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Color Sidekick to be Released Tomorrow
Saxton writes "Just announced by hiptop.com's T-Mobile Rep, the awaited Color Sidekick will be available at CompUSA and 1-800-TMOBILE tomorrow. The thread is here. Now available is a data-only plan for $29.99, and you can now use any other T-Mobile price plan with the Sidekick. Anyone meeting me at CompUSA tomorrow morning?" Here is
my Review of the Original device, which I still think is among the most useful portable electronic devices I've seen. I'm looking forward to testing out the new version to see what improvements have been made to an already great unit.
it's all ballsed up again :)
but at least this time it doesn't flash different colours on repeat refreshes....
I'd buy one of these things pretty quickly if they could do SSH. Does anyone know if that's working on the SideKick?
That's all well and good but I'm waiting for this PDA to be released in color.
It's the new color sidekick.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Here is the compusa page:
p ?p roduct_code=303888&pfp=SEARCH
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.as
It looks like they are in stock and available for pickup in the Northeast US. The price seems high, and they will probably change it to $299 on friday.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
"...that only works in VB."
Um, I meant "...only works in IE." I dont' know what I'm smoking. Probably Microsoft products. Those things are bad for your brain.
Sheesh, I even previewed before posting.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
But then it wouldn't work in Lynx! You might as well use the blink tag, or even a jscript to flash the text every RGB in sight.
☠
Ahhh, I see. The Microsoft development model. "The first screen came up... SHIP IT!!!"
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Has anyone got any links to pictures of the device, that is so cool, it provokes slashdotters to see red?
Machine9dotNet
Wait, it's still there, and this story has a palm.
Damned ugly they are.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I am boycotting these so-called "PDAs" until they provide the following features.
In the meantime, I'm sorry but this gets a 2.5 out of 10 on the Seth Finklestein scale of greatness.
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
It depends on the tone of the review/post. In this case, I'm glad they posted it because I've been very interested in a Sidekick since they were in development, but always put off getting one because of the rumored color model that was always on the horizon. I'd stopped following any news on them, so this is probably the only way I would have found out, for a while at least.
I thought the tone of the post was fine. It was a positive review without too much brown-nosing. It's also more info about the device than I've gotten from the comments, with over 60 posted almost all of them are complaining about the red banner.
Cnet has a review at http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-2709830-404-2 1169039.html?txt that goes into more details.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
I've written flipsheet, a spreadsheet for the hiptop, in the Beta SDK, and posted screenshots. It doesn't run on the production device yet, but it will soon.
Has anyone used this with Mapquest on the go. How is the resolution of the maps? That would actually be a big selling point for me as I travel to lots of remote areas.
Requires Optional Camera Attachment
Nice.
No. Have fun. Let's see what you will be getting (from the CompUSA site):
Full Color Web Browser to Access Virtually Any Website
Get Your Email & Wireless Calls In One Convenient Package
Get the Internet & POP3 Email, Send Photos** & Read Image Attachments
Two-way Text Messaging
Use Your Existing Screenname for AOL Instant Messenger & AOL Mail
Wireless Synchronization
Flip Screen Reveals Qwerty Keyboard
32MB of RAM
When I see things like this I think, "why?" Some people need to be this connected, but I think that number is small. For the rest, I wonder why people have a need to stay so connected. Fear of loneliness or lack of feeling important? It seems an antisocial way of being social. For me, I'm happy being alone at times...not only alone but unreachable.
No coverage or mobility criteria? You could just buy a used laptop off eBay, an 802.11g card, and use it to your heart's content in your bedroom.
You probably don't leave your room anyway, so coverage criteria would have been a moot point to begin with.
If it can't sync with Outlook to get my appointments and contacts, I'd have to say no thanks.
id prefer my more phonely nokia 3650, which seems to have all the same features- is already color and has a builtin camera. what os does the csk run? i sure hope its as flexible as symbian/java combo ;)
:) j/k
and seriouslly,a data-only plan? geeks need lives-not another way to check slashdot
I just wanted to let you know that I know where you got your sig from - I'm a big big fan.
How about a review of the new model rather than the old one? Here is one:
Cnet Color Hiptop Review
Great show, one of my top 5 episodes.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I'm sure all the people that buy one have their reasons too. Fortunately for the manufacturer, I suspect there will be more people buying than explicitly boycotting their product.
you forgot a video adapter capable of running Tux Racer.
I'd like it to read my thoughts and come with a pony.
