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Hiptop/Sidekick Sequel Unleashed
powerline22 writes "After years of waiting, the second Hiptop (or Sidekick, depending on the carrier) has been unveiled to the public. After the terrible hardware reliability of the first version, the second one, manufactured by Sharp, looks a lot better, with longer battery life, built-in camera, more buttons, better radio, new software features and more. Also, according to T-Mobile, sync is going to finally be here real soon now. There are reviews at CNet, over at PCMag, and at MSNBC." We recently covered leaked Hiptop II photos.
But still no (real) sync yet. Enough said. Get with the program, Danger.
That thing looks cool, but will it sync with Linux?
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
For years their synchronization solution has been vaporware. It exists, but it hasn't been released. They keep saying "any month now"...
If you buy one of these things, start learning now how to write a screen scraper. It's the only way to get your data if your phone ever breaks.
I'm wishing the next Treos will just get a browser as nice as the SK's. Then they will be a great solution.
Seriously, I'm still using my t68i as a BT modem with T-Mobile's unlimited GPRS and I won't switch till there is a decent BT phone/PDA combo (treo 610 pleaseohpleaseohplease, maybe the new iPaq 6315).
The t68i's interface is dog slow though.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Let's see:
My Sharp phone (DoCoMo SH251i) died within 3 monthes of me recieving it. Exchange for new one. died again within 1 week. Exchanged new one - still kicking but the battery life has become quite questionable.
My Sharp Electronic Dictionary: keys become non-responsive after about 6 monthes; the hinges are almost gone, and the letters SHARP has been falling off one by one, first to read SHAP, and then SHP - I think if it gets to SH in a few weeks I will write "IT" beside it.
As a comparison my NEC phone had never had *any* problems including my stupid action of plugging it (100V device) into a 220V socket. My Seiko dictionary is holding up quite well with about double the usage recieved on the Sharp, etc.
Just some ancidotal evidence...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Besides, this thing looks HUGE to me, not exactly a svelte device to slide in your pocket or clip to your belt.
Ok, so maybee it is a cheap Treo or Blackberry, but if you are buying a device for robust email access and PDA functionality, then the extra money spent would be well worth it, wouldn't it?
Even as a gaming machine, the Nokia N-Gage would blow this thing away... not to mention the QD.
Maybee i'm too old.... :)
I recently switched to a Treo as I need net 24/7 in order to trade Stocks. So, i picked up a treo, and i love the thing. Sadly, I wish i would've waited for the bluetooth model, which is coming out in December (i think). Then it will be ebay time for this puppy.
-------
artlu.net
to serve as a portable terminal. (I seem to recall this as a feature in the original model, but I can't find that listed on their site - and I'm on dialup, so I'm not scrounging through their flash hoohah to find it.) If I had something that small that would let me check my email or hop on irc anywhere, anytime, I'd be a happy geek :)
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Looking at the size of the thing I'm thinking sidekick means you need a bring a buddy everwhere to lug it around for you.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
damn it! no bluetooth again. i was hoping that this time they would add that...
Is there such a thing as too connected? This is just a personal opinion of course, but sometimes I wonder if we are driving ourselves out of our own privacy and personal sanity by making ourselves always available all the time, no matter where we are. If I require a device which always tells me where I am supposed to be when, what kind of life am I leading?
I work for a company which produces software used by hospitals, and I am required to be available 24x7x365 in case something goes wrong. They pay me well for what I do and I enjoy the work, but I've spent the last 3 years in the "most connected" job of my life and sometimes I feel like I can't escape.
What ever happen to returning a phone call or an email the next day?
I want to propose a toast to the Borland Sidekick, one of the first programs to exploit an undocumented feature of MS-DOS called "Terminate and Stay Resident". While the killer app of the PC revolution is the spreadsheet, this one played a great role too.
... *sigh*
Ah, the memoriesf the TSR era
The sidekick, mark 1, suffers from having a fantastic java based architecture.. and -zip- all for software.
.. and if not a touch screen at -least- a less awkward way to dial numbers.
.. and cubed.
