Review of the Sidekick 3 (a big disappointment)

Fist of all, I have to say that I'm shocked by the almost unanimously positive online reviews of the new Sidekick 3. I can only assume that they were written by people who didn't have extensive experience with the Sidekick 2, and who were content to simply regurgitate T-Mobile's marketing collateral. Reading positive reviews of the Sidekick 3 has been like reading positive reviews of Matrix Reloaded. This review is written by someone who is (or was) a huge fan the Sidekick, and who has been using both the Sidekick 2 and 3 from the day they were each available.

I waited several weeks to write this review to make sure I had some real-world experience with the Sidekick 3. The first one I received was in some indeterminable way defective. About six hours after I started using it, while I was demoing it to someone, no less, the screen went completely black. I laughed at first, assuming I had found a software bug that would soon be fixed in an update, however after turning the device off and back on, soft resetting, and then hard resetting it, I wasn't laughing anymore. T-Mobile forced me to sacrifice hours of my life speaking with well-meaning but ultimately powerless customer service and support representatives on the phone, the details of which I will spare both of us. The upshot was that I paid a lot of money to have another Sidekick shipped to me right away since once I get my hands on a device, I can't rest until I've learned everything about it.

So now that I'm on my second Sidekick 3, and I've spend a few weeks with it in the field, I can honestly say that Danger got more wrong with the Sidekick 3 than they got right. To be fair, I'll start out with I think they got right:

• The keyboard. I didn't think it was possible, but the keyboard on the Sidekick 3 is actually better than the one on the Sidekick 2. The feedback is perfect, and the keys are just the right size and in just the right arrangement. I feel like I'd pretty much mastered the keyboard on the Sidekick 2, but I believe my typing speed has actually significantly improved since switching to the Sidekick 3.
• The MP3 player. I love iPods, but I also like variety and options, so I was very excited when I learned that the Sidekick 3 would have an MP3 player. It turned out to actually be a pretty decent piece of software. It does all the right things with ID3 tags, allowing you to browse your music by artist, album, genre, composer, and, of course, playlist. It supports two kinds of shuffle, has fairly decent navigation controls, and will even pause when you get an incoming call, then resume after you hang up. Well done.
• Expandable memory. If you're going to have an MP3 player (and a 1.3 megapixel camera), you need someplace to put all the related media. The Sidekick 3 has a MiniSD slot which, in theory, is great, though see below as to why this could have actually been handled much better.

Unfortunately, that's about all they got right with the Sidekick 3. Now for the considerably longer list of what they got wrong:

