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

SSH?

[interiot]

I'd buy one of these things pretty quickly if they could do SSH. Does anyone know if that's working on the SideKick?

Re:SSH?

[jhsewell]

I suspect that we may all still have a very long wait until we (non-developers) can install applications on our (non-development) SideKicks.

Like you, I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for an SSH client for my SK. The fact that the application has existed for months, and that I've played with it on the emulator, and that it appears to be fully functional just makes the wait more frustrating.

Although the guys at Danger are relatively responsive and appear to be competent, they seem to have an excruciatingly long software developement cycle. Combine this with the closed nature of the SK's operating system and application distrubution mechanism, and I would be suprised if we have SSH running on the SK any time soon.

As I understand it, Danger must revise and upgrade the SideKick's operating system before you'll be able to install applications. And even after the upgrade, obtaining and installing new applications will never be straight-forward in the same way that it is with PalmOS or PocketPC phones. I suspect that the mass-distribution of applications will require the blessing and cooperation of Danger Inc. to provide the backend equipement for over-the-air installations.

Hopefully, this color SK will have the needed OS revisions to allow the installation of applications, or better yet come with SSH built-in.

Re:SSH?

[Benley]

You're very close to the problem, but not quite right on. The best explanation for the reason normal non-developers can't have SSH right now (aside from needing an OS update, which is indeed true), is that T-Mobile has to approve everything that goes out to their customers. This is exactly the reason why app distribution will never be as straightforward as it is with PalmOS or PocketPC phones: T-Mobile is scared to death of this thing (well, sorta.) - in particular, the concern is of 3rd party developers writing apps that access the data that hiptops store on t-mobile's servers (every bit of info you put in the hiptop is stored on t-mobile's servers as well as the hiptop. Yes, this is a Good Thing, trust me) - anyway they don't want 3rd party developers screwing things up and creating tech support nightmares for them.

Color Timekeeper

[briggsb]

That's all well and good but I'm waiting for this PDA to be released in color.

Compusa

[cdf12345]

Here is the compusa page:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp ?p roduct_code=303888&pfp=SEARCH

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.

Re:Compusa

[Saxton]

The fake price on CompUSA, the $608.03, refers to the release date. ;-)

Features I need

[Seth Finklestein]

I am boycotting these so-called "PDAs" until they provide the following features.

1. Integrated 802.11g access. I'm not paying 2 cents per kilobyte for GPRS.
2. Full QWERTY keyboard including critically important characters such as | and ~
3. Color screen with a resolution of at least 640x480
4. Linux operating system with all code open-sourced
5. Terminal with all GNU utilities and SSH
6. Priced under $100 with no contract requirement

In the meantime, I'm sorry but this gets a 2.5 out of 10 on the Seth Finklestein scale of greatness.

Re:Features I need

[Saxton]

...and let me guess: So you can make a beowulf cluster of them? ...and to comment on a couple of your points (heheh) 1. Unlimited Data plan (not .02/kb) and 2. it does include the tilde. We'll have to wait for the release of the version that includes pipe, though. ;-)

Funny post... but c'mon, give it at least a 3.5!

Review

[GeorgeH]

Cnet has a review at http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-2709830-404-2 1169039.html?txt that goes into more details.

Re:Review

[Chewie]

I like that one of their "bad" points is its lack of speakerphone functionality. Since when is this bad? First off, most cell phone speakerphones are total pieces of crap anyway. Secondly, I'm beginning to think I'm the only person on Earth who feels this way, but I'm frustrated enough with one side of some jackass's conversation that I don't want to hear *both* sides! This ranks right up there with those Nextel phones. So instead of hearing,

"Hey, what's up, John? Not much. I'm in the post office. Buying some stamps. Yep."

I get to hear:

*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Hey, it's John."
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Hey, what's up, John?"
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Not much, man. What's up with you?"
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Not much."
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Where are you?"
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"I'm in the post office."
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Why?"
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Buy ing some stamps."
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Do they have the ones with Mickey Mouse on them?"
*BEEDEEBEEP*
"Yep."

What happened to keeping your conversation to yourself? Damn kids.

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:Is this a good NAV tool?

[Duwke]

They just release a fix so that mapquest comes in very well now. You can actually read names of roads (at least on yahoo maps, which I believe is just mapquest rebranded).
It is quite useful on the road.

Real review

[Espen]

How about a review of the new model rather than the old one? Here is one:

Cnet Color Hiptop Review

My experience with the original Sidekick

[raygundan]

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.