In fact, at first all the ringtones you could want were free. A few months later, the SAME ringtones cost anywhere from $.99-->1.99!
One of the most useful applications, an ssh client/terminal was also free.. and now costs $4.99.
The carriers are afraid to deploy software, especially T-Mobile. Software updates are few and far between.
Things I would have liked to have seen on the sidekick2? Oh, simple things like an SD memory slot, on-device synchronization of contact information, bluetooth (it's funky to hold and have a conversation with)... oh
Oh well. Danger has yet another cute device, but if all we get is a digital camera out of it? what's the point.
Nice going, Danger. Try again. Maybe the design team will do ACTUAL MARKET RESEARCH next time, and get it right when the sidekick gets cubed.
As for now, the existing device should probably be crushed
-feh-
"Don't worry about the problems you have in mathematics, I assure you mine are much greater." - Einstein c.1919
Danger seems like a very creepy company. They immediately snapped up the first viable online discussion forum devoted to the Sidekick, and have controlled it almost from day one. They apparently control many of the other Sidekick related sites and photo blogs by giving free stuff to the compliant site owners and nothing to the naughty ones. I've heard about ops in #hiptop even bragging about getting stuff from Danger. Basically legal bribes, if you ask me. If you watch their behavior it seems to be what you would expect from a company where lawyers make most of the decisions. Any company that would build a platform where an upgrade means free applications are removed from the device, has a very disturbing set of ethics. I could go on but it's not worth that much time. Danger creeps me out.
<oblig>
does it run linux?
</oblig>
A portable radio, combined with a telephone (what'll they think up next) AND a 640x480 camera (!!!) with a 240x160 display in a device that you can practically fit into your pocket!!!
... wow, that's almost the same amount as a usable PDA!!!
$299
No Bluetooth.
No sync.
No world standard GSM.
No storage slot.
But we DO get yet another new, hip, happening crappy camera. Just once, I wish someone in the pda/phone/mobile attachment would get it right. It's not about how hip the damned thing is. It's about how functional it is. If Danger (or Handspring, or Sharp, or whoever) could get it right, I'd only have to carry one device on my belt instead of three. Please, God, Treo 610. And none too soon.
This thing won't take off until they add Bluetooth and Apple gets it working with iSync.
Guess I'm sticking with my Sony Ericsson T616 until at least Hiptop v.3
when will it be in stores?
the only reason I promptly returned the first hiptop in 2002 is that the coverage was terrible (and I live in Palo Alto, CA, the headquarters of Danger!).
I hope the reception has improved (and hopefully T-mobile coverage has as well).
I prefer a midget as my sidekick. They are both helpful and entertaining.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
I could of -sworn- there was a mention of it having an ssh client last time it was posted on slashdot. But no mention of ssh on the hiptop page? What happened? I wanted to buy one so I could ssh into my network from anywhere. ;-;
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
I check several pop e-mail accounts with no problem and have been since the initial release of Oct 2002. It notifies me when a new e-mail comes in.
Using a Symbian series 60 device (3650, 7650, N-Gage, etc...), would probably provide a lot more flexibility. That coupled with the fact that you can buy an original N-gage for around $100 factory reconditioned, IMHO, makes the Sidekick pretty damn unattractive. I had seriously considered buying one before settling on my first smartphone (Nokia 3650), and I'm glad I didn't waste the money.
My N-gage, however (original, not the QD, which is basically a more expensive downgrade) is just about the best money I've ever spent. MP3/AAC player, FM radio, USB interface lets you mount your memory expansion card like a pen drive, full featured web browsers, IM clients for any network, IRC, telnet/SSH, ebook readers, interactive maps, tons and tons of games (Symbian, Java, and N-gage, all way more playable with the nice directional pad), and that's just to name a few. It's my electronic Swiss Army-Knife. 'Course you do look like a complete jackass talking into it edgewise...
I use it for POP and IMAP email every day. It can even read attachments! It has a much better web browser than the blackberry that does a great job of rendering regular web sites in nice readable fonts. It even has an SSH and telnet client for crying out loud!
Anyone know if they plan to offer upgrade discounts to existing sidekick customers?