• First of all, the new Sidekick 3 has a much cheaper feel to it than the Sidekick 2. Almost everything is plastic these days, so I don't fault it for that, but I do fault it for being very cheap feeling plastic. It looks and feels far less robust than the Sidekick 2. The screen sits slightly up above the rest of the phone and has too much play to it, both when it's open and closed. My Sidekick 2 has been dropped, tossed, sat on, squished, and has been opened and closed thousands of times, and it still feels newer than my brand new Sidekick 3.
• And speaking of the screen, Danger (or perhaps I should say Sharp, since they manufacture the Sidekick hardware) completely screwed up the flip screen on the Sidekick 3. The flip screen was always the trademark of the Sidekick, and always had a good, solid feel. But the flip screen on the Sidekick 3 is awful. The back of the screen has two plastic bars which look like they are a part of the latch system, one of which actually sometimes catches on the upper left-hand button when the screen flips open. Unreal. I can already see where the plastic has taken a beating from opening and closing the screen. I've even seen the screen catch on the button and actually get caught mid-flip. I eventually found a way to reliably open and close the screen so that it doesn't catch on the button, but the process still isn't nearly as nice as the Sidekick 2. (For those Sidekick 3 users out there who doubt me, go unpack your old Sidekick 2 and open and close them a few times -- you'll instantly see how much better the old design was.)
• I really don't know why they replaced the old roller with the new trackball. After using the roller for a few weeks (and moving the sensitivity all the way up), I guess I find it reasonably effective, but there doesn't seem to be much point to it. The lighting effects are very cool, and the fact that you can navigate menus horizontally as well as vertically is interesting, but the old Sidekick had primarily vertical menus, and you always had the D-pad, so I'm not sure why they bothered to make the change. Maybe there will be some apps in the future which will benefit from the trackball, but I personally find the old roller easier to grip, faster to use, and generally more effective.
• Yes, I like he MP3 player, but I really don't like the fact that the USB interface on the device is only 1.1. I bought a 2GB MiniSD card, connected my new Sidekick 3, started transferring MP3s, and then picked up my Nintendo DS Lite to play Mario for over an hour waiting for the transfer to complete. In my personal opinion, MP3 players require USB 2.0 or Firewire interfaces. Or at the very least, the device should provide easy access to the media card so I can use my own USB 2.0 interface. In order to access the SD card on the Sidekick 3, you have to remove the back of the handset which is not nearly as easy has it should be. I sure hope my taste in music doesn't change anytime soon, and I don't get tired of the 20 albums I have on my Sidekick 3 because I don't have time to refresh them.
• Another thing I think pretty much all MP3 players need is a standard headphone jack. I have a couple of pairs of headphones that I really like (noise canceling) which I can't use because the Sidekick 3's headphone jack is 1/16" rather than the standard 1/8". Yes, I know I can get an adapter, but that makes for a pretty clunky solution for something that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. I think the bottom line is that the Sidekick 3's MP3 player is more to supplement your existing real MP3 player rather than completely replace it.
• Whenever I upgrade a wireless device, I expect two things right off the bat: better battery life, and a better signal than I got with the old model. There's no reason in the world why battery and antenna technology should be moving backwards. With the new Sidekick 3, not only are neither better, but they are both actually worse. I got in the habit of charging my Sidekick 2 every night just in case I needed to have an especially long conversation the next day, but typically, the Sidekick 2's battery would get me through two days of some moderate IMing, a couple very short conversations (I don't talk on the phone much), and a few emails. The Sidekick 3, on the other hand, needs to be charged every night or it will be completely dead by morning. And if you listen to some music and actually make a few phone calls during the course of a day, it might not even make it until bedtime. Anyway you slice it, that's very bad. And so is the new Sidekick 3's antenna. Most Sidekick 3 users probably won't notice this since they probably moved their SIM cards from their Sidekick 2s to their Sidekick 3s (meaning the Sidekick 2 can no longer receive a signal), but I actually made it a point to have both operational simultaneously to compare signal strength. Once again, the Sidekick 2 did better than the Sidekick 3. The difference is not drastic, but for places where you would normally only have one bar, and now you have none, that's drastic enough.

Of course, there are several other new features which are supposed to make the Sidekick 3 better which, in my opinion, really don't:

• New form factor. I do like that the Sidekick 3 is slightly smaller than its predecessor, however the cheapness of the Sidekick 3 combined with the fact that the shoulder buttons got harder to press when the screen is up, and all the other buttons got harder to locate and press as well, makes the design of the Sidekick 2 superior.
• The application menu is hierarchical now. This is one I'm really pretty ambivalent on. I use keyboard shortcuts to get to most apps anyway, so I don't really care how they are organized. I could see much more use for this feature if you could organize your applications into custom folders or some such metaphor, but you can't.
• Backgrounds. I can't believe they even bothered to implement this "feature". One of the big criticisms of the Sidekick 2 was that you couldn't customize your wallpaper which every other phone in the world supports. The Sidekick 3 now lets you choose between four pre-packaged wallpapers with very hip names like Liquid, Madison, Rodeo, and Surface, but of course, you still can't actually create your own. So if you were hoping to replace those very fashionable cartoon Hiptop users with pictures of your children, no dice.
• Bluetooth. If you just have to have a Bluetooth headset, then you'll appreciate the Sidekick 3's new Bluetooth support. Personally, I don't like Bluetooth headsets. I think the burden of having to keep your headset charged and having to travel with another AC adapter outweigh the benefits of wirelessness. Of course, that's not the Sidekick's fault, so I can't count that against it. However, I can count against it the fact that I can't transfer files between my computer and my Sidekick via Bluetooth. Obviously I wouldn't want to transfer MP3s (if I wanted the process to be slow, I'd just the USB 1.1 interface), but it would be nice to be able to transfer notes, small images, etc. If you're going to advertise Bluetooth support, it should support more than just Bluetooth headsets and vCards. Besides, I can't imaging how abysmal the battery life would be if I left Bluetooth turned on.
• EDGE support. EDGE stands for Enhanced Data (rates) for GSM Evolution which is supposed to make 2G data services faster. Personally, I have noticed zero difference between the Sidekick 2s data rates, and the Sidekick 3s. Am I supposed to call T-Mobile and ask them to turn it on? Does it cost extra? Is the air in San Francisco not conducive to high-speed wireless data transfer? What am I missing?
• 1.3 megapixel digital camera. If only picture quality were as easy as adding pixels. The Sidekick 2 took crappy little pictures, and now the Sidekick 3 takes crappy big pictures. Photography is about capturing light, and capturing light is about optics, not CCD size. Frankly, I don't consider the new camera to be much of an improvement at all.

