Sree's Thoughts on the T-Mobile Sidekick
Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003

You have seen desktops, and then palmtops. Now get ready for hiptops. Or at least one hiptop, made by a company called Danger. Yes, that's the name of the company (because danger.com was a domain name the founder owned).

Sold on the market as the T-Mobile Sidekick, this is a new device that goes far beyond the phone-Palm combos that are popular these days. I have been using it for a couple of weeks and my verdict: This is an excellent product and also cool to boot.

Among the things you can do: use it as a cellphone, surf the Internet, send e-mail, take digital picture, play games, send and receive instant messages. And you can do all this in an easy-to-use and understand package. It's the first consumer data device and is ideal for the multitasking generation.

How easy is it? The other night, I was at the movies and handed it over to Jonathan, the 12-year-old son of a friend. I deliberately didn't tell him how it works. He was almost instantly online, sending messages to his sister and others. All through the movie, he was online.

Of course, those who haven't grown up with computers will take a little longer to get used to it, but others I had test the machine were able to use it relatively easily.

You can surf and IM at the same time, but you cannot talk on the phone and IM at the same time because they use different networks.

If you own a Palm device and are thinking of switching, you can have your contacts and other data imported into the Sidekick.

The camera is a tiny attachment you add to the Sidekick when you want to take a photo. The pictures are tiny - just 120 x 90, but it's better than no pix at all. Improving the resolution is one of the priorities for the company.

When you are considering a device like this you worry about having to buy upgrades down the road. But Danger has put the emphasis on "over the air" upgrades, meaning you will be able to get the newer versions of the software without taking it to a shop.

The original price is $200, but Amazon has an amazing $49 price if you sign up for activation. Like a cellphone, you need a calling plan and the choices are: $39.99 for 200 anytime minutes a 1,000 weekend and unlimited data usage or $59.99 for 500 anytimes, unlimited night and weekend minutes and unlimited data usage.

I think at this price it's definitely worth a serious look, and not just if you're an early adopter.

Resources:
T-Mobile Sidekick
Danger.com
Amazon.com sale

Write to techguru@sree.net and let me know your thoughts.