I'd love to get my hands on the new one, but I'm not going to fork over another $300 for the thing!
Heck, my 1st gen is only a year old (well, newer... I'm on my 3rd replacement) and I bought it right after it came out!
Yeah, the promises are getting old... the OLD ONE was supposed to get all of the software updates the NEW ONE has... that's pretty sleazy and they WILL lose a lot of customers because of it.
There's a huge following for this device, and they've been beating on the walls waiting for some of these updates that they (we) were told a year ago would be out shortly.
These folk won't be too happy if they find out they've been lied to for this long and have to repurchase what they originally were sold.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
A friend of mine has the original sidekick and I am always utterly jealous of it.
I mean, how great is it that I could be sitting at Denny's drinking coffee and doing a crossword and I could pull out my phone, hop on the 'net and find the answer to that really tricky clue.
I've used the original on several occassions and it's not too big, actually it's pretty much the perfect size for a phone.
The only drawbacks I see are explaining to people that "yes, it's a phone." and the awkwardness of dialing. Other than that, I would say this phone is just right.
Their hardware wasn't reliable so they solved the problem by adding a built-in camera and more buttons. I'm really tired so I'll leave it to someone else to reply with an appropriate joke.
this guy has a pretty good side by side comparison of a Treo 600 and 1st gen side kick.
Sorry, but I think you don't get it. I have had a hiptop for 1.5 years now, and I really like it. This _IS_ the most functional pda/cell device out there. Perhaps bluetooth would be nice, but I don't really care - it would be of no use for syncing, because the device is already connected to the internet. You will sync with danger's servers, not with your device.
Sync is finally coming. This is one hundred percent T-Mobile's fault, not Danger's. There have been several sync solutions ready to ship for quite some time now. The only holdup is T-Mobile.
Last I heard, the new hiptops have triband GSM. Is that not standard enough?
As for the storage slot, all I can think of to do with it (that would be actually useful in any capacity) would be to store mp3s, which I don't care about. I have an ipod for that.
The camera? I truly couldn't care less. Maybe the new hiptop will have a usable camera. If so, great... Whatever.
The hiptop has a very very good user interface, it has a very good OS (I am slightly biased because I know some of the people who wrote it). It sets out to do certain things, and it does them very well.
You are right: it is not about how hip it is, it is about how functional it is. Danger makes it extremely functional, and T-Mobile is annoyingly pushing it as a hip toy for teenagers. To me (and the dozen or so other users in my nerd-universe), it is a highly useful tool in our daily lives. You don't realise how useful it is to have an always-on internet link on your cellphone until you get it. It becomes hard to live without.
Yeah, Yeah, my grandmother's camera has that stuff, but what about the kitchen sink?
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
So... T-Mobile's speed is still limited to 56k with latency that makes one wish for the responsiveness of dialup. 14k dialup. I really like the idea of having an ssh client with me all the time, but not one that reminds me of a 300 baud modem.
Any hints about when they might at least bump up to 2.5 G speeds, like the 100+k and reasonably responsive CDMA data connections have?
Tweet, tweet.
Hopefully the rumors about the non-replaceable battery are untrue.
/ ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout =500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=219429&fcc_i d='P5J-ONISH'
The FCC link with some info (manual, pics, etc) is here... https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/cf/eas/reports
i see it.
Cool! I loved the original SideKick, especially the popup calendar.
I hope this new is just as good. Will it have the ASCII table? Or will that be extended to include UTF8?
Oh, and just how does a TSR work under XP, anyway?
May I rant for a moment? Thank you.
The way I see it, phones now have 3 main functions. First is placing and receiving voice phone calls, which my Nextel handset does quite handly. It has a vibrate motor and a headset jack, both essential for me. Second is acting as a modem, supplying my laptop with a pipe to the internet. The hardware is great at this, but the unlimited plan is an arm and a leg. The fact that my current phone can act as an RS232 modem without any drivers is great, I just wish USB support were better. The third function is "Everything else", all the fun toys that the Japanese enjoy for years before American providers make a big deal out of. Cameras and web browsers in the
phone, voice recorders and reasonable calculators and games and all that. This category is where my Nextel sucks donkey parts. The java environment is miniscule, the screen is bad, the web browser is prehistoric and easily confused.
