T-Mobile Sidekick II Phone

74

Good

Avg User Rating
3 User Reviews | add yours »

Pros
Swivel design makes this fun to use
Keyoard is comfortable for typing
Cons
Phone component seems poorly designed

T-Mobile Sidekick II Phone Review

by Grace Aquino

The Sidekick II is an impressive messaging device--and an improvement over its predecessor--but its phone is flawed.

T-Mobile's Sidekick II is fun to use, with a comfortable keyboard and generally swift performance. But this PDA hybrid phone has a few weaknesses, mainly having to do with a poorly designed phone component.

Got a Hot Tip?

Seen news about this product? Send us a link.

Part of the Sidekick II's charm is its quirky design. The screen swivels up, exposing the QWERTY keyboard underneath. The side panels consist of a rubberized cover that makes the device easy to grip. It contains four navigation buttons on each corner of the screen area, for home, menu, close, and enter. A scroll wheel makes it easy--and snappy--to navigate menus icons. Unfortunately, the power button was difficult to press, requiring an emphatic nudge to turn the unit on or off.

The rubbery keyboard was terrific and comfortable to use, even for hours of exchanging instant messages or e-mail missives. The Sidekick supports AOL's instant messaging and e-mail apps, and you can set up Yahoo Messenger, and POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts, too. Browsing the Internet was smooth, though the slow GPRS connection was a drag and the screen could use a higher brightness level. Another pedestrian feature is the VGA (640 by 480) resolution camera, which produced dark and grainy photos.

The unit's phone functionality has improved a bit over its predecessor's: It now has numbers on the keyboard as opposed to only on an on-screen dial pad. But the device is too bulky and feels awkward to hold against your ear. I also found the earpiece volume level too low. In a few of my calls, the incoming and outgoing voice quality sounded fine. But often I couldn't hear callers very well, and they said I sounded far away. Talk-time battery life, on the other hand, was terrific, lasting 9 hours, 27 minutes in our tests.

The Sidekick II is pricey, at $300 (as of April 7, 2006, with a two-year contract). Though I liked the text input capability, I would wait for the price to drop before seriously considering adopting this model as my mobile messaging sidekick.

Grace Aquino

User Reviews for T-Mobile Sidekick II Phone

Reviewed by: diamondnicole

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Easy to use, multi function, web access, love the key board and display

Weaknesses: No Mp3 player but the sidekick 3 is coming soon and it has one. Can't change font size

Overall Evaluation: Granted this review may seem a little late since the sidekick 3 is just around the corner but I saw the low reviews and had to put my 2 cents in. I received this phone last year after my Motorola A630 broke on me like 3 times I told them to send the sidekick or blackberry the rep and I decided on the side kick. I had to laugh when I first got the phone because it did so much but didn't have a calculator or alarm clock. you had to download them which takes away from your 100 available blocks. the calculator is free but time traveler isn't. I LOVE the fact the email accounts are synced too my phone and I can reply to anyone anywhere using my regular account instead of my tmail account and since the sidekick doesn't get viruses i can also recognize a problem email before opening it on my computer. The catalog is very good they are updating it with useful things all the time they even have a study aids section for students. I don't like the fact that I can't really listen to music they way I want but that problem is being fixed. I LOVE the fact that everything (but text messages) is backed up on-line in case anything happens to your phone you can just sign on to your tmobile and have access to your emails, notes, photos. I wish all phones did this. my mother has carpel tunnel and hated trying to respond to us via txt I got her the SKII and you can get a old of my brother and I much easier. he still has the sidekick color. I had to replace my phone once and that was just recently after having it for about a year it was having network communication problems and I was able to get to all my info on-line so it wasn't that bad. I can't wait to get the newest generation of sidekick
Reviewed by: bcoffman

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: looks impressive

Weaknesses: breaks constantly,all data stored on server,longest one worked is 21 days, have had 3, hard to replace

Overall Evaluation: by the time you figure out what garbage this is your 14 days are up and you are stuck with it, buyer beware! this does not do nearly what is promised

See all user reviews

People who looked at the T-Mobile Sidekick II Phone also looked at:

presented by retrevo.com

Latest Phones Playing in PCW Video

Augmented Reality: Coming to a Device Near You We've all seen augmented reality in the movies: A character puts on a pair of glasses and suddenly data about their surroundings appears within their field of vision. Now this technology is available on a device near you.
World Tech Update: CES Preview in NYC, Hacked iPhones, and More... Intel and AMD settle their legal disputes, New York hosts the annual CES preview, iPhones are hacked, and more...
How to Buy a Cell Phone Need a new phone but dread making all those choices? Consumer Affairs Columnist Amber Bouman can help.

More Latest Phones Playing in PCW Video »

Latest Phones News, Reviews, How-To's

Dell Bringing Smartphone to China, Brazil Not wanting to be left behind in the smartphone wars, Dell announced Friday that it was bringing its first-ever smartphone to China Mobile.
AT&T: Ignore Verizon's Ads and Fix Your Own Woes Analysis: Is Verizon pushing the envelope of truthiness with its holiday ads? Sure -- but AT&T should worry more about its own abysmal coverage, not the competition's commercials.
Augmented Reality: Coming to a Device Near You We've all seen augmented reality in the movies: A character puts on a pair of glasses and suddenly data about their surroundings appears within their field of vision. Now this technology is available on a device near you.
Fake Verizon 'balance-checker' Is a Trojan Spammers are sending out fake Verizon Wireless 'balance checker' programs; they're actually Trojans.
AT&T's Verizon Ad Battle: Who's Being Hurt Worse? AT&T's fighting Verizon over its network-bashing ads -- and, according to some new data, the public is starting to take notice.