So in case you couldn't tell, I'm thoroughly disappointed with the new Sidekick 3, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why there haven't been more negative reviews out there. Maybe I have unrealistically high expectations. Maybe I've just been in a bad mood for the last month. Even though I predict that Sharp will be manufacturing an updated version of the Sidekick 3 within a year, I'm recharging my Sidekick 2 to hold me over until I find a new wireless solution.

Comments

[Ben Simon]

Hey Christian -

I think you are totally right that some parts of the new sidekick are a step back: the plasticy feel is aweful, the battery life went from OK to less than OK, and the camera quality seems to have gone down.

The reason I ended up sticking with the SK3 in the end was that the bluetooth works great with the built in Acrua hands free setup and I've been enjoying the larger capacity for saving images (true, a fair number of them are now worse than they used to be), not to mention, I still think the sidekick platform is the best out there - so I wanted to have their fastest device.

Also, I think Edge connectivity is an improvement. Of course, it may be psychological, and I may just be convincing myself that pages are downloading faster. But that certainly seems to me that's what's going on. In general, I find surfing random sites with the sidekick to be easier.

I'm also in the camp that likes the trackball. It's been taking a bit of getting used to, but I've now decided that it lets me navigator faster than the old wheel.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of the SK3 is that there's no new software. You spend all of this money, and in the end, the device doesn't acutally do anything that different. I assume that will get addressed at some point?

As mentioned here you
can check on availiblity of edge access here. So maybe you can start convincing yourself that Edge works ;-).

I'm actually one of those people who blogged about how optimistic I was about the new sidekick when I pulled it from the box. And while I've also blogged that the photo quality is poor, I should probably update my post to reflect the whole story.

[Christian Cantrell]

Ben, the Bluetooth is definitely a nice improvement if you have use for it. Unfortunately my car doesn't have Bluetooth, and I'm not into the Bluetooth headsets, so the feature is lost on me. How does using Bluetooth affect battery life?

I can go either way on the track ball. I think that if I were happy with everything else on the device, I'd probably never even mention it.

I used your link to check for EDGE coverage, and apparently it's 100%. I did some surfing on the Sidekick 3 this morning, and it may very well be faster, but the difference is so subtle that I can't even be entirely sure it's there. Of course, I don't know if that can be attributed to T-Mobile, the Sidekick 3, or just EDGE in general. I read this morning that on a phone, it's very difficult to tell the difference between EDGE and GPRS because there are so many other factors which add latency to the process (resizing the web page, slow device processors, etc.), but where you really notice EDGE is when you're using your phone as a modem. Unfortunately, that doesn't do me much good since there is WiFi basically everywhere I go in San Francisco (and soon there will be free municipal WiFi), so what I really want is a device that prevents me from having to take out my laptop at all.

I'm glad you mentioned applications. That's something I actually left out. When I first started using the Sidekick 3, there were literally only a few applications available. None of the applications I used regularly on the Sidekick 2 had been ported yet, and many still haven't. And I wonder what will happen to the data I had entered in the old apps. I used to use DateSlate on the Sidekick 2. They released an update for it one day which removed all the data I had entered. I begrudgingly reentered it all, and then a few months later switched to the Sidekick 3 where the app doesn't even exist. This is very disappointing since data was always one thing the Sidekick handled so well. And I'm shocked that they haven't ported the World Clock application yet which means there no way to set a simple alarm on the SK 3 without creating a calendar event. Since I wear an analog watch, I used to rely on my Sidekick 2 for things like alarms and countdown timers. I can't even do that with the Sidekick 3.