The Hiptop/Sidekick turns this completely upside down. The little sucker was made to be third-category toy, with a great keyboard and screen, plenty of cool software, and an environment to make more. All it needs is a camera. It also appears adequate for voice calling, despite awkward earpiece placement. Where T-mobile drops the ball is that they don't allow the Sidekick to also act as a tethered modem. I'd have one tomorrow if it could replace my Nextel's functionality, but it can't.
The obvious argument is something along the lines of "well, the browser in the phone can only eat so much data per day, so that's why the unlimited data plan is so cheap. If it ran tethered, they wouldn't make any money on data." Okay, but as far as I know, T-mobile does offer the same data plan on other handsets, which do pass it out the serial port and act as modems.
The Sidekick has a USB port and IrDA hardware. It's poised to be the best, most useful handset in all 3 categories, if only T-mobile would support its use as such. Any ideas why they won't?
Some of my friends had hiptops and I seriously considered getting one. They seemed really cool, and the ability to ssh and irc from almost anywhere would be nice. Amazon seemed to have some good deals, though you were required to sign up for a T-Mobile service plan. And this was the kicker. The plans apparently start at $30/month and go up if you want voice calls too. Since there are a number of free wireless hotspots in our community, I decided to get a Zaurus with a wireless card. It comes with a Linux shell, and there's some good free software for it, including an SSH client. The downside is that I have to be near an wireless access point to use it, but those aren't too hard to find. However, it's nice to not have monthly T-Mobile bills.
Ummmm, probably the biggest complaints users had were: Poor quality, size, non-integrated low-res camera, lack of speakerphone. To me it looks like they listened.
Having a memory slot is contrary to the thin-client, sync-to-the-network sort of architecture... and is really not too neccessary when the only files you're going to be offloading is pictures, and you can just mail them to your regular email account or pull them off the desktop interface.
Go ahead and complain about paying $5, once, for an application that can rescue your server from the grave without leaving the strip club. I won't.
Yeah, there isn't a ton of software for it... but then again I had a couple of PalmOS units for a while and I spent way more time fiddling with terrible shareware, crummy built-in apps, and endless syncing/backing up problems. All of the built-in applications on the SK beat the crap out of other handheld software in terms of making the stuff I do the most go the quickest. The 3rd party PalmOS stuff was horrible with scant few exceptions, and though there isn't much software available for the SK, the stuff I can install is quite good. Well, maybe not LED Football, but then again I think that one's still free. :) I never have to worry about backups because all of the data is synced to the net.
Who actually pays for ringtones? If you do, who moans about the price that much? Its either worth five bucks to have Insane Clown Possee doing "Row Row Row Your Boat" when your mom calls, or it isn't. It probably isn't. Complaints about giving up your hard earned cash for frivolous crap will fall on deaf ears when nobody's forcing you to make the purchase.
The only argument you can make that they weren't listening to users is on the sync issue. That is a big one, but the other features make up for it... maybe I have that opinion because I've written more than one screen-scraper in my day. I dunno. The blame on that seems to be on T-mo, not Danger.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
No iSync? No Upgrade! For purely political reasons, the fine people at Mark/Space have had to sit on their "Missing Sync for hiptop" solution which worked in beta because t-mobile decided not to do PIM Sync... so.. I'll keep mine going as long as I can, but.. it'll be a treo next time, probably.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
For increasing numbers of people (especially here in Europe) the primary function is text messages. Only as a last resort do you actually call somebody.
Listen to me - put the phone down. I am serious. You don't need it, you find reasons to use it. You can live without it.
I used to work for Motorola back in the early 90s. I had one of the first StarTac phones. I had an early text pager. I was connected as much as possible at the time. After about 5 years there I left, I just couldn't take it anymore. It got to where I was working 60 hour weeks, in on weekends, etc. Getting paged at a bar, taking a call. And I wasn't on 24x7. If I was connected, I was available, right?
