Sidekick II
Since my cell phone agreement is over and the machine itself is out of date, I thinking about upgrading to one of these. Are they worth the investment? I can see it being useful around the college campus...
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T-Mobile Sidekick II Phone
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Sidekick II
Since my cell phone agreement is over and the machine itself is out of date, I thinking about upgrading to one of these. Are they worth the investment? I can see it being useful around the college campus...
DarkAngelYuna
Banned
If you're 15 yes, if not no.
Reviews I use to read said that as a phone it was pretty meh in terms of loudness, and signal strength, but as an always connected to the internet device it kicked ass... too bad the damn thing doesn't have bluetooth, I would have picked one up awhile ago...
I've had mine since I moved - I wanted to get off of AT&T after they were purchased by Cingular.
I had used a Sidekick I also, but not as my own phone, but it gives me something to measure it against.
Anyway:
As an internet device it is WONDERFUL. I didn't have internet the entire last month before I moved and it satiated me perfectly. If you use AIM especially it's excellent. It also displays GAF quite quickly - I sometimes browse GAF on the toilet at work. It's that convenient.
The fact that you have to fax Danger to enable the USB port is ridiculous as the ringtones are $1.99 a pop and aren't generally things I'd like to have. There are many useful apps for the little guy though. I didn't like that I had to download the calculator, but the fact that there's a fully-featured MS Paint available for $5 was cool.
It can only hold 32 pictures at once - not counting phone book pictures. Not NEARLY enough.
Reception in my area is quite good, I've not really been disconnected. Sometimes I've had to restart it though which is quite annoying.
I don't need any advanced PDA features - the address book, calendar, and notes feature are all very very convenient and easy to learn, as are the keyboard shortcuts to really get the best out of them. I use notes to keep track of my work schedule, things I've ordered/pre-ordered, and ridiculous quotes I don't ever want to forget.
I hate that you cannot change the background. HATE it. Because those little cartoons are ugly as shit.
There are so many ways to navigate the thing, sometimes it feels like it has redundant face buttons (despite only having six). A lot of people mistake it for a game device - including a certain Nintendo rep in the area: "Why are you playing with a competitor's product in front of the Nintendo rep?" "It's my phone." "Oh." (He's awesome though.)
All in all, I like it very much. I paid $200 for mine and I pay ~$70/month.
I had used a Sidekick I also, but not as my own phone, but it gives me something to measure it against.
Anyway:
As an internet device it is WONDERFUL. I didn't have internet the entire last month before I moved and it satiated me perfectly. If you use AIM especially it's excellent. It also displays GAF quite quickly - I sometimes browse GAF on the toilet at work. It's that convenient.
The fact that you have to fax Danger to enable the USB port is ridiculous as the ringtones are $1.99 a pop and aren't generally things I'd like to have. There are many useful apps for the little guy though. I didn't like that I had to download the calculator, but the fact that there's a fully-featured MS Paint available for $5 was cool.
It can only hold 32 pictures at once - not counting phone book pictures. Not NEARLY enough.
Reception in my area is quite good, I've not really been disconnected. Sometimes I've had to restart it though which is quite annoying.
I don't need any advanced PDA features - the address book, calendar, and notes feature are all very very convenient and easy to learn, as are the keyboard shortcuts to really get the best out of them. I use notes to keep track of my work schedule, things I've ordered/pre-ordered, and ridiculous quotes I don't ever want to forget.
I hate that you cannot change the background. HATE it. Because those little cartoons are ugly as shit.
There are so many ways to navigate the thing, sometimes it feels like it has redundant face buttons (despite only having six). A lot of people mistake it for a game device - including a certain Nintendo rep in the area: "Why are you playing with a competitor's product in front of the Nintendo rep?" "It's my phone." "Oh." (He's awesome though.)
All in all, I like it very much. I paid $200 for mine and I pay ~$70/month.
MaverickX9
Member
I used to play poker with some dude who had one of these.
