T-Mobile Sidekick

Pros: Instant Messaging. changeable faceplates, free themes from sklxthemes.com, flip screen.

Cons: Awful phone/call quality, annoying: chirps, hums, buzzes, and sounds, HORRIBLE issues with menu structure: LAGGY, not loud enough, and finally, the biggest peeve of them ALL the DROPPED CALLS, all the TIME, every time. "real" internet experience.

Summary: I'm not one of those people who rates a phone low, and comes on cnet to vent my frustration. However, this is a negative review, because, I have had a really bad time with this phone. Here are the cons first.

Phone makers need to start putting more attention on the PHONE. If it can't place a call, why are we calling it a phone? I do not understand this. This phone has to be the worst I've ever had. I know it is not T-Mobile because I've had two VERY good phones from T-Mobile and with those two phones I had a signal where the Sidekick does not. My previous phone was the Nokia 5300 express music, and it was a dream, but I had to go and break it, and now I have this. It makes me want to go and buy everyone I know walkie talkies from a Toys-R-Us because I know for a fact the sound quality would not only be better, but LOUDER. I hate the dropped calls. You don't even know it happens until the sidekick plays a stupid BEEP BEEP in your ear 2mins after the call was dropped! HORRIBLE!

Next, we will discuss the laggy menus. At first, I thought this problem was due to the uploaded themes had I loaded on the phone from sklxthemes.com, but I removed these themes and had similar promblems: Slow menus, White or blank screen, Screen turned off, but phone was still on, or just REALLY slow menus in general.

Next Issue, claims to be a music phone. Not loud enough, not loud during calls, not loud while playing music, tinny sound. Awful.

Next issue, the web browser. Why am I paying for the service if it has restricted sites? The sites that I try to access, that are restricted, AREN'T EVEN ILLEGAL OR CONTAINING QUESTIONABLE MATERIAL IN NATURE. One was a health foods site that was restricted, the other was CNET!! Horrible. If you DO get something to load it looks HORRIBLE, in BOTH web layout view ( "real" web browser view) or screen sized view.

Final issue; myspace mobile. DO NOT DOWNLOAD. Waste of money, it has NOTHING to offer you that myspace.com doesn't. Just enter m.myspace.com in the sidekick's horrible web browser and there you go. same thing, and you don't have to pay extra for it.

Pros of the sidekick:

Weather Underground, paid app, 1.99 a month, and totally worth it if your into the weather.

Organizer. Works fairly well for my needs, liked it.

Faceplates. Very cool idea, missing MANY options in the stores though.

Sklxthemes.com, LOVE this site, awesome themes for free!

The flip screen, I love it. period.



****KEEP IN MIND: I haven't dropped this phone in a way to cause damage. I dropped it once on a mattress, at like a 3ft drop, and that's it. Otherwise, no harm has come to my phone, and this is the experience I've had with it, do yourself a favor and get the new Nokia 5610, or if you need bells and whistles, get the google G1. I, however, am done with these "do it all phones" because they don't EVER get the phone part right. The ONLY way I will get another do-it-all is if I can some how afford the iPhone. In the mean time, I'm going to go pick up the 5610. Toodles!****************