About 6 months after leaving there, I met up with some people that still worked there. They all had pagers and phones on their belts. The guys who were in support had TWO pagers. They were constantly checking them. One guy sent several emails over lunch. I realized then how much I hated that whole thing. I got rid of my cellphone. I haven't had a cellphone for 5 or 6 years now. My wife has a prepaid one (just in case) and we take it with us on trips, but it is only used for outgoing calls.
People look at me like I have 2 heads when they ask for my cellphone number and I tell them I don't have one. Some people have actually said "I wish I could get rid of mine." I got into a conversation with a woman at work who said she has to have one to get in contact with her kids. I asked if they always answer their phones, and she said "No! And when they don't I wonder why not."
You don't have to be connected. You can live without it if you want to. I have DSL and use email a lot at home, but when I am away from home, I am away. You want to get in touch with me? Leave me a message. When I am away from work, I am away from work - period. My workplace is still standing (unfortunately), every morning when I pull into the parking lot. You know what happens when someone goes on vacation? You survive. Someone is sick? Deal with it. Even though my job still sucks ass, it only sucks ass during business hours. :-)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I have one of the first gens, and ill let the slahdot crowd know the problems I see.
1.) If you enter a non digital coverage area, bend over and take cause the phone becomes a paper weight due to the inability to cross over to nalog circuit.
2.) If you out of coverage area and you powerycle the phone (it is just randomly shuts off mine has been doing that) when you power back on all your pim data is gone!
3.) Phone breaks you are SOL to get your data without going on the T-Movile webstie to look it up. (What good is a SIM if it doesnt store anything?)
4.) Random hardware flakiness . As I said before mine randomly shuts off and I have to plug it into a charger for 10 seconds to get it to power back on.
5.) The battery is NON replaceable
6.) The general hardware on it just plain sucks, crappy radio in the current version.
7.) DO NOT let T-Mobile push an update to your phone! Im on my 3rd one due to the software the pushed killed the radio twice.
8.) The backend proxy is a joke it slow browsing to 14.4k land.
I myself having had a sidekick for over a year, will NOT be upgrading the motorola A630 looks like a better replacement. Sorry but I want a keyboard I hate a stylus.
Niice. For a sidekick, all we need are two shift keys :) It's been a loooong time. (I know this is obscure, but it's geeky)
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I use my Sidekick (original one from 2002) to communicate via ICQ and AIM. I've never reached any limit so my monthly fee covers it all amply despite the fact that I'm always connected when I'm out and do a lot of messaging.
Text messaging, a much more 'messy' solution with limitations on message lengths, flakey times for messages to be received and replies sent back (in ICQ I message daily with somebody in France almost instantaneously from SoCal - imagine how that'd work with primitive text messaging!) seems old hat to me. These days I use it 99% for tech headlines, local traffic alerts and daily weather reports that get 'pushed' to my Sideckick daily. I could just as easily get it all via email, or just shoot over to the websites via the browser, but since I get so many free TMs a month what the hell? For me, actual TM comms back and forth is mainly for communicating with folks who don't have anything better on the road. There are fewer and fewer of them as time passes. Nex
The people who get free stuff from Danger are friends of the guy who mods hiptop.com. He, by the way, doesn't get paid to mod those forums. His payment is by way of goodies sent to him and the satisfaction of.. well actually it seems to me to be an extremely nerve wrecking task. He occasionally distributes them to his friends in #hiptop when he has no need for them. All in all, I think that's much more noble than, say, selling them on ebay and profiting on the gifts.
It's quasi-push email support isn't really corporate-ready
The "built-in" email box (@tmail.com) receives email instantly when one comes in -- that's the "push" box. If you need your email with no latency, just forward it to that box. That's what I do for my work email.
The inablility to directly connect to POP or IMAP servers stinks IMO
You *can* connect to both POP and IMAP servers.
what do you do if you want to use it on another carrier down the road?
You'd be screwed, but then that's true of almost any handset in the American cellular marketplace.
Besides, this thing looks HUGE to me, not exactly a svelte device to slide in your pocket or clip to your belt.