I think the two things that are really driving me away from the SK platform are the battery life and the reception. Everything else I could live with. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if the battery life and the signal reception were better, I'd probably be pretty happy with the Sidekick 3, and I'd be more willing to focus on the positives than the negatives. But as I said in my post, battery and signal strengths are core features of mobile wireless devices, and they simply have to get better rather than worse.

I still love the Sidekick platform, and I agree that it's the best mobile platform out there, but Sidekicks are like Macs in the sense that if you like what they're doing, great, but if you don't, you don't have any other options. So if I were using Symbian or Palm or Windows Mobile and I wasn't happy with my device, no problem -- there are dozens of others out there waiting to take its place. But if you're not happy with the new Sidekick, you have nowhere else to go, and no guarantee that the problems are going to get fixed. You go from feeling like you're one of the elite few who has discovered something amazing to feeling like you're trapped.

[Mark Helmstetter]

Christian, thanks for the detailed review. I was actually considering buying one of these, as I've been eying up new phones now that my current contract is up. I've been really, really reluctant to pay this much money ($300) for a phone, especially when I'm not really sure that I will even take advantage of all of the features. I think you've convinced me to hold off for now, and maybe even made me reconsider the $100 or savings that the SK2 offers. I'm betting that the SK2s will probably get much, much cheaper in the near future.

[Evan]

I totally agree with you... This could passibly be the worst phone ive ever used!! My battery last for about 6 hours with moderate useage i have NO reception... Everytime i pick up my phone it loses service.. When i set it back down... i have service.. The biggest mistake i ever made was sellings my flawless treo 650 for this peice of shit... my second phone is on its way maybe my mind will change after the new one comes... i hope

[Brandi]

I have the Sidekick 2 and love love love it! I have been debating getting the Sidekick 3 but I have a friend who bought one & I got the chance to play with it for a few hours. I was not impressed! You can get the bluetooth adapter for the SK2 if bluetooth is a big deal fo you! I agree that the SK2 is well better built by far!

[Joe]

I think the positive reviews are coming from sidekick newbies. I agree with most of the sentiment here.

I have owned and loved Sidekick 1+ for many years. (1+ is the one with color display. Shortly before that, there was monochrome only.)

I passe on Sidekick 2, and finally upgraded to 3 on Monday.

Battery life is abysmal. It is worse than my beat up Sidekick 1 which I thought had bad battery life.

The connection is horrible. It takes forever to get the G, and it loses it regularly. Much worse than Sidekick 1.

What made Sidekick 1 so nice was the IM experience. What made Sidekick 1 annoying was short battery life, and small email capacity (1 could not do POP).

Many years later with Sidekick 3, IM does not stay connected all the time, and battery life is worse. It does POP email, but the messages are stored on the server, so the capacity stays miniscule! What good is the SD card!?

The horizontal movement of the trackball is nice, but the roller wheel was faster. It moves faster than the trackball.

I, too, don't care at all for Bluetooth. I don't like Bluetooth headsets, and it would make the battery life even shorter. I tried sync'ing my Treo 650 addressbook with a laptop using Bluetooth. After about 1 hour, the transfer still wasn't complete, and the Treo ran out of juice. I heard it could have possibly been due to having WiFi on my laptop (it supposedly takes precedence over Bluetooth). Anyway, I also heard that Bluetooth might drain the battery even if it is disabled (albeit at a slower rate).

Because of my short battery life problem, I received a new battery on Wednesday, but that too didn't work out. So, today, I received a new unit. I am going to plot the battery life in standby mode. I will not use the phone, and plot the percent of battery left over time.

Anyway, I was so happy to upgrade my Sidekick, and now I am terribly disappointed. I am considering trying the Sidekick 2, instead, but I don't know if T-Mobile still offers the 2. Anyone know?

[Linda]

I agree with you on almost everything, Christian. I absolutely HATE my Sidekick 3 and wish I hadn't sold my 2 so I could go back.

When I first got the sk3, I was very unimpressed with the cheap feeling and the way the screen flips out. I've got a little mark on the top left of my device where the screen catches, I'm glad I'm not the only one who is having that problem.

