Digital Trends

T-Mobile Sidekick 2008 September 18th, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Features & Design

The Sidekick’s most iconic feature has always been its sideways form-factor, with a screen that swivels out of the middle to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. Although Motorola changed this with the last-gen Sidekick Slide, which features a linear sliding screen, the flashy swivel screen is back in 2008. Other vital controls outside the keyboard include an exterior BlackBerry-style trackball, a directional pad that doubles as a speaker, and a slew of dedicated buttons for navigating menus, including top and button shoulder buttons.

Hardware specs include a 2.0-megapixel camera, EDGE Internet, an included 512MB microSD card, media player capabilities, stereo Bluetooth, and customizable shells that can be swapped out to change the phone to different colors. The much bemoaned lack of video on previous models has also been remedied with a new video recording mode that allows users to capture short clips.

Aesthetics

From its inception, the Sidekick has captured a youthful, trendy image, and T-Mobile has continued to cultivate that with the latest incarnation, which boasts even more customizability than the last. Although the majority of its face and flip-out LCD get a rather dull matte black bezel, the back and sides have been designed as removable shells that can be swapped in seconds. The stock phone comes in a yellow-tinged green color, but T-Mobile also includes a glossy black (read: fingerprint-blotched black) shell with every phone. If neither is to your liking, you’ll also find a bountiful aftermarket for shells online, and at $15 a pop, they’re cheap enough to experiment with a few. In fact, T-Mobile also offers blank shells with directions for DIY customization – a rare luxury in a world where most manufacturers prefer to void warranties for even light modifications.

Menu graphics for the phone seemed to latch onto the Sidekick’s young image as well, a bit to our annoyance. Default theme included loud argyle patterns, “gritty” graffiti-themed designs, and colorful rainbow collages that looked like they belonged on Trapper Keepers. While T-Mobile offers additional themes through its download catalog (most of which are along the same vein,) we really would have liked to see some more basic, refined options included by default. If you’re out of high school, plan to use the Sidekick for business at all, or just want something a little easier on the eyes, you’ll almost certainly find most of the installed options on the gaudy side.

Image Courtesy of T-Mobile