Digital Trends

Sidekick LX July 30th, 2008 | by Mike Kobrin

Features and Design

The first thing that jumps out about the Sidekick LX is its 3-inch 240-by-400-pixel screen. It uses Sharp's Aquos technology, and it is impressively crisp and bright, which will keep younger eyes from being ruined too quickly. The phone is slimmer and less kid-oriented than its predecessors, favoring a more rectangular design and toned-down colors (navy blue or dark brown). It's also lighter, at 5.7 ounces. Lights still go off during various processes like sleep, startup, and message receive, though older users will want to disable this.

The rest of the Sidekick LX's physical features will be recognizable from previous SK models, including one of the best QWERTY keyboards in the business and a little trackball for navigation. On the back, the LX has a textured rubberized coating that looks a lot like the leather on old film cameras, providing a comfy and secure grip.

The LX is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone and packs Bluetooth 2.0 for wireless listening and file transfers, though the phone conspicuously lacks GPS and WiFi.

Navigating the Interface

The trackball is great for navigating the phone's icon- and text-based interface, and the Danger OS is a breeze to figure out. You can also use the D-pad (which doubles as a speaker) to jump through longer lists. Overall we found the processor speedy, with no noticeable lag when switching apps, and the controls are adjustable and very responsive. The buttons on the front are large and easy to press, and we're big fans of the Sidekick's shortcut keys and combinations.

Call Quality

Since the screen isn't touch-sensitive, you have to flip the phone up to dial, but you can use the numbers along the top or the highlighted numerical pad. Reception isn't bad, depending where you are: We generally got up to 3 to bars in New York City, but in New Orleans, the phone usually showed 4 bars. Call quality is pretty low via the earpiece and speakerphone, since the on-board speakers are far too weak; callers on the other end said our voice sounded grainy and hollow.

E-Mail

The on-board email client is very easy to set up for use with POP3 and IMAP accounts, with presets for Windows Live, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and many more. Unfortunately for corporate folks, it lacks Microsoft Exhange support. (Early adopters should note that over-the-air firmware updates since the phone's launch have improved email support.)

We set up our Gmail account in less than a minute, but it the phone didn't refresh our inbox immediately refresh our inbox at first. After a few hours, we started getting emails soon after they hit the server. The LX supports push email only for the included T-Mobile account, though you can have your third-party email forwarded to your T-Mobile account to get your messages in real time.

While the client is easy to use and supports multiple account tabs, we prefer Yahoo and Gmail both have excellent mobile online interfaces via Web browser, which we preferred for viewing threaded conversations.

SMS/MMS and IM 

SMS text messaging works extremely well, as does instant messaging via AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. These are easily the phone's most valuable features, thanks in part to the excellent keyboard and the crisp screen. One very welcome addition to the Sidekick interface is support for video messaging (MMS) -- a feature the iPhone 3G conspicuously lacks.

Pictures and Video

The 1.3-megapixel camera frankly isn't very good. Our outdoor test images were surprisingly grainy, with soft focus and drab color even in bright sunlight; our indoor shots were blurry and awash in noise. Video is also disappointing, at a mere 176 x 144 resolution, though it's reasonably smooth and responds quickly to lighting changes. The recorded sound isn't bad for narrations by the person holding the phone, but it only barely picks up sounds made by subjects more than half a dozen feet away.

Image Courtesy of T-Mobile