[kennyyboy]

Anyone got anything to say about this?

I'm a Blackberry owner, but never owned a sidekick (i dont even know what company makes it, im guessing motorolla?)..... I've noticed many people around me using sidekicks, and was just wondering how those were? I know they are focus more towards the younger crowd.

Do you think BlackBerrys will ever become the next "sidekicks" ?

[bkeen]

I have never owned a SideKick either. But, if you look around more and more people are walking around with BlackBerrys or other Smartphones. I think in the high pace world we live in, people like to have that connection to all their stuff at any time and any place. And with email being the primary means of communications for a lot of people I think we'll see this continue.

I actually think BlackBerrys are meant for both the professional users who use it to stay on top of their work tasks and younger people. I think with the apps like Facebook, MySpace and other social network apps, younger people have started using BlackBerrys and other Smartphones so they can use those apps.

I'm not sure if the Sidekick supports apps, I do think it supports some sort of web browsing but then again, I'm not sure if the browser is a true HTML browser like BlackBerry or a mobile type browser like what you see with a WinMo device.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on the topic. Back to work.

[rachamphetamine]

From what I remember from owning a SK 2/3 for a few years..

- The keyboards on there are outstanding. They're very comfortable to type on and mine were always very responsive.
- On the cost side of things, the data plan was definitely cheaper. I think T-Mobile may have raised the prices now, but when I owned my SK it was 19.99 for unlimited data + unlimited messaging.
- I also liked the browser on the SK better, but things did take longer to load as they were loaded closer to what can be seen on desktop computers.
- Ease of use - The Sidekick is really a great dumbphone (or has it moved up to smartphone these days, I have no idea). It's very easy to use and not as complicated as BBs. I tend to be able to teach myself how to use a device within a few hours of getting it so this was not a huge plus for me, but it's one I see people tossing out there frequently when talking about SKs.
- The free backup of info on Danger's servers was awesome. If my phone ever spontaneously deleted everything, I just had to pull the battery and all of it would come rushing back over the super speedy time of an hour. But it was very priceless to have photos, contacts, emails, notes, calendars, tasks, etc. to be saved on the servers, and Danger/T-Mobile had (at my time, it probably looks the same now) a great UI to do that on.
- Built in messengers. I never used any but AIM and Yahoo!, but they were also a desktop-like experience. I'm a big fan of JiveTalk, but I seriously miss my Sidekick AIM program. Mobile AIM from RIM just doesn't cut it and they could take some notes from Danger on their messaging apps, IMO.

On the down side...
- Battery life was good for a while and then after about six months with each device, it began to take a nosedive. Of course, I wasn't savvy enough to know then that you could pop out the battery for a new one, but battery life was still worse than it should have been.
- Signal strength was TERRIBLE. I cannot even begin to count the times that I watched my phone go into "two dot death" - meaning it couldn't receive or send data outside of SMS and most incoming voice calls went straight to voicemail. When Danger had its serious problems with their servers that also resulted in screwing up AIM, this was a serious, serious issue. Also, I barely had signal while others around me would have great signal.
- Phones are kind of clunky. I know they have slimmed down recently, but it was a pain to flip open the screen to use the keyboard. And yes, I know that's the whole big draw of Sidekicks, but it gets to be a pain if you are trying to do something surreptitiously.
- Along those lines, if you didn't have a number in your phonebook, you had to open the phone to dial it. No touch screens there - and I am pretty serious when I say that if Danger/Sharp came out with a touchscreen SK, it might be enough to lure me back. Maybe.
- Locked system. It's a serious PITA and a serious drain on your bank account when EVERYTHING you want to put on your phone HAS to come from T-Mobile downloaded OTA - ringtones, apps, games, you name it. Sure, there are some free things.. like a calculator... but I love BBs for the ability to put whatever I want on the phone when I want and be able to shop around for price. Or just slap a lot of free stuff on there!
- And when I say locked, I mean LOCKED. There is no unlocking this phone to use on another carrier. It's T-Mobile or the highway.
- Camera was ABYSMAL. I mean, seriously. It was a big step for SKs when they got a 1 MP camera while other phones were moving past 3 MP, and the camera still sucked. It turned everything a funky green color if you used the flash, and your face was frequently contrasted out of the picture. If I can find some SK pics I have left on my computer, I can post some for comparison if you're curious. Even the worst BB cams are better than the SK cameras I remember.

I know I have a lot to say on the negative side of the SK series, but they are still good devices. I really loved my SKs when I had them, but now I feel like I've personally moved onto bigger and better. SKs aren't for everyone, and they are generally cheaper than owning a BB - mostly because T-Mobile is a cheaper carrier to begin with. They also tend to be stereotyped for a younger crowd, though I have to say my mom had serious Sidekick envy when I had mine (she had a RAZR and has now seen the light and has a 8330).

Anyway, I think I've posted a long enough essay for now, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

[kennyyboy]

wow thanks for the great reply, I've always wondered how the sidekicks were. I have a few friends who own them, I'll maybe check it out from them.

