The New Sidekick LX

The new Sidekick LX is coming out on May 13th, though you can get on one sooner if you’re already a T-Mobile customer.

The pic here:

Before I share my opinion on this, one guy named Vic couldn’t have said it any better:

The sidekick found its humble beginnings in the deaf/hard-of-hearing world, and it has always been a text-based communication champ. You will not find a device that is easier to use for IM, rapid-fire email.

I had a Sidekick 2 a month after it came out and it served its purpose well. Contacting my friends through IM was my only option as using the cell phone is just plain fruitless. Consider that the “sidekick” plan was quite a bit cheaper than the blackberry plans as well as unlimited data plans. If this continues to be the case, it will continue to be the champion of instant text-based communication simply because of its physical format.

Even my Palm Treo 650 and Blackberry Curve cannot match the IM superiority of the sidekick, and it is something I sorely miss at times. Unfortunately, with the physical format being superior, the software and hardware has since the 3rd sidekick lagged one step behind in intuitive nature. We’ll see if Microsoft can change things around for the better.

That’s right. Out of all devices I’ve owned, I’ve yet come across a device that is more friendly typing than Sidekick does. Admittedly, I got caught up in the marketing hype and got on the iPhone’s bandwagon. While iPhone is nonetheless a great device, it’s definitely not designed for speed thumb-typing. You have to cautiously press on virtual keys and there is a certain lag between letters for them to appear correctly on the screen. There is almost no lag on Sidekick and I can type as fast as I could—purely from my muscle memory. The word I would use to describe Sidekick is the functionality. Research has shown that less than 5% people who purchased apps on their iPhone only play it more than 3 times. Pure entertainment and a waste of a few dollars—much to both Apple and developers’ profits. The new Sidekick has a GPS, 3G, tight integration with Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. A ping of a SMS or email is all you need to initiate a data transmission to your favorite app for communication. The best feature may be its screen resolution at 854 x 480 in a landscape mode in addition to its unbeatable form factor. iPhone’s screen is only 480×320. Nothing delights my eyes more than the highest pixel resolution available. Since it is a keyboard-based and isn’t a touch screen, it has handy keyboard shortcuts that get you straight to the selected app in one single action.

On May 13th, you and I have a hot date.