Fair enough. You get used to it, but it's definitely a little unwieldy to have in your pocket, particularly during the summer when you don't have jacket pockets available.
Ok, so maybee it is a cheap Treo or Blackberry, but if you are buying a device for robust email access and PDA functionality, then the extra money spent would be well worth it, wouldn't it?
Obviously this is a judgment call for everyone, but I got my sidekick for $50 after rebates -- and this was only a few months after its release. The sidekick isn't just trivially cheaper than those devices, it's a LOT cheaper. The build quality on the first one left a lot to be desired, but the device does an awful lot for the money, and has the best keyboard of any cell phone. Use whatever you want, but at its price point the SK is a pretty amazing device.
The hiptop is a well-designed device. It is a TERRIBLY built device (generation 1, anyway). I've been through four, myself. If you're under warranty (it sounds like you're not, since you've had it for more than a year), call them up and get a replacement. You may have to go through a couple of them. Fortunately, I finally got a non-flaky one (color, too, when my original was b/w!) and am very happy with it.
Not only have they been saying they would develop it since 2002, they already have developed it, and T-mobile has refused to put it on their network for quite some time. It is deployed on several other hiptop providers' networks (Cable & Wireless and Edge, if I remember right) and works just fine.
Like another poster said-- this has been promised and re-promised and re-re-promised so many times and then held back so many different ways that I wouldn't count on sync until users are confirming it works for them. If you're considering one of these, and you need sync-- wait for it to be confirmed. Don't be burned like the rest of us were with promises of "sync to come" with no delivery to T-Mobile users for over two years, even when the software was finished, working, and deployed elsewhere.
I didn't notice anything mentioning if they had solved the terrible FM interference problem in the current model. I've got version 1 of this, and the interference is horrible. I drive a pickup truck, and there's no place far enough away that I can put the device where it doesn't screw up the radio.
There's no such thing as "too connected." There *is* such a thing as "too willing to answer your connections."
The question of making yourself available is not a question of connectivity. Just because you carry a Treo or Sidekick or PocketPC Phone or whatever doesn't mean you are forced to answer emails now, today, tomorrow, or ever. Or that you have to pick up the phone. Or that you don't disable the ringer completely. Or that you even leave it on.
However... you can still be uber-connected, for your own benefit. Make calls when *you* want. Check your email on your schedule, not tied to when you're near a PC. Surf the web while you wait for your car at the shop. Connectivity is great, but making yourself immediately available to every inquiry is not, and there's a critical difference most people seem to be incapable of seeing.
I wonder how long until Lindsay Lohan gets one? She uses a tricked out "old version" currently.
Amen.
Are you kidding me? Have you used the desktop interface at all? If you're referring to your tmail account, it can't be accessed from a laptop anyway (other than via Desktop Interface) so no matter what you're forced to forward those emails to another account if you want them outside of the DI or your hiptop. This email was never intended to be multi-purpose all use pop3. You also can configure up to three other accounts (I prefer to use IMAP) that, even if you use pop3, will leave messages on the server if you check the option during setup. That way, you can download your messages on the hiptop and then later on a laptop or desktop computer if you want them in both places. As an aside, you also can set up your email client on your desktop or notebook to do the same. Also, in reference to your address book, if you access it via the Desktop Interface there are several ways to export the data: Microsoft Outlook for PC (.txt file) Microsoft Outlook Express for Mac (.txt file) Microsoft Entourage for Mac (.txt file) Palm Desktop for PC (.txt/.tab file) Palm Desktop for Mac (.txt/.tab file) It's not sync, but your data isn't unretrievably lost forever like people seem to be claiming.
actually that may just be for import and not export which is slightly annoying
"Just some ancidotal evidence..." Maybe that Seiko dictionary isn't holding up all that well after all :-)
I don't think us Americans will get this from T-mobile... I think they will wait for 4th generation.... wifi and wideband cdma combined.
The sidekick, mark 1, suffers from having a fantastic java based architecture.. and -zip- all for software.
Unfortunately, the Hiptop Java architecture does not (as of the last press release I saw about it) conform to J2ME specifications, making it more than trivial to port existing Java mobile apps onto the platform.