[Terasec]

Originally Posted by bkeen

I actually think BlackBerrys are meant for both the professional users who use it to stay on top of their work tasks and younger people. I think with the apps like Facebook, MySpace and other social network apps, younger people have started using BlackBerrys and other Smartphones so they can use those apps.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on the topic. Back to work.

Most kids dont use pop3 emails
so may not see the benefit of blackberry
working environment where most corp emails are pop3
blackberry has the best pop3 access
most other carriers email is geared toward the freebies like yahoo, aol, gmail, etc....
and dont easily access pop3, unless you forward it to your carriers email and such.
a reason why BB has been successful in business envorinment,

[kennyyboy]

Originally Posted by Terasec

Most kids dont use pop3 emails
so may not see the benefit of blackberry
working environment where most corp emails are pop3
blackberry has the best pop3 access
most other carriers email is geared toward the freebies like yahoo, aol, gmail, etc....
and dont easily access pop3, unless you forward it to your carriers email and such.
a reason why BB has been successful in business envorinment,

Terasec, what are pop3 emails specifically. Sorry, I'm not very tech savy, as I needed my son to show me to use my bold. I know that pop3 relates to emails some how, but what difference would they be from yahoo, aol, gmail, like you stated.

[Terasec]

Originally Posted by kennyyboy

Terasec, what are pop3 emails specifically. Sorry, I'm not very tech savy, as I needed my son to show me to use my bold. I know that pop3 relates to emails some how, but what difference would they be from yahoo, aol, gmail, like you stated.

not a tech,
so anyone forgive me if any mistakes on explanation,
pop3 applies to most domain emails such as ,
abccompany.com domain would be pop3 account, to manage their emails,
and blackberry gets emails directly from the server at abccompany, and can leave it on the server for when you access the same email from your desktop,
that is different than say yahoo email account,
or having your email at abccompany.com forwarded to another email so you can read it on your cellphone,
when i had verizon, it didnt have pop3 access and email had to be forwarded to either verizon email, or yahoo, so i can read it on my phone,
and to reply i would have to send it from the new email account, not from abccompany email

hope that helps

[Godzilla07]

Originally Posted by rachamphetamine

From what I remember from owning a SK 2/3 for a few years..

- The keyboards on there are outstanding. They're very comfortable to type on and mine were always very responsive.
- On the cost side of things, the data plan was definitely cheaper. I think T-Mobile may have raised the prices now, but when I owned my SK it was 19.99 for unlimited data + unlimited messaging.
- I also liked the browser on the SK better, but things did take longer to load as they were loaded closer to what can be seen on desktop computers.
- Ease of use - The Sidekick is really a great dumbphone (or has it moved up to smartphone these days, I have no idea). It's very easy to use and not as complicated as BBs. I tend to be able to teach myself how to use a device within a few hours of getting it so this was not a huge plus for me, but it's one I see people tossing out there frequently when talking about SKs.
- The free backup of info on Danger's servers was awesome. If my phone ever spontaneously deleted everything, I just had to pull the battery and all of it would come rushing back over the super speedy time of an hour. But it was very priceless to have photos, contacts, emails, notes, calendars, tasks, etc. to be saved on the servers, and Danger/T-Mobile had (at my time, it probably looks the same now) a great UI to do that on.
- Built in messengers. I never used any but AIM and Yahoo!, but they were also a desktop-like experience. I'm a big fan of JiveTalk, but I seriously miss my Sidekick AIM program. Mobile AIM from RIM just doesn't cut it and they could take some notes from Danger on their messaging apps, IMO.

On the down side...
- Battery life was good for a while and then after about six months with each device, it began to take a nosedive. Of course, I wasn't savvy enough to know then that you could pop out the battery for a new one, but battery life was still worse than it should have been.
- Signal strength was TERRIBLE. I cannot even begin to count the times that I watched my phone go into "two dot death" - meaning it couldn't receive or send data outside of SMS and most incoming voice calls went straight to voicemail. When Danger had its serious problems with their servers that also resulted in screwing up AIM, this was a serious, serious issue. Also, I barely had signal while others around me would have great signal.
- Phones are kind of clunky. I know they have slimmed down recently, but it was a pain to flip open the screen to use the keyboard. And yes, I know that's the whole big draw of Sidekicks, but it gets to be a pain if you are trying to do something surreptitiously.
- Along those lines, if you didn't have a number in your phonebook, you had to open the phone to dial it. No touch screens there - and I am pretty serious when I say that if Danger/Sharp came out with a touchscreen SK, it might be enough to lure me back. Maybe.
- Locked system. It's a serious PITA and a serious drain on your bank account when EVERYTHING you want to put on your phone HAS to come from T-Mobile downloaded OTA - ringtones, apps, games, you name it. Sure, there are some free things.. like a calculator... but I love BBs for the ability to put whatever I want on the phone when I want and be able to shop around for price. Or just slap a lot of free stuff on there!
- And when I say locked, I mean LOCKED. There is no unlocking this phone to use on another carrier. It's T-Mobile or the highway.
- Camera was ABYSMAL. I mean, seriously. It was a big step for SKs when they got a 1 MP camera while other phones were moving past 3 MP, and the camera still sucked. It turned everything a funky green color if you used the flash, and your face was frequently contrasted out of the picture. If I can find some SK pics I have left on my computer, I can post some for comparison if you're curious. Even the worst BB cams are better than the SK cameras I remember.

