Just when you thought it was dead and gone, T-Mobile has relaunched their once-popular Sidekick brand to its subscribers with the new Sidekick 4G made by Samsung. This new and improved Sidekick has been updated with today specs inside of it like: a 3.5inch touchscreen w/ 800 x 480 resolution, five-row QWERTY keyboard w/ optical trackpad, 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 2GB microSD included, Android 2.2 w/ Swype keyboard software pre-loaded, front-facing VGA + 3MP rear-facing cameras, Wi-Fi b/g/n + Wi-Fi Calling, and mobile hotspot. Does Android and Sidekick play well together?
 |
| New SK4G Jump Screen |
I know several people that may have heard of the Sidekick’s return and chuckled saying, “Are they serious?”. Oh yes. T-Mobile is dead serious as they put everything except the kitchen sink into the new SK4G. The design of the Sidekick that you remember is still somewhat intact but the fact that it runs Android now changes everything you thought you knew about it. Android brings a plethora of new features to the Sidekick brand like great web browsing with Flash support, front-facing camera gives you video calling options, new touchscreen w/ Swype pre-loaded gives you the options so you won’t have to even access your physical keyboard, and of course being HSPA+-capable is a plus. I was able to get around 6Mbps download and almost 2Mbps upload speeds at home makes it for great speeds on the go. As well as being able to share those speeds by the way of mobile hotspot. Armed with a 1500mAh battery, the Sidekick has provided one of the better battery lives on an Android device without having to lower brightness or adjust other settings. I was able to get almost a full day’s of normal usage (TweetDeck, web browsing, texting, emailing, Words With Friends, & Angry Birds) of about 10 hours. With most of the internal specs being borrowed from the Galaxy S devices (1GHz Hummingbird processor, 512MB of RAM, and great graphics processor) the Sidekick is no slouch as an Android device at all for all of you naysayers out there.
The new Sidekick 4G is great but not quite smartphone perfection. For starters, as cool as the design is, the new spring-loaded flip up display is slightly flawed. Although it is well built and definitely sturdy, it is not as easy to open single-handedly. I don’t necessarily miss the swivel but I think the opening of the screen should have been constructed for a single-handed opening. The 512MB of RAM could have been increased to maybe 768MB or even 1GB. As downloading and multi-tasking goes it gets the job done but it did suffer from the occasional stutter and force closing of apps when having several apps open and running in the background. Also the MP on the camera could have been at least a 5 instead of a 3. Don’t get me wrong, the 3MP takes way better photos than the 3.2MP camera on my Bold 9700 but for nitpicking purposes I would have loved to see Samsung put a 5MP shooter on this one. And finally, the placement of the optical trackpad could have been raised a little more. It lies slightly recessed in between the Back and the Menu buttons but could have about a 1mm higher. I understand they did it for making phone calls in Portrait mode where the trackpad won’t be in the way, but for Landscape mode w/ the keyboard exposed it would be more effective if it was a little higher for a better overall experience.
 |
| SK4G Group Texting App |
 |
| New Redesigned Screen Hinge |
