SideKick II Holiday Refresh
If my twenty-something T-Mobile informant is a reliable source, by Christmas the SideKick II will get two and only two improvements. The screen will be considerably brighter (a much needed tweak) and the clever rotating screen hinge will be beefed up. (The hinge being too loose is a fairly common flaw on SideKick II.) That’s it. No SideKick III before the holidays.
About a year ago I abandoned my Color SideKick. I did not buy the SideKick II because it was a wimpy, to little, too late upgrade.
This is nice form factor for a QWERTY phone, with lots to like. But it still needs: JavaScript, bluetooth, a decent camera, more CUP power, more memory, a removable flash card and a higher resolution (and brighter!) display screen. One more thing: switching to an open OS would be killer.
Many folks dismiss the SideKick. In fact T-Mobile sells a ton of them. The marketing focus on a young demographic, with emphasis on product placement in movies, has worked. SideKick is close enough to being a killer QWERTY phone that it still has a fighting chance.