Sidekick II open

Sidekick II closed (you can still use it in this mode)

I'm going to be writing a couple of posts about the Sidekick II, including pictures and videos, but I want to get my first impressions down.

Getting it working

I ordered my Sidekick II at The Carphone Warehouse. Staff in The Link and Phones4U had barely heard of the phone, whereas The Carphone Warehouse was confident they could order it and have it available the next day. This they did, and within 24 hours I had the phone in my hand.

Activation was not so simple. I plugged in the charger and left it with the promise that it'd be activated within 24 hours (though nearly always within 3 hours). After 20 hours, we were about to leave to go on vacation, so I called up T-Mobile. It seemed someone had forgotten to press a button at their end, and immediately my phone activated. I was live!

The Interface

The SideKick II is pretty easy to use. The screen flips out reasonably easily and has a good resolution. The reason I went with it was because the screen is landscape, much like a computer screen (rather than portrait, as with most phones), and the keyboard is pretty easy to type on (with your thumbs).

The main menu gives you options such as Web Browser, E-Mail, Instant Messenger, Phone, SMS, Multimedia Messaging, Camera, etc. You select these by using the scroll wheel on the right by scrolling through the options and clicking the scroll wheel to select. Very quick and easy. You can also jump to the "Main Menu" at any time by pressing the larger bottom left button on the phone (there's a big button in each corner, each of which has a different function like 'Context Menu', 'Cancel', 'OK', etc.)

Web Access

The main reason I wanted the phone was for Web and e-mail access, as well as terminal emulation. Unfortunately the terminal program is not available in the UK yet, but Danger claim a big update will be coming in July, so it may turn up then.

Using the Web browser is extremely easy, and I'm surprised with the ease of browsing the Web. Despite only using GPRS, it's pretty quick, even with images loading, and with 'unlimited' (2GB per month in reality) usage for £7.50 per month over the regular plan amount, it's perfect if you want Web access 'anywhere'.

The browser supports basic JavaScript, CSS, etc, and while most pages are 'squished' to fit on the small screen, they're reasonably faithful to their real-life counterparts. Resorting to WAP is not required (and I might be wrong, but WAP doesn't even seem to be supported). Some users claim to be able to log onto their bank accounts and so forth, and while HTTPS seems to work fine, all of the services I use are framed, meaning the Sidekick isn't much use for those.

Camera

You won't be buying a Sidekick II for the camera. It's not absolutely useless, but the resolution is low (I'd guess 640x480?) and the pictures come out with lines across them (although they're otherwise surprisingly clear). The cool thing, though, is you can immediately e-mail them once you take them, so updating a moblog or your Flickr account becomes shockingly easy.

Downsides

The major downside is that the catalogue is not yet properly populated, with only three items available for download (a calculator and two games - all for free though). Danger claim an update will come in July, so I'll cross my fingers for that SSH client. If it doesn't arrive, I shall have to try and rig up an HTTPS Web<->SSH client, although since the Sidekick II doesn't support AJAX / XMLHTTPRequest, it'll be very clunky (any suggestions for software that already does this?)

And yes, it doesn't support even basic AJAX, so building dynamic apps to get around Sidekick's lock-in (you only get developer access if you apply, waive your right to warranty, etc.. and even then it's all in Java) isn't as simple as it could be.

That's all for now. Generally I'm very impressed and it works well. With an SSH client, however, it'd totally rock, so I really hope Danger and T-Mobile UK sort that out!