I know I have a lot to say on the negative side of the SK series, but they are still good devices. I really loved my SKs when I had them, but now I feel like I've personally moved onto bigger and better. SKs aren't for everyone, and they are generally cheaper than owning a BB - mostly because T-Mobile is a cheaper carrier to begin with. They also tend to be stereotyped for a younger crowd, though I have to say my mom had serious Sidekick envy when I had mine (she had a RAZR and has now seen the light and has a 8330).

Anyway, I think I've posted a long enough essay for now, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

I'll give some clarification since I know a great deal about T-Mobile. Sidekicks still run the same OS as they did when the first Sidekick came out. They are revamping the OS to be based on NetBSD but this does not indicate whether the OS will be opened up (e.g., use MP3 ringtones.)

Data on the Sidekicks is the same as T-Mobile charges for BlackBerry data. $24.99 for Internet and 400 texts and there's a $34.99 plan replacing the 400 texts with unlimited texting. Now that T-Mobile has changed the prices, there is no reason to get the Sidekick unless you are a 13 year old with a heavy focus on IM and texting. The Sidekick is a one-trick pony.

To answer the OP's question, Sharp has made every Sidekick except for the Sidekick Slide made by Motorola which was junk. It has since been discontinued.

[rachamphetamine]

Originally Posted by Godzilla07

Data on the Sidekicks is the same as T-Mobile charges for BlackBerry data. $24.99 for Internet and 400 texts and there's a $34.99 plan replacing the 400 texts with unlimited texting.

Yes, this is why I said that was at the time when I still owned a SK it was priced at 19.99, not that it is now.

There is not "no reason to get the Sidekick unless you are a 13 year old with a heavy focus on IM and texting". It's still a good device in its own right but like BlackBerry devices, they are not for everyone.

[nholzschuh]

Ok to start i have now owned 2 blackberrys(perl-8100 and curve-8320) and i have owned the Newest Sidekick, the 2008, also known as the gekko.
i also use to have an old account on here but my pearl was stolen which is what lead me to my sidekick, and the lost BBforum account info.

anyways i have played with many sidekicks, friends/familys and in stores, and i have quickly determined the newest one(2008/gekko) was the nicest.

first off the the few things that were nice about the sidekick were:
-email/internet
-calendar/alarm
-games/music/ringtones/downloads.
-messenger services

the bad about these were basically:
-email was slow and not very reliable, internet was nice no huge disappointments.
-calendar sucked, to make an appointment took forever, the warnings and setup for it all was long and not very fulfilling, the settings for it were a mess.. idk how to explain it, not good for businessmen for sure, and not worth my time.
-alarm was nice, choice to add up to 6, very easy very nice setup, loud. also included separate stop watch and what-not
-games and media were fun, muisc player was annoying, complicated and a pain(talk about glitches man)
not to mention EVERYTHING had to be paid for, also meaning fewer choices and the store was slow...not to mention you can only hold 7 games and 7 ringtones etc.
-the messengers had a nice setup but transition from sms, to email to AIM(etc.) was annoying, jus cuz it was all on a spinny-wheel-deal and shortcut keys were too much to remember.

also everything was very expensive. sometimes you got a good deal on a ringtone or game here and there but overall, expensive.
the one very nice thing was it was a sleek phone, everyone was interested in it, and it was a chick magnet. very customizable, but not nearly that of a BB.

edit:sidekicks can change the faceplates and there's even a website where you can customize them yourself however u like for 15bucks.

also the buttons on the side all conflicted with each other.. ex. using the camera button u generally would hit the power butt, to change the volume u generally also hit the brightness etc.


The BB's in general are very customizable, fun to play with, cheap apps and themes.
bad about BBs:
-the alarm, bland and only one can be set(not counting calendar, which easy to work around..DL another alarm app =P)
-errors/glitches/freezes... honestly if you have everything figured out u don't get these much.
-internet browser.. download opera.

edit: for t-mobile my unlimited blackberry plan is $35 for unlimited all types of messaging and internet.
fro the sidekick it was $20 for the same thing but did not include Picture messaging which is lame cuz u get charged per picture message in and out, and there is no service you can get that is just picture messaging.. the cheapest way to go would to get unlimited messaging as well and would cost you a total of $35 anyways(unlimited messaging is $15 i believe and you'd be paying for ur text messages twice...)

honestly i have no more bad things to say about BB. i love my BB and think they're great devices.

edit:you cant use a sidekick as a modem, very disappointing.

also id like to add i had my first BB when i was 17 and am almost 19... i've used it during my "teen/fun" years and now into my working years and have found it to suit both very well. i think that being a bit younger user of a blackberry, that this kinda helps with the comparison.

edit: the sidekick 2008 was a SHARP product.