Sidekick iD: The Kids Give Me the Real Skinny

I played with the new $99 Sidekick iD for a few days, trying to imagine my life as a hipster, texting friends and surfing the web. My imagination came up short. That's when I turned to the kids—all in their early twenties—to set me straight about the legacy and the limitations of the Sidekick iD.

In 2002, the original Sidekick featured a black and white display and a full-size QWERTY keyboard. It was the full sized keyboard (all the better for texting you, my dear) that garnered the affection of the texting/surfing crowd.

Next came a color version of the Sidekick. Paris Hilton lost hers and suddenly everyone else wanted theirs. The Sidekick II was a hit, albeit at $300, an expensive one.

Sidekick 3: "I Never Hated a Phone so Much"

The Sidekick 3, according to my youth connections, was an abject failure. Like its ancestors, it has a phone, web browser, email manager, and camera. It also added a faster processor, support for a faster data network, and a music player. My reviewers say the phone was bulky and the trackball never worked for very long without gumming up. They say the phone's display screen was terrible and, worst of all, the voice quality of the phone was bad. At $300, the Sidekick 3 is way too expensive. (I'm still not clear whether allowances or odd jobs gave these kids their phone experiences.) One 21-year-old student said, "Uggghhh. I never hated a phone so much."

A Phone of Redemption

The new Sidekick iD, says the same 21-year-old, is a phone of redemption. She's so savvy about this phone thing that she explained how she saw this as T-Mobile's chance to endear itself to the texting crowd again. T-Mobile cut the price to under $100 and cut a lot of the features, too. The iD, unlike the Sidekick 3, has no camera, MP3 player, Bluetooth, or SD slot. It's got these plastic-y looking bumper guard type edges that come in different colors, allowing you to style your own.

The two best things about the iD are that it's only $99 and it's really good at the things the Sidekicks are notoriously good at: emailing, texting, and surfing the web. The iD makes things like importing your addresses into the phone easy and setting up text messaging trivially easy.

Like the Sidekick 3, the iD uses a trackball to navigate the menus. The trackball can feel a bit loose, causing me to scroll past my menu targets. The color display screen is good, though not as bright and clear as phones like the Treo and Pearl.

The bottom line? The Sidekick iD maintains what makes the Sidekicks distinctive: its swivel open, pop-up, and start typing screen. Reviewers call it the kiddie BlackBerry. But, I wouldn't buy this phone for my kids because it's a better texting and surfing machine than it is a phone. And they wouldn't buy it on their own because for $99 they'd want a built-in camera phone. And, if money is really an object for a family, they'll do better than $99 with a host of inexpensive phones.

The new Sidekick iD will appeal most to those still enamored of photos like the one here from Geeksugar. Sidekick iD is an "it" for texting maniacs or those still reading Tiger Beat.