It's valid to clean out the noise and get things back on topic since the problem was fixed, but I hope those moderations didn't affect my karma....
http://www.forbes.com/home/2003/06/02/cx_ah_0602te ntech.html
The new colour blackberry device seems much better,
Better cell phone
better formfactor
Much better security
more stable
it runs J2ME but the hiptop doesn't
and its being sold for the same price!
I considered getting a Sidekick device, but decided not to for one big reason: if I decided to switch from T-Mobile, I'd be left with a paperweight. All the functionality relies on being network-connected with T-Mobile's servers.
That being the case, they need to make it much cheaper. I'm not going to pay $200 for the privilege of committing myself to using T-Mobile.
(Yes, I have an unlocked GSM phone.)
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
a unit with the following:
1. GSM or GPRS
2. PIM, preferrably Palm OS
3. BlueTooth enabled
Anyone know if these things are available in any products? Any product roundup reviews worth pointing to?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I was going to get the B&W unit until I found out (from reading the message boards) that websites have to be "supported" by Danger in order to display on the Sidekick. In other words, if you go to an unsupported site, you get a "sorry" error mesage on your screen. Then you e-mail Danger and ask them to add the website, but people on the boards have complained that AFTER A YEAR it hasn't happened.
This matters to ME because I want to be able to view my own web pages. If I'm running Squirrelmail or Horde on my cable connection, there's ZERO guarantee that I'll be able to use to Sidekick to access it.
Since Danger is continuing to make users rely on their servers for EVERYTHING (including syncing your contacts and calendar), I doubt that this has changed.
My Nokia 3650 will arrive in a few days - free after rebate from Amazon. For the money, that's the best "smart phone" out there.
My roommate's company communicates internally via AIM. Much of their product can be configured over a Web Browser (given access codes), and many meetings happen over the phone. And, of course, support issues are brought up via e-mail. In short, except for an empty chair nobody would know she was working from the beach or the waiting room at the doctor's office. With SSH support, she would have no reason to actually be in the office, and could work from the middle of a cafe or (more often) traffic.
I on the other hand would use the browser capability to find resturants, movie times, and driving directions. If I had one of these on me, I would have recieved a job offer via e-mail on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. AIM, AOL Mail, and Texting are useless to me (One company that I contract with uses Jabber, but that's it), but that doesn't mean they aren't viable functions.
Whether or not you need such connectivity all of the time is very different than whether or not such connectivity would be useful. If the screen was good enough, such a device could replace all of the maps in your car for the entire western world, could be used on vacation to check your e-mail to coordinate things back home (or do telnet over e-mail), or whatever you need.
Quite frankly, the better question is "why not?" When cellular phones were originally released, people looked at the normal house-based usage patterns and asked why anyone would need such a thing all of the time. "That's what answering machines are for," they said. Now people coordinate expeditions and friends as if they were available anytime. The sidekick could be used, for example, to check for speedtraps as you drive, or even better to track the locations of officers that day. Anytime http allows for reading online documentation about the computer that is sitting broken in front of you. You can post to a board for a group of people instead of trying to call them individually. You could look for interesting things to do in the city while you are still in the city and not after you have returned home. Or you could just read the BBC while sitting on the bus.
Sounds good to me. When does that number-portability thingie kick in again?
The ______ Agenda
I'm not trolling, but how are people using the Internet portion of the Sidekick? I can see people using the phone function but the T-Mobile prices are pushing unlimited Internet access. I understand the need for accessing the web every now and then while away from the desk computer but do you need so much wireless Internet access that you need a flat price for it?
I don't see myself using $30/month worth of wireless Internet on a small screen in addition to a broadband connection. So is this a niche product or am I missing something?
--- I'm Green Hornet's sidekick not Inspector Clouseau's!
If you read the linked site (or the official page for the previous version), it's unlimited flat-rate data, in strong contrast to the norm in this industry.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I think the issue is that for this story, everyone was (for some reason) falsely marked as a subscriber, and got to see the article during its "preview" period.
I believe subscribers see the pretty red articles for EVERY article that is posted, 10-15 minutes before us mortals do. Note that back when the article was red, there was also a "Report any errors/problems with this story" link that I've never seen before and disappeared when the story became green.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've had color Borland Sidekick since the 80's.
