This may have appeared in Valley Scene Magazine, but I don't remember.
Friday, March 28, 2003
The T-Mobile Sidekick
Out of respect for your cel phone's feelings, please place it in your pocket or purse while reading this review. I wouldn't want it to die from shame.
It's not that your current phone isn't terrific; I'm sure you find it useful. But when you get your hands on the Sidekick from T-Mobile, well, there's just no comparison. You'll never use a regular cel phone again.
T-Mobile (and the hardware designers at a little company called Danger) have created a truly all-encompassing personal digital assistant. The Sidekick has a beautiful greyscale screen which it uses to bring you email, AOL Instant Messenger, and the entire internet, via the world-wide web. It also contains a calendar, a notepad, a to-do list, assorted video games, an address book, and oh yeah, it's also a phone.
That's a lot of features, so let's take them one at a time. I'll begin with the least attractive of the lot, the actual phone itself. Not that it's a bad phone; on the contrary, it's pretty good. The speaker gives halfway decent sound and the hands-free headset makes it easy to use the rest of the features while simultaneously on a call. And let me tell you, this comes in super-handy when you need to get directions from someone, or when you call your mom to get a recipe for baked spaghetti.
Which brings us to the notepad and, more importantly, the Sidekick's keyboard. Flipping the screen up (which in itself is worth the price of admission) reveals the approximately 45 keys, laid out perfectly for your thumbs. After a bit of practice, I was able to increase my typing speed to about thirty words a minute. This isn't bad, and it certainly kicks ass over typing on a traditional cel phone.
While I do spend some of my time using the notepad (for creating shopping lists or taking notes while on the phone with my editor), most of the thumb-typing that I do is spent chatting with my sister and brother over AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Having AIM on the road makes it so much easier to keep in touch with my family, especially during an otherwise boring wait on line at the grocery store or the bank. It also makes it fun to chat with my sibs while shopping for a present for my folks. Instant Messaging even lets me do the play-by-play while watching my kids play soccer (My parents love this feature the most).
The most often used feature on my Sidekick has got to be browsing the internet. I surf the 'Net from my Sidekick every day, sometimes all day (if I'm on the road, or in a new city, or just plain bored). And let me tell you, it is a handy little sucker to have.
For example, let's say I'm in Hollywood Video, browsing the DVDs, and I chance upon a film I am unfamiliar with, "Badlands", starring Martin Sheen. Normally this would turn into a crap shoot, except for my Sidekick. I just switch over to the web browser, go to www.imdb.com (The Internet Movie Database for those not in the know) and look up the film. Right at the top I see that out of 2,726 people, the average rating for "Badlands" was about 7.7 (which is a great rating). Now I know that it is safe to rent the film.
Here's a better example: I'm on the road and I get lost. No problem for my Sidekick. I simply log on to maps.yahoo.com and enter in my present location. Bam! Now I'm looking at a map of the area, and with a few keystrokes I am getting directions to where I want to go. Perfect!
And the screen, which displays 16 shades of gray, is the best I've seen on any pda, giving my eyes little strain both day and night. It easily handles the fine detailing from online maps as well as photographs from news agencies such as cnn.com.
I've examined a wide range of color screens on phones and pda's and they all work fine, except when exposed to direct sunlight. None of them handle glare even remotely well. T-Mobile's Sidekick has no problem with glare, even under the harshest of conditions.
Folks, this is the wave of the future. Soon everyone will have a wireless internet communicator with a keyboard and screen. Will they all be like the Sidekick? One can only hope.
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