Bargain Sidekick on the Horizon?

Looking for a cheaper version of T-Mobile's ever-popular Sidekick 3 messaging phone? The gents at CrunchGear may have sniffed out the answer. According to the site, T-Mobile is set to unleash a bargain-priced, pared-down edition of the phone, dubbed the Sidekick ID, within the next few months.

The new device looks a bit more, well, plastic-y than the glossy SK3, and many of the high-end features are missing: no Bluetooth, no MP3 player, no slot for expandable memory, and—here's a tough pill to swallow—no digital camera (although the 1.3-megapixel snapper on the Sidekick 3 wasn't all that great to begin with). However, all of the Sidekick's cool messaging features should be intact, including its top-notch e-mail app, instant messaging client (including support for AIM, MSN and Yahoo! Instant Messenger) and mobile Web browser (which handles full HTML pages with relative ease).

CrunchGear's tipster claims that the Sidekick ID will go on sale this summer for $150—not bad, but considering that the fully loaded Sidekick 3 goes for $200 with a two-year T-Mobile service agreement, not a massive savings considering the missing features. Then again, if that $150 price tag comes without a contract, we might really have something.