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
...Id upgrade depending on the price. I paid $75 for the BW version so I would pay another $100 for the color screen, more memory and the higher res camera. I only use it for wireless mail and web, and never bother with the phone function since I have a nokia 5100 cheapie which works fine. I will go with the rumored ($30 unlimited data only, $0.20/min pay as you go cellphone) option. We'll see, wouldnt buy it from compusa since they're a bunch of boobs, unless there's no where else to buy it from than the boobs.
Either way, its not for everyone, comes in handy here and there and was cheaper than a Tmobile or Siemens sx-56 for $300-$600 and no unlimited internet.
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
With unlimited data plans, I can't wait for the first developer to get VoIP working.
The ______ Agenda
After doing a little research, Google, etc... your scale carries no weight.
All the Sidekick would need is an up to date SSH client that supports SSH1 and SSH2. That feature alone would make the Sidekick the most valuable UNIX and other Real Network Admins (Cisco Router/firewall network admins.) gadget available.
I haven't heard nor have I been able to locate any information regarding an SSH client for the Sidekick, has anyone else?
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Likewise, only I'm more in the market for:- 1. a hard drive (or wait until Flash gets so cheap I can put 2GB+ in the thing). Being limited to one or two MP3 albums' worth of expensive Flash memory sticks is not acceptable. 2. programmability. I don't care if the OS is Linux, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. If the OS is Linux, I don't have to care about the number of keyboard keys or the bundled software as I know they kbd can easily be remapped and new s/ware installed. However, at the minimum, it has to allow the development of apps that can access the local filesystem, TCP/IP and whatever I/O the machine supports (I suspect the gaming-oriented Java VMs included with "smart" phones lock out some of this?) 3. a usable-quality colour digital camera (I'd buy at 320x200 and stills-only, but would prefer 640x480 and motion capture). 4. a high-enough resolution screen for readable-but-ugly text at 80x25. 320x200 *just* scrapes by as acceptable there; in any case it's hard to build much more than that in to such a small form factor. 5. reasonably quality (better than your average cellphone) external connectivity for audio I/O, preferably on standard 3.5mm connectors. I'm starting to get frustrated with what I see as a lack of innovation with regards to integrating this stuff.. we all know it's possible with current technology. Right now, I carry around a semi-smart (actually pretty dumb) phone, an iPod and a small digital camera. Each of these has probably 85% of its components and weight (casing, screen, battery, mobile CPU, buttons, connector jacks, memory) in common, so it MUST be possible to build something like this that's no more than 30% bigger and heavier than a new-style iPod. I suspect it may in part have to do with the cellphone companies having rather stringent rules on what can connect to their networks.. I don't suppose they'd much like their protocol stacks running in the same address-space as any old code.
T-Mobile Color Sidekick Wireless Web Browser Phone
p ?p roduct_code=303887&pfp=SEARCH
CompUSA Price: $608.03
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.as
Ouch!
First, let's get something straight. We're called African American assistants for the Comedically Challenged, not some honkey name like Colored Sidekick. What does a brother have to do to keep from being oppressed by the man?
-Chris
p.s. You might have seen my work in this movie or the sequel. I think you'll agree that I was more than just a Colored Sidekick.
I refuse to believe people wasted so many mod points knocking down every single post here pointing out the red banner. My feeling is that for whatever reason (error or some kind of nerfarious intent) Michael posted this as a pre-done piece (hence the red), and saw all the posts about it.
Red-faced and furious, he started ticking off all the posts and threads to be slammed down to -1.
Does that make sense? It seems like that's what happened. Let's see how long it takes for this one to be slapped down as "Overrated".
Rating "Winning a Usenetflamewar" above "Hot chicks"?! That proves my original post!
Basically, you can make a macro that will write out any Unicode character, so pipe is available (as pointed out elsewhere, tilde is on the keyboard).
mahlen
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. --Oscar Wilde, British playwright, poet, and novelist (1854-1900)For those of you who bought the original Sidekick, I have a few questions:
Interociter
-=What do I want? I'm an American. I want more.
I like the PIM applications a lot. They are very well designed
The tiny camera was great until I Broke it :(
I love the web synchronization. I can go to the tmobile web site and see all my pim data from my sidekick there. I can edit it and it is instantly synched with the phone which is very very cool.
Keyboard is great for typing.
Email app is great and can view attachments
Web browsing actually works. I can look at slashdot, quote.yahoo.com, maps, google, etc. No javascript but I read news all day while walking around town. The fonts are actually readable without a lot of zooming and horizontal scrolling.
AOL instant messenger works well.
