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.

Comments

Meeting

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Anyone meeting me at CompUSA tomorrow morning?

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.

Re:Meeting

[brianosaurus]

I've never understood the "why do you want a (cellphone, pda, whatever)? people will bug you all the time" mentality. My mobile phone (which happens to be a Sidekick) is for me to reach people when I want or need to reach them. It has never been a burden on me.

In fact it has been a tremendous convenience. There have been quite a few times that I've needed to call someone (like to ask my wife which brand of toilet paper to buy... important stuff like that ;), and its nice to be able to do it from wherever I am, instead of having to hunt down a quarter and a payphone.

And being unreachable is really, really easy: turn off the phone, or mute it, or just don't answer it. I could be "unreachable" at my desk at work (just ask the people I used to work with!). It just requires some amount of self-control.

If you can't handle owning a mobile phone without feeling like it controls your life, you probably shouldn't own one. Good for you. For those of us who can handle it, its a great convenience.

Re:Great business tool

[Ryan Amos]

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.

And when she runs into me and I throw her cellphone/pda/whatever ubergadget into a river, she better be ready to shell out $300 for a new one and however much it costs to fix my car. The last thing we need are people using ssh during traffic, cell phones are enough of a problem. Use it in a cafe, fine, but in traffic? People have been shot for less here (seriously, though this is Texas...) While it may be convenient for you, it sucks for the 100,000 other people who have to share the road with you. Just say no.

Re:SSH?

[FatherOfONe]

Not trying to start a war here, but why is it a good thing that they mirror all the data on your device with their server? I would prefer the ability to back up that data via bluetooth/80x.11x/FireWire/USB etc to a machine of my choosing. I am not a big fan of anyone having that information.