Hanging with T-Mobile's Sidekick 2

The Sidekick's call profiles, all seven of them, can be quickly called up by hitting one of the pre-defined button combinations. By default, the profiles list is called up by pressing the Menu and OK buttons at the same time, at which point you can scroll through the list and select from Maximum, Loud, Normal, Soft, Minimum, Buzz, and Silent. The profiles system has the ability to schedule particular profiles to turn on and off at various times of the day or days of the week, recurring every day/week. This means you can have the sidekick automatically turn off its ringer between midnight and 6am, for example, and have it turn on the Maximum profile on the weekends, when perhaps you aren't carrying it around with you at all times. Very cool.

Sidekick Connectivity

The Sidekick 2 by nature is a connected device. It is always connected to the GPRS network and is constantly passing data back and forth to the central servers that Danger hosts for T-Mobile. As you would expect, due to its large display and keyboard, the Sidekick makes a decent mobile web browsing platform.

While there is no infrared port or Bluetooth connectivity on the Sidekick 2, there is an optional USB data cable available that will let you hook up to a PC and compatible printers and such. I didn't have access to the USB cable and can't give you any specifics on what it can or can't do, though.

Your best bet for data synchronization is the $10 Intellisync software that I mentioned earlier. With that installed I was able to sync my Sidekick with my Microsoft Outlook for Contacts, Appointments, and Tasks. The only problem I noticed was a fairly minor one. The Sidekick and the sync software do not seem to be aware of time zones. That means that your PC and your Sidekick have to be configured for the same time zone when they synchronize, else your appointments will be all wrong. I experienced this when I was preparing for the 3GSM show in Cannes, France. Otherwise the process worked flawlessly.

Sidekick Messaging

The Sidekick 2 is a very message centric device. Not only does it support basic SMS and MMS, but it also has fully integrated Email and AOL Instant Messenger clients. The email client is tied to your personal email address that comes from T-Mobile by default, but you can add other email accounts to the device so that you can get to your email that is stored on other servers. When you add a POP or IMAP account to the messaging section of T-Mobile's Desktop Interface, the Danger servers will automatically download email from that account and push it out to your Sidekick, just as would a BlackBerry device from RIM. The system worked quite well for me.

The email application on the Sidekick itself was very nice and easy to use. The nice user interface and the large display made reading and replying to email a real piece of cake. The instant notification of newly arrived emails was a welcome touch, too. I think the Sidekick is a very viable alternative to RIM BlackBerry compatible devices.

The AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) client also performed as I hoped. Logging in was a piece of cake, and my buddy list pulled right up. Maintaining multiple active chat sessions was no problem, even while I was doing other things. If you are addicted to instant messaging, this is a great device. I would like to see support for more IM systems, though. MSN support would have been welcome. A downloadable version of Yahoo! Messenger is now available, but I did not try that.

 

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