I get unlimited data for the first year!
As a phone this thing is a bit of a drag, mainly because T-Mobile has such lousy coverage but when it works its awesome.
I had a Zaurus. It just wasn't that usefull and the fonts were way to small and this 802.11 stuff barely works even if you get a plan. Sidekick reformats pages so you can actually read them on its screen. Anyway.. Go get one they are worth it, especially with all the rebates I got.
Is a handy, useful device if you need mobile connectivity. I've liked using mine-- the IM client is a very usable adless implementation of AIM. No group chats, but that's no big deal. The web browser is fairly capable, helped heavily by a recompressing/reformatting proxy on the server-side.
Where it loses out is as a PIM-- the calendar has a very limited number of entries, and sync for the calendar and address book is only one-way. You can import your records from Outlook, but there's no getting them back out. Sync was expected Q1 this year, but hasn't materialized yet, so I wouldn't bank on that feature.
The Java SDK is cool, but so far there is no way for developers to actually put code on users' devices. So, although lots of great apps have been written, they can only run in the emulator.
And finally, while I really like the way the device was designed as a whole, whoever is assembling the device is not doing them justice. I am on my 4th unit in 6 months. Some folks at hiptop.com are on their 8th unit. For a device that hasn't even been available for a year! I'm hoping that they have fixed their issues with the release of the color unit, but I would wait a few months before purchasing to see how they're holding up.
I like the unlimited data plan, and I'll be keeping mine. It's great as a wireless IM client and to check webpages (but their proxy doesn't like games.slashdot.org), just don't expect it to be everything they list in their features list. It's like a video game-- it got released before it was ready, and it's going to be a while before all the patches get put in place. And don't expect it to last more than 2 or 3 months. Fortunately, they've been good about shipping replacements.
..TMobile didn't suck. I had two of their phones on their family plan for a year. Lousy coverage areas, shoddy service (like losing the signal while downtown in the center of their coverage area in my region), and HORRIBLE customer service. I would not do business with them again if they paid me. It got to the point where we almost had to call the BBB.
a) letting the 3 & 5 year old talk to grandma, and that lets me translate from 3year old speech to 75 year old speech and fill in the gaps.
b) placing the phone down and getting back to coding when you are placed on hold again.
Don't think about crummy behavior in public with cellphones. Think about cellphones replacing wired phones. The only reason I have a landline is because I cannot find a cellphone with acceptable voice quality, yet. But speakerphones are almost a must have....
Also, chewie, you're a lucky guy to have so little to get frustrated over. But you may wish to lay off the caffeine.
Not avaialble my area, outside flat rate coverage zone. sigh. I keep waiting for something to appear that is effortless internet access,I just do not want to have to buy extra cables and wires and cards and software voodoo the system to get to the dang internet, want flat rate, add the phone as you need it at a reasonable cost. This deal looks "close", real dang close, but not...quite...there yet because it's only in the same places that already have broadband and a huge choices of hardwired or wireless stuff. I couldn't even see if you could attach this to a laptop or desktop easy, which is another requirement, vast majority of time that's how it would be used for my purposes.
I use this whole cellphone/landphone/computer deal 99% internet, 1% voice. I frequently don't use the 600 anytime/anywhere minutes a month on the phone, but have to stay locked into a landline dialup, THAT never gets used for voice phone service. I WANT the cell because it's portable,say if you breakdown so bad you can't fix it yourself on some remote road or something, etc, and I don't need the dialup telephony or it's associatedbill at all, just some sort of data pipe to the internet, but that must come bundled, which fries my grits. Extra 35 clams a month on top of the net access bill of 20 clams so you can use the net at slow speed. Ridiculous.
I'm greatful I have it though, it's just sort of frustrating.
And their website (t-mobile) makes ya use javascript and eat cookies and have images turned on just to surf around in it. Hate when that happens, you'd THINK with a product like this they would have a low res text only no BS blinkenlights version of the site to USE with their own products. Maybe it's there, but I'm not seeing it.
Maybe what I want they don't even make. all I really want is some sort of dumb but functional wireless, cell phone coverage area internet appliance, if it does phone calls, swell, it doesn't need all that other jazz, I don't need games, schedulers, robotic carwashes, text messages, or anything like that, I'll sacrafice that for seamless wireless internet,at some sort of modest rate that's fair to both parties, a decent data transfer rate, because it's tiring to wait for this imaginary broadband and to pay for a landline phone you never use. If they can leave all that other stuff off the appliance and only charge 1004 for it, swell, I'd get their device and wireless data, but, not even avaialable here.
