T-Mobile Sidekick 4G Review
Remember the Sidekick? Seems like only yesterday that if you were in high school and you had a Sidekick, you were cool. Seriously cool. You could text, email, take pictures, and chat on AIM (remember that AIM thing?) all at the same time. This was a simpler time, no iTelephones, or robots, the only other cool phone it had to compete with was… the RAZR. It was a no brainer if you were young and had a social life. This thing was the king of being socially connected before being social connected had anything to do with websites like Facebook (which didn’t exist yet, of course). Oh and to top it off, whenever you opened your phone, it flipped out like a switchblade and made the girlies swoon (in your pubescent mind, obviously). Ah simpler times.
Then came the iPhone, Android, app stores, touchscreens that didn’t require a stylus and well, the Sidekick was ripped from it’s thrown. Since that day, the Sidekick did try to make comebacks repeatedly, but with the lack of a true app store and developers (where all the cool phones were heading), it didn’t stand a huge chance. So, T-Mobile went back to the drawing board and decided to give it another go, this time with a developed OS so the device could benefit from all the apps already available for it the day it is released. They came up with the T-Mobile Sidekick 4G. So has the king of socially connected devices finally returned? Let’s find out.
Highlights
Hardware
- Looks and feels like a Sidekick
- Buttons on the top and bottom (which takes some getting used to for a current Android user)
- Slideup mechanism is spring loaded and satisfying (although I would like the old swivel mechanism, I’m sure that’s not possible due to patents held by Sharp, makers of the original Sidekicks)
Sound
- Decent volume and quality
Camera
- The app launches in decent time and thanks to the dedicated camera button, taking pictures can be done quickly.
- Image and video samples:
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| Video Sample |
Data Speeds
- Using Speedtest.net’s Mobile App, a free app available in the Markete we hit the following speeds (an average of three tests per location):
| Our Office, Brooklyn Heights | 5.04 Mbps Down / 1.6 Mbps Up |
*Keep in mind these above tests were done using a third party testing app that we cannot guarantee accuracy on. Actual speeds may vary.
Battery Life
To test battery life, we use the phone as if it were our own for a day. We make phone calls, surf the internet, read and respond to emails, text, etc. in a way that we think your average user of this device would. We wanted to test real world battery life and figured, while this way of testing has many variables, it is the closest to what an average user would actually experience and care about. We then determine how many hours off of the charger the device lasted before it completely died and post the results here:
Lasted 10 hours before completely dying.
OS
Check out our Android Overviews for more information on Android in General.
Specifications
Check out our full spec page for this device.
How To’s
Check out our list of Basic How To’s for this specific device.
Check out our list of Basic How To’s for Android in general.
Conclusion
So you may have noticed me referring to high schoolers and teenagers a bit in this review. Now that’s not to say that an adult couldn’t use this device. I mean, it runs Android so it can do pretty much anything that any other Android device can do for the most part. With that being said, though, it’s main focus isn’t getting work done, or meetings, or simple, controlled distractions. It’s focus is being completely abdosrbed in social media, texting, stalking your friends, and in being a sidekick. I mean how many phones are tri-colored? So because of how good it is at all of those things, I’d have to say, it’s a perfect device for a teenager. Which is exactly the demographic they were going for.
Please feel free to leave your own reviews of the device below in the comments!
Its the Best! Ive used it quite a bit and The Sidekick is the best android phone in my opinion to date