This is my review on the Sidekick 3 from Epinions...
First and foremost, the Sidekick 3 's major improvements are Bluetooth wireless, a 1.3 Megapixel camera a Digital Audio player, and a slimmer, lighter case design. The Sidekick3 is still a multiple band GSM phone that you can use around the world. Audio quality will depend solely on your distance to a T-Mobile antennae and to whatever interference there is between you and it.
The Sidekick II in my opinion was slim and light considering what it offered as a PDA however, the Sidekick 3 improves upon that by being 20% smaller than its predecessor. This means that it will be easier for your crowded purse, pockets and slimmer on your waist. The keyboard has been redesigned with plastic keys and a solid back panel. Unlike the sidekick 2 is won't get filthy and the feel of the keys is very good. There is a bit of quality in the feel of depressing the Sidekick3’s keys. There is even an actual TRACKBALL that allows you to manipulate the screen cursors. It also glows when the phone wants to tell you something such as an email alert or new SMS message.
The overall feeling of the Sidekick3 may give you the impression that it is too dense.
It is quite dense in fact-like holding a small gun. The feeling is quality but because of the hinge that connects the screen to the basepad, previous Sidekick owners will already know that a little too much pressure will shatter the screen or break the hinge.
Battery life is quite good. You’ll get very near the promised 4.5 hours from it when you have deactivated the screen’s backlighting. With the light activated, you’ll get about 3 hours of continuous internet browsing. The battery life is pretty much the same you’d expect of the Sidekick II so if you are upgrading, you have nothing to worry about.
The Sidekick 1 and 2 are two of the most returned phones on the market due to battery defects, screen cracks and other types of damage. This is mostly because of its large screen and rigid design. The Sidekick 3 features a removable battery, and a SIM card bay under the battery. Making this phone more modular was brilliant simply because of all the bad things that can go wrong with individual parts - now it should be cheaper for Sharp to replace Sidekick 3's parts and still be cost effective.
The 1.3 Megapixel camera is nothing to write home about. The pictures aren't spectacular and under certain lighting conditions, look just plain bad. I noticed that indoors, without the flash pictures taken of objects 10 feet or more away always appear too dark. Pictures taken of close objects without the flash but, in decent light look slightly better but they still suffer from pixel banding when you upload them to the internet or your JPEG editor for review. Strangely enough, the designers included a transflash card yet didn’t include the ability to take video. I found that to be highly disappointing since video capture is normally on any phone with expandable memory these days. However, the key here is that you can still take decent pictures for your photo phone book and to email to friends when you see that hot car on the street or that sexy chick on the train. Its a small step up from the VGA camera of the Sidekick 2 but... a very small step. Speaking of lack of video, why is it that this device couldn’t have come with a personal media player function? Newer MP3 devices that are equipt with screens of this quality are usually able to display video clips downloaded from Windows Media Player onto the flashcard. I won’t downgrade the Sidekick 3 because of this since it wasn’t a target goal, but, I’m disappointed I can’t do more with a phone I spent over $400 for.
Bluetooth is a great feature that should be available for all cell phones. This allows you to connect wireless headsets to the phone or possibly, use BT enabled printers such as HP photo printers so you can print photos from the Sidekick 3's lackluster camera. You can even use the Bluetooth wireless features in your BT enabled cars to access your sidekick without having to look at it. In my Escalade EXT, I can dial the phone just by pushing the phone button on the steering wheel and then speaking numbers aloud. I love this feature!!!
This is very important because I’ve nearly gotten in accidents trying to dial on the SidekickII while driving in the past.
I was disappointed however by the Sidekick3’s lack of A2DP which is a Bluetooth streaming audio profile designed for Bluetooth stereo headsets. Had the sidekick included A2DP it would have allowed T-Mobile to offer a special pair of Sidekick 3 wireless headphones.
The digital audio player is a welcomed feature that is sure to make the Sidekick3 a major hit. After all, during 2005-2006 one of the most sought after phones was the MOTOROLA made Nextel/Boost I870/5 which featured the speakerphone, Bluetooth, mp3 player and 1.3 Megapixel camera. It was important for Sharp-Danger to make the new Sidekick with all those features and more since the I870/5 was major competition. Audio files as well as picture files are stored to the Sidekick3's transflash card (Mini SD card). If you spend an extra $40 - $50 you can get a 512 MB card which offers you 120 songs. The audio quality is decent, unfortunately BASS response is poor - a similar problem with Ipods. Though you can change the audio quality a small bit with the embedded equalizer, you never get decent lows in your music. My only other problem here is that the only headphone jack accepted is the 2.5 mm jack which is only for cellphone headsets. The earbud earphones that I got are similar to those that came with the Motorola ROCKR which allow you to talk when the phone is in phone mode and listen to music when its not.
It is in music mode that you’ll notice how the CPU suddenly slows down and menu options as well as the internet start to chug along. Running multiple applications along with the audio player will eventually crash the CPU and you’ll be required to hard reset it.