I didn't like the trackball but I got used to it... now when I use someone else's sk2, I realize how much I prefer the trackball to the scroll wheel. You can navigate much faster with the ball, the wheel feels slow and awkward to me now.

As for the camera, I feel that you're way off on this one. I think the camera on the 3 is FAR better than what we had on the 2. Of course, you only get this better quality if you know how to configure the camera. You have to go in to the settings and change the picture quality from the default low quality to high quality to get the full deal. I didn't know this for the longest time and was as unimpressed as you are with the camera until discovering it. Now when I compare pictures taken with the 3 to ones I took on my 2, the improvement is glaringly obvious.

I refer to my Sidekick as a Sidekick 2.5 because I don't feel they actually made enough changes [improvements] to really say it's a 3.

I am having battery problems, too. My dog chewed the charger I got with my 3, so I was stuck only being able to charge it in the car or use my friend's charger when she was here to visit. My phone almost died EVERY NIGHT, even though I wasn't using it *that* much during the day and charging it constantly whenever I was in my car. I can't imagine what the battery life is like on this thing if you're not constantly charging it like I am.

One of the things I'd like to see improve is email space... since pictures are larger files now, it would be nice if we had more room on our tmail accounts to account for such things. My inbox was never more than 60% full on my sk2, even after I did a dump of my pictures by emailing them to my computer and had over 20 pictures in my outbox, but I've gotten the "your inbox is almost full" warning on my sk3 multiple times. And I don't even send/receive that many emails!

Joe -- T-Mobile does still offer the 2 online. You could probably get one for a very good deal on ebay since the market is flooded with people who upgraded and are desperate to get rid of their old phones. Also, I would be interested to see the results of your battery life experiment.

[Steve]

The battery technology is a bit weird.
If you drain it completely, recharge completely, and repeat the process three or four times, you get a longer battery life.
I went from 5 hours of listening to music at work before the battery went weird, to eight hours, pretty much constant.

The signal - I'm not happy with, but that has more to do with the way they have things set up. I am PEEVED that I can detect a very strong Cingular signal inside my work building but cannot use it, while the ONLY place in the entire building that I can get a tolerable signal is in a corner of the men's bathroom on floor 3... that's just a bit too weird. It has to do with cell tower locations, T-Mobile's insistence on ride-sharing the towers, and the fact that the SPRINT tower isn't very well situated for downtown Beaverton, Oregon. They really should fix that.

The bluetooth would be more worthwhile if I had a stereo bluetooth headset; the $60 headset I got is apparently too crappy to work correctly and sounds like it's at the bottom of a barrel.

There's a recent 'hack' that lets you put up your own backgrounds, getting rid of the annoying default graphics.

I miss the plastic bumpers which made the phone feel better in my hand, and I dislike the change in the two 'phone' buttons, which used to double as up-and-down scroll in the web browser, but now because of their shape, tend to mean you end up pushing the x corner key or the broken-arrow corner key instead.

Other than that, the feel of the plastic, the solidity of the swing-out screen - both are lighter than the SK2, but that doesn't mean 'cheap' to me. I don't have mechanical interference issues with my screen movement though; if I did, that would likely make me very unhappy.

[Stephen]

I am a Sidekick 2 junkie and couldn't wait for the Sidekick 3. I bought the SK2 the day it was released and I did the same with the SK3

Now, after more than a month of ownership of the SK3, a few things annoy me about the SK3 over the SK2, but my experience is mostly positive.

First the negatives :

1> Battery cover is flimsy and keeps coming open. There is no excuse for such slipshod work. They could have made a decent battery cover that stays closed.

2> The Trackball is far, FAR too sensitive. I much prefer the old roller. The trackball clicks when I was only rolling.

3> The keyboard surface sucks big time. It's too slippery. The old SK2 keys did not slip

4> battery life, as others have said, is poor, but no worse than the SK2 IMHO.

5> I lost all of my custom purchased ringtones - and now they do not even offer them for the SK3. That makes no sense. Likewise on purchased applications (which I fully understand)

6> Ring volume is WAY too soft. My SK2 was very loud when it rang - I can barely hear my SK3 at full volume. I tried all the profiles - no difference.