He carried it around on this freaking Batman-like utility belt. He had a regular cell phone, one of these things, an iPod, and a PocketPC. I'm not sure why he had all four, but he did. He'd always answer his phone by saying, "Yo, what's good?" He was quite annoying - answering all sorts of messages and calls in the middle of the game.
He had a pocket knife on there, too, but that is besides the point.
I think he might have had a GBA, too, though I can't confirm that.
He carried it around on this freaking Batman-like utility belt. He had a regular cell phone, one of these things, an iPod, and a PocketPC. I'm not sure why he had all four, but he did. He'd always answer his phone by saying, "Yo, what's good?" He was quite annoying - answering all sorts of messages and calls in the middle of the game.
He had a pocket knife on there, too, but that is besides the point.
I think he might have had a GBA, too, though I can't confirm that.
Absolutely not worth the money. Both the original Sidekick and this new Sidekick are manufactured like absolute shit. I guarantee at one point in time you'll end up being pissed off at something not working. A button, a function, the screen, the signal, the reception, whatever. The devices drop like flies and although easily replacable, they just break too much. I'm on my 2nd Sidekick II and my sister is on her second or third, and I know a bunch of other people with sk2s and they've all been through at least one. T-Mobile will luckily replace the devices fairly easily, but that's probably because if they didn't nobody would buy this piece of shit because everyone would realize they break so easily. They're better than the original SKs, but still are quite unacceptable to me. I live in the Bay Area and have extreme reception problems, and for 70$ a month it's starting to get not worth it. If I wasn't in a contract now I'd probably get another phone. Though the thumbkeyboard is very nice and if all you want to do is use AIM and browse simple websites it may be good, overall it's not worth it due to all the problems and simple issues.
The ringtones all suck and the ones you have available to purchase are far too expensive for what they are (yay, shitty pop tunes that sound like crap).
The internet can have some issues due to the fact that there is no java. I mean, the internet is definately the only reason you'd want to get one of these along with AIM (DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE TO USE IT AS A CELL PHONE) but there's no java and on some sites it's annoying to navigate if you turn off images. And if you don't turn off images, it'll take much longer to load.
It does have a speakerphone which is nice, but the quality of it just always seems pretty shitty.
No bluetooth also kind of sucks, and there are a lot of features after using this phone you'd just wish it had due to simplicity. The PDA functions definately aren't advanced, they're dated. Whereas anyone with a phone made in the past few years will be able to customize ringtones, backgrounds, pictures, you'll be stuck with changing the ringtone from one shitty tune to another shitty tune or if you want to waste 2$ you can change it to a shitty popular music tune. This phone seemed to get popular because of that celebrity campaign, and I wish it didn't because it doesn't seem like Danger/T-Mobile's doing anything to fix all the problems it has. To me, it seems they're content with just shipping you new devices every goddamned time it breaks.
And believe me, it will break. IT WILL BREAK.
The ringtones all suck and the ones you have available to purchase are far too expensive for what they are (yay, shitty pop tunes that sound like crap).
The internet can have some issues due to the fact that there is no java. I mean, the internet is definately the only reason you'd want to get one of these along with AIM (DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE TO USE IT AS A CELL PHONE) but there's no java and on some sites it's annoying to navigate if you turn off images. And if you don't turn off images, it'll take much longer to load.
It does have a speakerphone which is nice, but the quality of it just always seems pretty shitty.
No bluetooth also kind of sucks, and there are a lot of features after using this phone you'd just wish it had due to simplicity. The PDA functions definately aren't advanced, they're dated. Whereas anyone with a phone made in the past few years will be able to customize ringtones, backgrounds, pictures, you'll be stuck with changing the ringtone from one shitty tune to another shitty tune or if you want to waste 2$ you can change it to a shitty popular music tune. This phone seemed to get popular because of that celebrity campaign, and I wish it didn't because it doesn't seem like Danger/T-Mobile's doing anything to fix all the problems it has. To me, it seems they're content with just shipping you new devices every goddamned time it breaks.
And believe me, it will break. IT WILL BREAK.
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