Danger's HipTop Renamed and Released

FireMage writes "According to this press release from Danger, their cheap, cool, consumer targeted, cellphone/PDA "convergance device", the HipTop is now avalible nationwide as the T-Mobile SideKick, as in you should actually be able to buy one today. They've even revived one of their nifty-mysterious original flash splash pages to announce it. I'm all for clever hacks, but it's nice to finally see what seems to be a well thought out product in this arena. (The HipTop was first mentioned on Slashdot and again in a review .)" I have a review unit on my desk, and am super impressed. A larger impression piece will be coming out just as soon as I have time to write it.

Comments

Missing some key features

[cmeans]

I was initially impressed with this device, and I've been waiting for it for almost a year now.
However, not having a touch screen I think hampers it immensly, and not being able to dial a number (one that's not already in your address book) without openning it and punching the number in using the keyboard is going to limit it.

I know it's not being targetted to business types, but I think that it's the business types who can really make it popular.

I'm hopful that the next version of this will have those issues taken care of.

Yes, but read the details.

[SplendidIsolatn]

As quoted from their rate plan site:

- After 1st year, unlimited becomes 15MB/month, $3.50/additional MB.

Coverage not available in all areas. Limited time offer and cannot be combined with any other promotions. Credit approval and 12 month service ageement required with $200 fee for early termination. Terms and condidtions include mandatory arbitration provision. Customer billing address must be within and offer valid only in the following T-Mobile (VS) markets: Denver, Colorado Springs, Las Cruces, Portland, Boise, Albequerque, Santa Fe, Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and all VS markets in the following states: Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Incoming and outgoing calls are rounded up and billed in full minute increments from the time the network begins to process the call (before the call rings or is answered) through its termination of the call. All allocated airtime minutes must be used in the month provided and do not carry over.


In other words, after the first year, you are paying $3.50 a meg after 15 per month (that's 500K a day...)

Not to mention you can't even get this thing unless you live in a certain area.

I've been pining over this thing for months now, get the great news, happen to live in PA, and now I'm royally pissed off. Way to go...

Re:Yes, but read the details.

[shepd]

>In other words, after the first year, you are paying $3.50 a meg after 15 per month (that's 500K a day...)

That's hundreds of times better than RIM Blackberry service charges.

Rogers charges $25/month for 70,000 characters of service per month in RIM's hometown. Even after converting that to American dollars, it's still an insane cost to send emails -- it works out more per email than the cost of sending snail mail there.

I might be interested at rates like those for HipTop, though.

With all this technology

[Anonymous Coward]

available to everyone around the clock, how come no one has a FUCKING CLUE how to spell?

"convergance"? I mean FUCK, that can't even be PRONOUNCED properly.

All this memory, all this processing power, no one has a fucking iSpell somewhere? Preferably something that gives electric shocks whenever vowels are substituted (flexable, rediculous, definately, etc ad nausem), and a siren goes off when you substitute consonants.

Re:With all this technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem, that would be "ad nauseam".

More linkage

[slothdog]

More info, including reports of people getting activated and having trouble getting activated, can be read at the DangerInfo Forums.

Convergence device != answer

[plover]

For years, first as a Palm owner then as a Visor owner, I wanted a combination device so I wouldn't have to carry two different things on me.

Then I got to trying some of the available combo devices, such as the QualComm PDQ, the VisorPhone and the Kyocera. None were good enough at both tasks for me to ever want to use one again.

The screens are way too small on the dedicated phones. The PDQ was a great innovator, and a damn fine doorstop. The bolt-on radio made the Visor too big and heavy to fit comfortably in a pocket, and the speaking position is surprisingly clumsy. The Kyocera is just a very large phone with a very tiny PDA.

I've finally come to recognize that they are two different devices used for different purposes that have an occasional need for convergence. Any hardware combination is going to be a compromise that makes the usability of both suffer. I think the best answer now is going to be bluetooth communications between two separate devices. Bluetooth will also come in handy with future consumer controls (think TV remotes that don't rely on an under powered IR or a cordless phone base that talks to your cell phone's earpiece, etc.,) so it has the potential to be used much more widely than just pocket to earpiece communicatons.

Let's just say that the news of this device is two years late and mostly underwhelming.

Re:Convergence device != answer

[SirSlud]

One word: modules!

Until we have some sort of physical module standard, we'll never get to have all the best-of-breed things in one device.

But I imagine a time where you buy a 'display' platform - a screen and some input mechanisms (keyboard, speaker, mic). Then, you plug in the GSM-on-a-card, or the organizer-on-a-card, or the .. well, you get the idea.

There's no reason why there couldn't be one physical device if the tech industry could get it into their head that physical interoperability is going to be just as important in the future as software interoperability as consumers demand that they don't have to carry around 5 physical devices to get the best implementations of the various devices you list.

I think if you seperate the passive technologies (the screen, the inputs, outputs, storage), you could easily have these manufacturers competate for best-of-breed implementations without the consumer having to carry around X number of seperate devices ..

Or maybe this gets even easier, as you say, with bluetooth. You keep all the functionality in your bag or pocket in the from of bluetooth enabled modules that speak to the central display and I/O device.

That way the market diferentiates between your interface layer (the physical device you view and provide input to), and the tasks it can accomplish, and consumers arn't left compromising functionality for the interface, or the interface for the functionality.

Re:Convergence device != answer

[Freedom Bug]

But at some point in time, convergance devices become "good enough" and the benefit of carrying one device outweighs the negative.

