T-Mobile Sidekick LX (T-Mobile)

Just got my Sidekick LX today, and here is the scoop:

The good: The T-Mobile Sidekick LX has the best display of any Sidekick yet. It is 3 inches wide and has a resolution of 400 x 240 pixels. The Sidekick LX is the first Sidekick yet that is MMS compatible... at least on the T-Mobile network. T-Mobile removed MMS from all the other sidekicks. It also offers Bluetooth, MySpace Mobile integration, and a much improved 1.3-megapixel camera with a very strong flash to provide the best picture quality of any sidekick yet.

The bad: The Sidekick LX's camera, although good at picture taking, doesn't record video and there's no integrated Wi-Fi. The phone's speaker is on the weaker side, and there's no A2DP Bluetooth support. The battery is also rather weak, much in the same way the Sidekick 3's battery was.

Sidekick LX: Talk: 6.8 hours (408 minutes)
Standby: 96 hours (4 days)

Sidekick 3: Talk: 4.5 hours (270 minutes)
Standby: 72 hours (3 days)

Overall, I would recommend this phone for anyone who likes to text or e-mail a lot. For anyone who loves recording or watching videos, this is not the phone for you.

If this review helped you at all, please click "Yes" below. Thanks!

As a loyal owner of many models of the Sidekick Dynasty, I have suffered (albeit joyously) through various stages of metamorphosis--from awkwardly bulky housing, nonprogrammable sound profiles, to not-quite-what-it-could-be interfaces. It seems, however, that Sidekick has finally come into its own in the newest and most improved Sidekick LX from T-Mobile.

The list of heralded improvements starts with the slim and sleek, even thinner than before design, which looks and feels similar to the famously thin RAZR by Motorola. Available in espresso brown or midnight blue, the housing is shiny, smooth like glass, and features a leather-like backing to the battery compartment. The brilliant high-resolution screen is now three inches wide and crisper, brighter than ever, even when kept at "low" brightness level, which conserves battery life.
The LX boasts new blue "mood lights" located at each of the four corners, which can be customized to suit different message/text/IM/email alerts. The mood lights and track ball light up whenever the user receives a call/IM/text/email.

For anyone who has owned or operated a Blackberry interface, users may be pleasantly familiar with the LX OS, as it is somewhat similar. The email application is effortless, reminiscent of Mozilla Firefox's easy tab configuration and those who are upgrading from the Sidekick 3, will find their settings, email accounts and nearly every setting from their Sidekick 3 already conveniently configured on the LX. New customizable options include font size, as well as backgrounds and complete sound-infused themes.

As for games, say "bye bye" to Rocket Blaster and "Heeellllo" to Bob's Journey: TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH! This popular game comes pre-loaded!

And now, for the creme de la creme...
I have saved the two best features of the new Sidekick LX for last.
For users who are Myspace addicts, a completely user-friendly and super convenient Myspace application is available for download in the catalog! While the application itself is free to download, users will have to agree to a nominal monthly fee until the application is discarded. In the Myspace application, users will enjoy "online now!" status, up to the minute photo/profile comment alerts, mail/blog subscription post/comments/friend request alerts, as well as instant picture upload straight from the LX to their Myspace profile! Myspace alert sounds are customizable as well.

And finally...*drum roll, please*
The feature many have been waiting so patiently for...
For the first time on a Sidekick, users are now able to send Picture Messages/(MMS)!!!!!!! No longer will users have to email pictures to a long numerical phone number email address, no more are the days of being outside the MMS loop. Rejoice! Picture Messaging has arrived!


All in all, I couldn't be happier with the extremely well done revamping on T-Mobile's Sidekick line, and have rated it a definite, no-doubt "excellent."

Hello this will be helpful for you.
I'm not wild about the Sidekick LX, but that opinion might say more about me than about this flashy messaging powerhouse. It excels at text, IM, and e-mail but puts up some roadblocks for those who use a phone primarily to make calls.

The LX costs $300 with a two-year T-Mobile voice plan and a reasonable extra $20 per month for an unlimited data plan. You can pay $30 per month for a data-only, no-voice plan. You'll need a good data plan to take advantage of the LX's primary strength: messaging. I easily set up an AOL IM account (the LX supports Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, too), and I also logged on quickly to Gmail and to PC World's Web-based mail accounts; the LX supports the IMAP e-mail protocol and most other popular Web mail services. And, of course, you can text- and picture-message as well.

The LX is designed for two-handed use. To access the keyboard, you lift and swivel the large, beautiful 3-inch screen to reveal a luxurious QWERTY keyboard with excellent spacing between the keys and a no-slip matte finish. New instant messages scroll across the top of the screen when you're doing other things like surfing the Web, which, by the way, is slow. (Currently T-Mobile doesn't offer 3G network speed, but the company plans to roll it out in the first half of 2008.) The senders and subjects of new e-mail messages appear when you scroll to the main interface's e-mail icon using the quick and handy scroll ball.

This design, however, is not great for phone calls. You'll want to import phone numbers into the LX's address book and access them that way, because it's awkward to dial using the number keys, which sit in one horizontal row at the top of the keyboard almost directly under the display's hinge. Plus, you'll need to swivel the keyboard out to dial and back in again to talk--awkward design decision number two. While call quality in my area was fine, the speakerphone sounded distorted to me at volumes loud enough to hear. (Call recipients had no complaints, however.) Battery life in PC World lab tests maxed out at 10 hours of talk time.

People who don't want their phone constantly beeping, buzzing, and flashing won't particularly like this model either. Under default settings my test unit glowed green, or blue, indicating a new message, even when it (and I) were sleeping at night. It made frequent, unexpected jarring alert noises too. Sure, you can turn all that off using the phone's settings and hardware volume buttons, which I often hit accidentally while trying to swivel the screen. But it's part of the Sidekick LX's celebrity-attracting bling; turning everything off is like getting an Old English sheepdog and giving it a buzz cut.

Other features: The LX has a 1.3-megapixel camera with flash that takes decently sharp pictures but doesn't take video--a pity given the large screen. You can plug in standard headphones without an adapter, and you can play music that you transfer via USB or store on a microSD card.

I didn't like the Sidekick LX, but I can see why other people might. Since I'm not a master messenger, I can't overlook the awkward phone-dialing design, the sluggish Internet, and the too-flashy audio-visual effects.

Never recieved the phone. I paid for the phone and never recieved a full refund or a respond from the seller.