7> camera needs a flash to be truly useful.

And now the positives :

A> Bluetooth is awesome. I use a Bluetooth headset and I absolutely LOVE IT!!!

B> Removable battery. This is a huge improvement. I bought a second battery and love the flexibility this gives me.

C> MiniSD card. I bought a 2gb MiniSD card and I am loving the space for pictures (uploaded and captured via the built in camera) and MP3s.

D> USB interface. Just glad it has one that is fully suported, even if it's slow (USB 1.1). The SK2's USB was not supported except via the SDK system.

E> AIM, MSIM & YahooIM built in.

F> Faster boot time from the "OFF" position. Faster shutdown too.

Overall, I like the SK3. My single biggest annoyance is the keyboard surface - too, too slippery. But otherwise, a winner.

[Jasmin]

O MY GOSH!!! Service has nothing to do wit da fone peepl its ur network so....if it really sux and u think its ur sidekick its NOT! just change ur network!!! Well im thinkin of gettin the sidekick 3 and i have read some good reviews. I dont nok ly all u peepl wrote bad stuff some1 could atleast write 1 thing!!

[CJ]

The charging unit is delicate. I've had to replace 2 phones within 4 weeks for the same problem. The battery stops getting charged and the phone dies even though you have it plugged in all the way.

[Sean]

Being a T-mobile Dealer I have demoed just about every phone and blackberry... with that I have a few things to say about the SK3...
1- The battery does suck until you cycle it as Linda stated up above..also has a funny glitch and says battery is 393% charged when you go into setting, then goto battery (this is a known issue with T-mo and I expect this to be fixed with the first OTA update, but thats just a guess)
2- Reception is whacked..I could be sitting on my sofa, and I have seen my reception go from 4 bars to no reception, back to 1 bar( my other phone also t-mobile razr is full signal all the time, so I know reception at my house is not an issue) Once again T-mo knows about this issue and their "fix" is to do a soft reset (push @,0,1 at the same time) well this fix does NOT work so dont bother doing it. Hopefully once again the OTA update will fix this issue.
3. Email-I really like the email minus the small storeage. On average the SK3 receives email(fowarded from a pop3 account) 3-5 minutes faster then my blackberry.
4- Why can't I send a MMS of pictures?? You can only email pictures.
5- For steve..the camera does have a flash..you just have to go into camera settings and turn it on
6- There is a hack to use custom pics goto http://www.sk3themes.com/ there are 1000's to choose from and also a guide on how to make your own.
Just hang in there til the first OTA update, hopefully that will fix most of the bugs.
Overall I like the SK3.

the sidekick 2 sucks balls

[T]

I love my sk2 and have used it for a couple of years excessively...my keyboard barely has letters on it. I tried an sk3 store demo and wasn't that impressed...my only real selling point was perhaps faster browsing and better reception. Not to mention I didn't want to spend 300. It's nice to read a review from a person who has compared these things side by side and actually has sk experience. I think I'll wait a little longer.
Although on the reception: my reception in general has been declining a lot and I live in a heavily populated, well covered area. I've heard other people complaining...maybe this is something on T-mobile's end?

[novill]

I dunno most of the problems listed here aren't really that big of a deal. Yea it feels lighter, but its also easier 2 grip so u drop it less. Most SK2 users have dropped it at least 4 times. I've had my SK3 since it came out and it fits so comfortably that I have never dropped it. The camera isn't a huge increase, but is an increase still. And as for battery life. The people having this trouble probably didn't let it fully charge when they 1st got it, or never let it completely drain my sk2 and 3 both lasted me about the same. All the other issues just takes a little adjusting that's all. Its the sidekick 3 not the sidekick 2, so why expect it to be like the sidekick 2? I looove the lack of bulk, the new buttons, the camera is much better, my signal is the same, my battery life is the same, and as for the backrounds...you can make your own I have my own made. And I also have not noticed any slowness in the transfer speed of my sd card. I drag and drop instantly. Its not a great increase for the sidekick 2, but its enough to make it a better phone IMO.