Myself, I've got a Treo and I love it. It fits in my pocket (my old Visor didn't, and my old phone was uncomfortable there). Sure, there's things I don't like about it, but it's a heck of a lot better than carrying two gadgets around.

Let's face it, Palm's and phones are mature technologies. The biggest differentiator between two different non-wireless Palms or two different GSM phones is LOOKS. Other differences are minor.

Even if Bluetooth delivered on it's promise, I'd still be using a Treo, because I'd be only carrying around one gadget rather than two.

Bryan

Welcome to the walled garden

[Wesley Felter]

There probably is an SDK, but us lowly users can't get our hands on it. In the cell phone universe, the carrier only lets you run apps written by their "strategic partners".

Also, if you could write apps then you might use more bandwidth than T-Mobile has budgeted for, putting them in the same pinch that P2P file sharing put the broadband ISPs in.

Option value is good and end-to-end is good; maybe someday the service providers will even figure it out.

Re:With all this technology (pot/kettle)

[gosand]

(flexable, rediculous, definately, etc ad nausem)

Don't you mean "ad nauseam"?

*ducks*

My woes with the Hiptop & VoiceStream

[Brento]

I've been a T-Mobile customer for more than a year. I subscribed to the MobileStar mobile internet service back before T-Mobile bought them. I'm a gadget freak, and I telecommute full time. I'm the perfect target for this device.

I spoke to my local Houston T-Mobile sales office last week and again yesterday, dying to get my hands on one. They said they had 'em, but couldn't sell 'em to me until Oct 1. Fine, no problem. I showed up this morning at 9am to meet them when they opened the front doors, concerned that I wouldn't be the first in line to grab one. Turns out T-Mobile didn't even have them anywhere in Houston.

I ran over to the Galleria CompUSA, where I'd already seen the boxes, and asked to buy one. Sure, they said, but it's $450. I explained to the clerk that that was the price without activation, and that it was $250 with activation. They had to call two different reps to figure out I was right - but the T-Mobile reps actually told the clerks not to sell the devices because the service wasn't ready.

I then had to call the local T-Mobile store, get them on the phone with CompUSA (all over my Verizon cell phone) and get them to agree that yes, they could sell it to me, yes, the service was active. But CompUSA still wouldn't lower the price from $450. Even worse, they couldn't activate it at the store - I had to hoof it back over to T-Mobile again.

At that point, I walked out of the store, went over to Verizon, and renewed my existing contract for another two years. I want to make sure I don't tempt myself and try that messy service again.

pretty slick

[grue23]

i had to chance to play with one of these a couple months ago; i have a friend that works for danger and they've all had prototypes for a while now. the UI is extremely well thought out and easy to use - there's a little scrollwheel that lets you flip between menus more easily than most cellphone type things i've used. it's also fairly compact, lightweight, and cheap, compared with similar convergence devices.

the version my friend had also had a telnet client on it! he's since told me that won't be available with the release and may not ever be available for the actual product.

Go to the store, not the website.

[TheKodiak]

I checked the website - by the time I had put together my order, I was up to $284, plus a $35 activation fee, and a $50 mail-in-rebate.

Decided I couldn't wait to get my hands on it, went to a local store - walked out for $216 (with tax) and a $25 activation fee.

Part of the difference was I didn't get the headset (since it comes with an earbud, which is all I really wanted anyway) and I didn't get the AC adapter ($20, they didn't have it in yet). But I also didn't have to deal with the mail-in-rebate hassle.

Down side is they don't have the plan in the PoS, yet, so they have to call it in manually... But it'll probably still be activated before I would have gotten it shipped to me.

I _so_ almost want this!

[jht]

Okay - I haven't seen a real one yet, but it's reasonably small. It comes with an OK voice plan, and a very good data plan. The built-in applications are pretty slick-looking, and it can handle e-mail attachments. Battery life is allegedly decent. The screen appears to be pretty nice.

Not to mention I'm a gadget freak. I have a Palm Vx, a Zaurus, an old Newton MessagePad 2100 (got it used for cheap about a month ago), a couple of Macs, and a bunch o' PC's. I have an iPaq 3700 series that I got last year, and I use a Blackberry for work. I've got a nice little cellphone (A Moto T193), and I used to use OmniSky with my Palm when the service first started up, though I've since ditched it.

I ought to be the perfect target market for a gizmo like this.

But I don't want it. Here's why.

First off, there doesn't appear to be any real mechanism for extending it with more apps so far. Give me SSH, even, and I could get some good business use out of it.

Then, the phone functionality seems awkward. There's no way to dial with the screen closed.

Finally, the service plan they're offering is only a teaser. I want all-you-can-eat wireless data, even if it costs a little more to get it. Per-MB pricing sucks, since you don't have great control over how much data a given website will transfer, for instance. Data can't be metered by the end-user that effectively, especially on a mobile platform.

The biggest reason I won't get it, though, is that my wife would have me sleeping on the patio for the entire year of unlimited data! Not worth it at all...

Re:I _so_ almost want this!

[TheKodiak]

"Then, the phone functionality seems awkward. There's no way to dial with the screen closed."

That is incorrect.

You can use the wheel to dial (not so bad if you're used to using a wheel) a number that's not in your recent history or speed dial, or use the wheel to select one of those numbers.

More details on this device

[BovineOne]

Check out Danger Info's unofficial forums or their main page. Note that they are not officially affiliated with Danger Inc.

Another unofficial website that says up to date with Danger info is at hiptop411.com