multimedia messaging service), the camera in the Sidekick is perfectly good enough. I have never tried sending a video, as I have never recorded anything particularly worth sending to a friend.

I find that the Sidekick lags quite a bit upon power-up, and takes awhile to get all the services working correctly (mainly MyFaves, the download catalogue, and the internet), but, due to this, I typically leave mine on all the time and just put it on silent when I am asleep. This may not be the best practice for a cell phone, but nothing too adverse has come of it so far.

I tried to put music on it a few times, but I got a lot of strange messages popping up (none of which I can seem to remember right now), and then the Sidekick froze until I took the battery out. This is a bad thing, yes, but not a huge problem, as I typically prefer my iPod for media playback, anyway.

The email integration is okay, although I am slightly bemused by the fact that I have two Gmail accounts on there, and if they both get the same email, one seems to receive the email anywhere from six to eight hours after the other one. However, I don't need to be hooked into my email constantly, so this isn't exactly devastating.

All in all, the Sidekick 2008 is definitely the best phone I have ever had, although the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic I once possessed is a close second. The Sidekick, though it does drop my reception fairly often (interestingly, never when I'm on a call, just intermittently at random intervals), manages to get reception where the two Samsung phones I once had could not--for example, my Sidekick works in nearly every room of my school, where both Samsungs and my Nokia only worked in rooms on the top floor. While it is not flawless, it works as well as I need it to, and that is enough for me. Being one myself, I would certainly recommend this phone to cash-conscious teenagers, as not only is it primarily a messaging phone (which is the wave of my generation), but it feels like it was designed with us in mind, and that, I like, because so few consumer electronics seem to carry that consideration.