[J-ZO]

Being that I have owned a Sidekick 1 & 2, I bought a Sidekick 3 as soon as it came out. Withing 3 weeks of owning it the battery cover dissapeared without my knowledge. Being tossed between T-Mobile and Danger was enough to drive anyone crazy. So I am back to my Sidekick 2 which I love. My Sidekick 3 sits on a shelf without a battery cover...If you are thinking of purchasing a Sidekick 3, DON'T! YOU WILL BE VERY DISSAPOINTED NO ONE (Tmobile or Danger) will help you with any problems. What a shame!

[keman]

I've been contemplating an sk3 as I love my sk2 in every way except signal. Its almost comical that when I pick it up and start typing, its like a little timer goes off and 30 seconds later POOF ... Signal goes away, I lose service. I then pick it up a few minutes later and its got 3 bars. It does this everywhere. So if I've got four bars, if I pick it up I end up with 2.

I live in the dc / northern virginia area and its progressively gotten worse here. Where I used to be able to have at it while laying on my couch at the end of a day, it became only if I sat at the other end. Then it became only if I was upstairs. Now its nowhere in my house. I've tried other units and they do the same thing.

Its sad, all my I'M friends have slowly stopped talking to me because I'm never online. There's been a total transition for me, as I can at best, now, pick up my sk and type out one response before losing service. I won't get it back until I put it down.

I found this review while searching for others who have this problem. Tmobile, is, of course, no help at all.

If the 3 has worse reception than the 2, forget it. :p

[Brady]

Disappointed!! Just bought a new SK3 and it sucks. Reception is horrible. I've been a t-mobile customer for years, and reception at work using my razor is just fine. Not the case w/ new SK3. The audio is terrible. Very poor signal. I hear high-pitch frequency noise while talking, and the party on the other lines say they echo. I'm giving it a few more days, but I'm sure to return this piece of crap.

[Toon]

I'm fed up with the Sidekick 3 as well. It's by far the worst phone I've had to put up with, and I've decided that I'm done with it. Echoing calls, shrilling noises, unsendable text messages, spam up the wazoo, unfathomably short battery... it's a piece of trash all the way around. I've chronicled it all on my website (www.crushcounty.com, just click on the "Sidekick Sucks" news blurb, or go to www.crushcounty.com/sidekick3sucks.html ). Hello, Blackberry Pearl.

[Sun]

I just got the sidekick 3 and I am so upset at how bad at it is. My LCD on side 2 broke so I though I would upgrade. I deff downgraded and wish I could get a brand new side kick 2 which didnt feel like it would break if I fliped the screen up....

[kyle]

I have had a sk2 for aout 10 months and I do love the internet and texting the signal is so bad. It has gotten so bad latley that every morning I wake up I have no signal. I'm a on call nurse so this has cost me a lot of money becuase my ringer is my alarm clock. Its funny while I'm writing this my signal has just went to 4 bars to no signal back to 4 bars. Well I got a new sk2 shipped to me about a month ago and the same thing is happening and I think it has gotten worse. Well you probably noticed all t mobile stores are good for are selling phones they have no power to refund or change phones or anything. What would happen if none of my channels came in on cable and I went to there place and they said they can't do anything about it, you would switch companies but with cell phones they have you stuck with a contract. Well today I was fed up and I went to the t mobile by my house ans showed them my phone with no signal and some girl really said its a sidekick they do that, I was so pissed I asked for her manager and long story short he called customer service and they wanted to send me another phone. Well I got on the phone and I gave them 2 choices, either refund my 250 and cancel my contract so I can go to cingular since I always seem to have there signal or give my a phone of equal value. Well they are now shipping me a new sk3 so ill see how that one will go. You know a phone can have all the bells and whistles but if you don't have a signal its not worth shit !!

[griffin Baldino]

Wow.... i guess i won't be buying an sk3. I was soooo looking forward to buying my 1st sidekick but it sounds like its a piece of sh@t. I just don't need all the business apps onn most smartphones so i thought this would be perfect. I've just been holding out on dropping $300 until i researched a bit. I primarily will use the phone for texting and talking. Any advice would be appreciated? I also use macs which u love:)

[Christian Cantrell]

Griffin,

I can't in good conscience recommend the Sidekick 3. In theory, it would be perfect for you (since you're not interested in business apps and your focus is on texting), but in practice, it's really a poorly designed phone. I've also been having plenty of problems with service recently, and I've found that the Sidekick 3 crashes much more than the Sidekick 2 did.

