T-Mobile Sidekick 4G

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G: Basic Specifications

• Dimensions: 127 x 61 x 15mm
• Display: 3.5 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen
• Weight: 162 grams
• Processor: 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, Hummingbird chipset
• Memory: Support up to 32GB microSD card.
• Operating System:  Android 2.2
• Camera: 3.15MP, autofocus
• Battery: Up to 5hrs talk time

With the phone closed, it looks like a typical slate-type smartphone. The LCD screen is 3.5 inches and 800 x 480 pixels, and the case is rectangular with rounded corners. Weighing in at 162g, you’ll feel it in your pocket.

The back camera is a disappointing 3 megapixels and has an autofocus that can take as long as 1.7 seconds to figure out what it should be photographing. The pictures, once taken though, are beautiful and clear, as is the 29fps, 720 x 480 video footage. The VGA camera on the front was designed to work with T-Mobile’s Qik video chat, which has now been bought over by Skype.

Battery life is relatively weak at little more than five hours of talk time (despite T-Mobile’s promise of 6.5 hours). Under the hood is a 1Ghz Hummingbird processor that runs Android 2.2.1.

T-Mobile has made some major changes to Android which becomes apparent when you turn the phone into landscape mode and push up the screen. The first thing you’ll notice is what could be the best QWERTY keyboard on a handheld device. The keys are small, rounded and comfortably spaced, allowing for easy typing that’s marred only by the positioning of the power and volume buttons.

It’s also functional, with a Jump key that allows for automatic app launches with as many as 35 combinations of Jump and letter or number. That’s 34 more than just about every other Android phone.

For the Android interface itself, some icons have been replaced by text, there are some new background themes available, and the fonts under the icons are all in small caps. It’s an unusual look but one that does appears suitably classy to some.

In a market filled with big screen slates, tiny on-screen keyboards and appearances that are hard to differentiate from one another, it’s refreshing to see a device that’s prepared to offer something original. On the other hand, when a look becomes common, it’s usually for a reason and it remains to be seen whether the new Sidekick will go on to be its own hero or disappear the same way as the old one.