Interestingly enough, T-Mobile has downloadable ringtones yet, even with the inclusion of audio players in most of their new cell phones, felt it unnecessary to design a download service to automatically charge you for MP3 purchases and download them directly into the phone so you don’t have to use a PC and can get new music on the fly. After seeing how many ringtones my friends have on their sidekick II’s I am certain that the Sidekick consumer base would react very well to a download-on-demand service.
I found the RF performance to be slightly better than the Sidekick II even inside buildings. I also found that the Sidekick3 performs very well when used with my Jabra BT800 Bluetooth headset. People on the other end of my conversations claimed that my voice sounded very clear and audible – as if I was using a landline phone.
Sound Quality from the speakerphone is about the same as it was from the Sidekick II. Though not as loud and powerful as the NExtel phones, the Sidekick3 will allow you to clearly hear the person you're talking to.
It will also allow you to arrogantly broadcast your choice of ringtone throughout whatever social environment you find yourself - forcing people to listen to your remix of Rick Ross' "Hustling" for example.
Major Disappointments
The Sidekick 3 is a great phone but it falls short in a number of categories. More precisely - it falls short in all of them.
#1, The phone's display is a measly 240 x 160 pixels and still looks washed out. Sharp should have left the Sidekick II’s physical/screen dimensions the same and improved the quality of the screen's colors. The screen's graphics are not vivid at all because of the low performance specs of the CPU.
#2 The Sidekick3 doesn't include WiFi - for those of you who don't know, WiFi is a wireless networking link that allows you to patch into the intranet of whatever wireless Lan is available - even when your connection to T-Mobile is unavailable. The most obvious reason it probably wasn't included is that it would allow you to use the internet just by being near a wireless router such as those in Starbucks or McDonalds - a case of Sharp's greed most likely.
#3… and what continues to be annoying about Sidekicks is the lack of JAVA/ FLASH viewing. The phone can view websites but it cannot see JAVA/ FLASH images - that means that you wont be able to play Yahoo Games or see movies on YOUTUBE. If there was any necessary software to be downloaded to allow for this, Sharp could include a 128 Megabyte flashrom with the CPU to store them.
#4 I am also not happy that Sharp decided to make the Sidekick3 with a mini SD card rather than a standard SD card. A regular SD card is readily available. Many of us have 512MB or 1GB SD cards from our bad experiences shopping at Circuit City and Best Buy. To make us go back out and buy the mini SD cards - which have slower access times and are easier to lose really annoys me.
#5 I’m utterly disappointed that T-Mobile doesn’t offer 3G, EDGE or any type of broadband downloading for mobile phones. Having WiFi would have mitigated this problem allowing you to connect to wireless routers, but alas, you’ll be stuck downloading at below 1MB per second which will still take you almost 15 seconds to load Yahoo’s home page. Don't even think of trying to login to Myspace.com.
Recently, Amp'd Mobile launched on Verizon's EV-DO highspeed wireless service and Helio,(a phone that can actually use Myspace OK) launched on Sprint's 3G service along with its ESPN phone series.
Meanwhile, T-mobile is left in the dust as probably the slowest, haphazard cellular company with the most antiquated phone offerings. They don't even have media capable V3 RAZR's yet.
Instant messaging on Yahoo and MSN messenger are not affected by the poor connection speeds though. Text Messages are sent and received almost instantaneously. I am disappointed however that you cannot send pictures you have taken via the messenger services.
Ultimately, the Sidekick 3 just like the I and II before it, is designed solely for people who want to have round the clock internet access for email and instant messaging. It is in that respect that the device really hasn't changed much. It remains in a class of its own since it’s special design clearly separates it from Treos and other PDA’s.
What Sharp needs to do is include Java/ Flash support and include a faster CPU, even if that means increasing the unit's size back to the sidekick II's dimension. The MP3 player and Bluetooth are welcomed additions that will further push Bluetooth headset sales and the sales of Bluetooth Stereo Headphone sales but that's really all there is to drool over.
Sharp should have done more work on the Sidekick3 before releasing it. The lack of high speed downloading is unforgivable. Downloading webpages seems to take forever simply because the Radio Frequency technology is so old. SIDEKICK 3 desperatly needs a broadband connection ability.
I recommend the Sidekick3 to current T-Mobile customers who loved the previous models, but, if you are currently in the market for a prepay or monthly plan cellphone that features Bluetooth, instant messaging, MP3 player and don’t necessarily care for a huge LCD screen, I’d recommend the Nextel I870 or Boost Mobile I875 instead which gives you the added ability of Push To Talk along the entire Nextel network. The I870/5 includes the transflash expansion and video capture.
The SIDEKICK3 is everything the II was and more but, you're still not going to get everything you want out of it. Guess we'll just have to wait for the Sidekick4 !?!