Danger does support a development community for the Hiptop (free to join, but an NDA agreement is required), but carriers like T-Mobile have been slow to offer the output of that community to the public.
That sucks though. Bluetooth is a very low-cost part and makes a huge difference.
I was just offered a free phone by my provider (in Canada) to replace my T68i. There was only one choice that had BT; if it wasn't available, I would have written off the whole new phone and kept my old one.
It's just so flexible, but not only for syncing. Add BT to the HipTop and you suddenly get:
- syncing of contacts, calendar, and notes regardless of what your service provider gives you
- ability to transfer images, themes, ringtones, voice memos, and games back and forth (again, independently)... vital, if you ask me, to use the camera function and not get billed for data transfer
- ability to use the phone as an incredibly feature-packed remote control: I use mine for my Powerbook DVD player, iTunes, PP/Keynote presentations, iPhoto slidehsows... heck the thing even locks my screen wheh I walk away from it using proximity detection
- ability to transfer all the above items to the myriad other BT-enabled devices
- ability to play games over BT
- ability to surf via BT through my mobile phone from the PowerBook
It's a huge omission if you ask me. I love the HipTop but until they offer BT, its a nonstarter for me personally.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
to use the camera function and not get billed for data transfer
Another minor (or major, depending on perspective) point - tmobile's data plans are unlimited data so it doesn't matter. Ringtones, voice memos, etc - they all come over the internet. (or via the usb cable - which is where bluetooth would come in)
I agree that there are some very cool features that could come along with bluetooth. Proximity screen locking sounds really cool. Surfing via powerbook via bt cellphone also sounds cool, albeit very slow over gprs. You're well within your rights to not want one until it has bluetooth support. What I'm saying is that bluetooth is not an absolutely critical feature to me, and I think that the hiptop is a useful device even without it.
See, my service provider tries to rape me for $0.50 per 'picture' transfer - thats camera pictures alone, regardless of rez - but the unlimited data of T-Mobile makes that moot; I see your point.
It's all rather surprising, considering Woz is on the board, still a big Apple nut (which has the best built-in OS BT support), and he's such a mobile phone freak. They must think they have a good reason for not including it... maybe even pressure from the providers.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Bluetooth used to be a dealbreaker for me too, but then I got my sidekick almost totally by accident when I ditched AT&T Wireless. A friend of mine worked for T-Mobile at the time and simply gave me one that he had laying around. I had a T68i, and so I gave up all the Bluetooth functionality you pointed out for better IM (keyboard makes a world of difference) and the web browser. Not once have I wished for my T68i back. It doesn't mean one of us "gets it" and the other does not, it just means that the value attached to each of these features is not arbitrarily fixed, but is a reflection of personal preference. And for me, IM and the browser have been bumped up the list, even ahead of BT, which I never thought would happen, go figure. This is not to say I don't still want BT. If what you say about cost to implement is true, well then that's annoying, but very few people I know have found the phone they can describe as "perfect" for them. By the way I am lounging on my couch posting this from my sidekick ;)
Yeah, I have to agree with the last guy about this because I've only had one issue with the Hiptop, but then again, I'm not on T-mobile. I'm in Edmonton, Alberta, and I deal with Microcell Solutions, commonly known as Fido. I have great reception when I go anywhere (except a few occasional places where there's interference), the browser is a good download speed (takes 30sec to load a page with lots of info), and the unit has traated me great. Not having javascript, been kinda bulky, and the reception issue are my only complaints. I'm a medical student so this device comes in really handy for research and keeping notes. The only issue I've ever had was a big red X appearing and the hiptop restarting itself. Got a refurb and haven't had a single problem. Updates went smoothly. You just got yourself a bad one, and I've also heard about several issues with T-mobile's network regarding updates and things on www.hiptop.com/forums . Good luck man on your new one, or your next one, but I'm happy with fido and I love my hiptop. May it have a long, happy life.
-- Javatyger http://javatyger.textamerica.com
Considering the size, I think I'd rather wait on an OQO or other UPC.