The Sidekick 3 also doesn't have any kind of a Mac story. There used to be the Missing Sync for Hiptop by a company called Mark Space, but it never worked very well, and has now been discontinued. So where does that leave you?

I have two recommendations:

1. The Nokia E61. Several of my friends have this phone, so I've played with it quite a bit, and I'd say it's one of the best smart phones out there right now. It'll take a little work to get IM working how you want it to (as seamlessly as on the Sidekick), but it's a much higher quality phone. iSync doesn't officially support the E61 yet, but it will with Leopard, and in the mean time, you can get it to work with a little hacking (Google will reveal plenty of information).

2. The reason I haven't bought the E61 yet is that I'm waiting for the Apple iPhone which will likely be introduced in January at Macworld. Of course, nobody knows what the iPhone is going to be like, but there is little doubt at this point that a phone will be announced. I'm hoping it will sync seamless with Mail, Address Book, iCal, etc., synch with .Mac, sync with iTunes, and have a version of iChat. If so, I will replace my Sidekick 3 with an iPhone. If not, I will replace it with the E61. One way or another, I'm going to replace my Sidekick as soon as possible.

Christian

[griffin Baldino]

Thanks for your comments Cristian! I have been trying to sell myself on the sidekick for sooo long now...just because I wanted one and it seemed so intuitive and i love the design. Tmobile service really isn't that great in my area anyway: although is getting much better. I would love to wait around for an iphone but I may end up switching back to Verizon and getting a Vx9900. I'm not crazy about it like the sidekick but i'm sure it will be more reliable:) I will take a look at the E61 as well and see what i think. Thanks again!
Griffin

[Wayno]

I have been a SideKick user since its first iteration...yes, the black and white one. I upgraded to the color, then the SideKick 2, then the SideKick 3, each time at the very moment the next one was available. Needless to say, I'm a big fan.

I have to agree that though the SideKick has been improving with each version, the step from 2 to 3 was a mixed bag of good and bad. The 3 has a way cheaper, fragile feel to it and the side buttons are harder to find and feel. The flip screen is very clunky on openning and the whole system, now lacking the love-it-or-hate-it rubber bumpers, just seems at times a bit too slippery when you're doing a lot of handling of the unit. I've dropped it a couple of times (very scary) and I've missed a few calls trying to pull it out of its carrying case because there's no way to get a good grip on it without pressing a few buttons I didn't know I was pressing because I couldn't feel them...you get the picture. I've found the best way to extract the SK3 from the case is to yank on its tassle.

I love the mp3 player and the fact that you can listen to it WITHOUT a headset. Try doing this with your iPod. However, the speaker system is a bit weak and the volume at its highest setting is still lacking. (I bought a Sony Ericsson W600 for my son and his MP3 player speaker is absolutely phenomenal.)

While I'm on the subject, the ringtones, even at their loudest setting, are still too low. I've missed many calls because of it. My SK2 was loud enough to wake the neighbor's dog.

The camera, I agree, takes larger, more detailed, crappy pictures, but I never expected much from the pinhole lens it and most cellphones have.

Battery life has been fine for me, lasting up to 2 days. I always wait for a single bar of battery life before recharging and it seems to keep the battery fresh. Because of this, I highly recommend getting a car charger so that you CAN wait till it gets that low.

Reception used to be spotty with the very first Sidekick I owned, but everytime I had problems, I got on the phone with T-Mobile and hounded them. I got all sorts of concessions, free extra minutes, reduction of bill. I haven't had much problems for a couple of years now. I live in Las Vegas...cell towers galore.

Applications for the SK3 just recently seem to be on the increase. Finally, a scientific graphing calculator is available. I was a bit miffed at first when I found out that I had to repurchase programs I had bought for the SK2 but as long as they keep coming out with better apps, I'm happy.

A couple of months ago I found the website with the info to customize my backgrounds. It's too cool. Being a graphic artist and having access to many sound bites, the possibilities are endless. Homer Simpson greets my screen flip with his "woohoo" and when I close, he yells his ever-famous "Doh!"

Now if I could only find a way to install my own ringtones, I'd be in cell heaven.