Oh ya, it has to run linux or blah blah blah, I don't care, just sell me that last dang mile wirelessly and EASILY with no crap attached to it, for a reasonable fee, that's good enough.
Notice how my needs keep dropping?? hahahaha!
7. Must be able to download songs from iTunes Music Service for No more than $0.25
I wouldn't break out the champagne just yet. I've been a SK owner since it was released in October and the device is truly a lemon. I'm on my third one right now and on my second SIM card. I'm not even up there with the real lemon owners. Others at the official forums http://www.hiptop.com/forums/ have gone through six to eight of these things.
The B&W was only $200 and was a gamble back in October, but I'm afraid Danger and T-Mobile have shown their true colors since. Very poor customer communications, promises of software still go unfulfilled - this device won't synch with any PIM and the telnet/ssh client simply hasn't happened. Development is closed to only a handful of people and will probably be a long while until a new app has passed the t-mobile/danger censors. They really don't want you to run anything that *might* even disrupt their setup. Sadly, still no basic calculator.
The new device sports a color screen and some more RAM. Big deal. QC could still be a problem and at $300 its competiting with much more complex devices like PocketPCs, high-end Palms, etc.
This seems more like a stop-gap measure to stop selling the lemon B&W unit to save their reputation and not scare away new customers. Hopefully, it'll work, I wish them no ill-will, but what about the rest of us stuck with this lemon? Eventually an upgrade price will be announced, but of course that means another 12 month contract. Fool me once...
If only this device can deliver always on connection it would be a great gadget. Being an owner of the first version of Sidekick, however, I was disappointed on the connectivity. The problem in San Francisco Bay Area is Cingular's poor radio signal. The device frequently lose sync with the server. To resync it often takes one to two minutes. Everytime I click a hyperlink it may fetch in a reasonable amount of time or it may take many minutes. You are not going to enjoy web surfing given the unreliablity. I have adapted to the problem of this device. When I use it usually I have a book on one hand and the sidekick on the other hand.
And if you leave the device on overnight and you want to check the weather next morning. Chances are it has already lost sync. Wait another few minutes for it to get connected again. Sometimes you have to reboot the phone altogether in order to get connected.
Wai Yip
Slashdotters need to be able to talk about slashdot-specific issues every once in a while. Not as much as with kuro5hin, but at least a little bit. And I strongly strongly feel that these posts shouldn't be marked down offtopic because there is nowhere else that these discussions can take place.
The reason I felt this was a "meta" issue is that the parent's-parent post was marked down to -1 in a very short span of time, something that usually doesn't happen unless the post is intentionally offensive. This seemed to me that an admin did it, which as I pointed out would probably be productive to the community, but I thought it should be pointed out and discussed at least a little bit since I've never heard of it.
I don't know if it's the general community consensus or the admins who mark these meta discussions down, but either way I think it's quite opposed to the open ideals most of us typically have...
Here are the links to the larger versions of the pictures used in the CNET review:
9 039_1_overview_440.gif 9 039_2_front_440.gif 9 039_3_back_440.gif 9 039_4_sides_440.gif 9 039_5_top+bottom_440.gif _ DT1_440.gif _ DT2_440.gif _ DT3_440.gif _ DT4_440.gif _ DT5_440.gif _ DT6_440.gif _ SS1_440.gif
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/ovr/2116
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/ovr/2116
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/ovr/2116
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/ovr/2116
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/ovr/2116
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/21169039/21169039
The possible resolutions (numbers at end of filename) seem to be 200, 300, and 440. If anyone can find larger versions, please post them.
>People have been shot for less here (seriously, though this is Texas...)
Last time I was in Texas, at the zoo there was a sign that said "Please leave your weapons outside the zoo."
The Handspring Treo 300 ($199 at Amazon.com) can do SSH via Top Gun SSH. It also has the benefit of using the Sprint PCS network, which is much larger than the T-Mobile network and runs at 128K instead of 19.2K. (The difference is huge.)
The really cool thing about the Treo is that you can hook it up via a USB cable to your laptop and get Internet access anywhere you have a Sprint PCS connection. This means that you can be on the Internet pretty much anywhere without worrying about wireless hotspots. (Treo Central has more information on this.)
I'd pick the Treo 300 over the Sidekick any time. It's cheaper, works on a network that has much greater coverage, and can run any applications that run on Palm OS. With the laptop connector, it's a no-brainer.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
I dunno man, the Treo brings images of Michael Douglas in Wall Street on his "cell phone".
The form factor seems to be just too big.
"I wish I had a Kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away." --Jack Handy
Cons
-The phone is still awkward to use after 8+ months of use, and the audio quality of the phone is pretty poor.
-The lack of Outlook synching is a major negative for me and I'm sure many other business users. Danger seems to be of the opinion that this device is for kids and hip twentysomethings that don't use corporate email.
-T-Mobile's network coverage really sucks even in areas where they supposedly offer solid coverage. It's funny that most of the time I can maintain a solid signal at home or at the office, but almost 20% of the time I get no signal in these exact same places.
-The devices are very fragile. I'm on my third unit. The first had a major screen crack within a week of purchase even with no drops. The second just inexplicably lost receiving ability and had to be replaced.
-Too bulky to be pocketable. This one isn't a big deal to me, but it is quite thick for pocket carrying, and there is a real lack of beltable carrying cases on the market.
-No email filtering. My Sidekick access multiple POP3 accounts, and there's no way to separate those into separate folders, they are all just dumped into the Inbox.
Pros
-The easiest data entry on a portable device I've used. I've used just about every type of PDA on the market, including the Treo, Clie, and Zaurus with keyboards, and nothing comes close to the Sidekick keyboard.
-Web browsing is outstanding. None of the WAP that most portable devices offer, this is a full-fledged browser that works great in most cases.
-Portable email works very well. This sort of goes along with the ease of data entry point above, but it's as easy for me to email from my Sidekick as it is from my desk PC. And as long as co-workers don't read email headers, they don't know if I'm at my desk or on the road with my setup.
-It's always connected. No need to engage a dial-up connection. Just open the browser and you're pulling down data right away. And email is always-on and checking for new mail.
-Very affordable. Comparable hybrid PDA/phone devices are hundreds of dollars more. The B&W model even got below $100 after a few months.
I'm not a heavy phone user, so the Sidekick has worked well for me. I basically view it as a portable communications device rather than a phone or PDA. It's not a great phone, it's not a great PDA, but it is a great all-purpose device. If only they could get Outlook synching to work, I might consider upgrading. As it is, I'll be looking at other devices once my contract runs out.
Blackberrys have SSH and Telnet apps running on them, why not give it a shot?
Blackberries cost 150-200% what a Hiptop does, no?
If you want a site that doesn't work, try games.slashdot.org. Weather.com had glitches, too.
It's far from perfect, but it does a decent job.
Actually no - the new colour product being released in Europe and soon in the US actually costs the same as the Hiptop - $299
Oh I bet you don't get to even metemod their moderations. Especially the bitchslaps like this one.
was going to get the B&W unit until I found out (from reading the message boards) that websites have to be "supported" by Danger in order to display on the Sidekick. In other words, if you go to an unsupported site, you get a "sorry" error mesage on your screen. Then you e-mail Danger and ask them to add the website, but people on the boards have complained that AFTER A YEAR it hasn't happened.
This is just plain WRONG.
The Sidekick does not have a "valid-list" of websites. I use my sidekick to check the temperature of my hot-tub at home, which is available on a web page I wrote. I can assure you, I didn't have to ask anyone at Danger to "support" my webpage.
I got to play with one of these things at the last CTIA... I think its a really awesome device.. I haven't really played with the old Sidekick, but the screen on the new one is pretty sharp with a nice res... I surfed over to some sites and the image quality on it was excellent... it was like looking at a laptop screen... The construction seemed solid enough for me... I thought it was one of the coolest little gadgets at the show...
:)
The service seemed fairly fast on it (web and IM), but then again, they was probably a T-Mobile cell blasting at it in the next to the booth...
If I wasn't stuck with VZ and their crap phones, I'd consider getting it!!
Sigs are for losers::
I've found coverage to be great whenever I'm on vacation -- it seems to be just worse here in the Bay Area than other parts of California even. Maybe the ATT/Tmobile sharing agreement will help (dunno).
Actually the colour BlackBerry will cost the same as the colour Hiptop
Upgrades are now available, for roughly $299+tax depending on how long you have been a T-Mobile subscriber.
What kind of dinky little car is that you're used to if someone writes "in traffic" and you assume she's driving? Ever hear of car pools, buses or trains?