T-Mobile Sidekick 4G - Matte Black

Who should get this phone? Consumers who like the style of the traditional Sidekick, but prefer the Google Android OS.

What cell phone compares to this model? The Sidekick 4G sports a similar style to previous Sidekick models.

Why should I get this phone? You want a pocket-friendly Android 2.2 smartphone with a spacious tactile QWERTY keyboard, plenty of multimedia features, and 4G connectivity.

In a nutshell: The pocket-friendly Sidekick 4G foregoes the phone’s trademark Danger OS in favor of Google’s Android 2.2 OS. Although the changes add a lot to the overall phone experience, longtime Sidekick users will have a bit of a learning curve.

The new Sidekick 4G sports a similar design and style as it’s predecessors, but offers a more straightforward way to access the five-line tactile QWERTY keyboard – simply push the phone’s screen up when in horizontal mode. About that keyboard, it is definitely spacious with plenty of room between individual keys. However, the physical keys are a bit on the small side and is a better fit for those with smaller fingers. That said, we didn’t suffer many mistypes. We also appreciate that there is a dedicated row of numbers on the top of the keyboard. If you don’t want to use the tactile keyboard, there is also an onscreen keyboard that uses SWYPE.

Overall the Sidekick 4G is fairly lightweight and although the cell phone has a plastic casing it feels sturdy and durable in the hand. The display, although not particularly large, is also crisp and easily viewable in direct sunlight. Since this version of the Sidekick runs Android 2.2, the position of the dedicated keys will take some time to get use to since they surround the phone instead of the sitting at the base of the cell phone. There are four keys on the face of the cell phone including Home, Back, Menu, and Jump (for accessing the most recent application). There is also 4-way navigation pad that we found a bit difficult to master. On the side of the cell phone is the microUSB port, camera key, volume rocker key, power button, and 3.5mm headset jack. On the front upper left hand corner of the cell phone is a front-facing VGA camera and on the back is the 3-megapixel-camera lens.

Testing the Sidekick 4G

Making Calls:

During calls we could hear callers pretty clearly and callers said they had a similar experience on their end. Regardless of how close you hold the smartphone to your face, the “End Call” button never seems to get “accidentally” hit.

• Volume Adjustment: You can use the side buttons to adjust the volume, but we rarely needed to use them.
• Speakerphone: Call quality is acceptable when using this feature. We didn’t cut each other off when speaking simultaneously.

Operating System:

The smartphone comes loaded with the Android 2.2 OS, sports a 1GHz processor, and comes with a 2GB microSD card. The cell phone has a slick interface, with five different themes available (Hipster Eye, Paper Lotus, Denim Ghost, Bird on Wire, Cherry Bomb, Funkylicious, Disguise, and Default) to further customize the phone. At the base of the screen are three quick launch tabs for Phone, Apps, and Contacts. It also supports multitasking and up to seven home screens with the ability to organize apps just about any way you want. Overall, the user interface is fairly straightforward and icon friendly.

• Web Navigation: Since this is a T-Mobile smartphone when you launch the web it automatically loads the company’s web2go site, which essentially offers one touch access to your favorite spots around the web. You can easily access any website you want simply by entering the name of the site in the Google search bar. The cell phone does support Adobe FlashPlayer 10.1. We did also appreciate that you can have multiple browser windows open simultaneously and easily navigate between them. Overall, surfing the web on the Sidekick 4G was a fluid experience with the ability to zoom and scroll around web pages with ease.
• Social Media:
Mobile versions of Facebook and Twitter are preloaded on the cell phone and can also be found in the web2go portal as well. If you want access to more social networking options you can easily download them from the Android Market.

Camera Features:

The Sidekick 4G sports a rear-facing 3-megapixel camera on the back of the cell phone and a front-facing VGA camera. The Sidekick 4G may lack a tiny mirror on the back of the phone for framing self-portraits, but once in the camera app you can easily switch to the front camera lens if you want to snap pictures of yourself .

• Shutter speed: We found the shutter speed on the Sidekick 4G acceptable, but you shouldn’t rely on it to capture action shots.
• Picture Quality: We found colors to be true and details sharp when looking at pictures on the phone.
• Photo Settings: You can control the focus, timer, resolution, white balance, ISO setting, metering, contrast, saturation, sharpness, select a scene mode (automatic, portrait, landscape, sport, night, party, beach/snow, dawn, fall, firework, text, sunset, candlelight, or backlight), effects (normal, black and white, negative, and sepia), choose single shot, continuous, and panorama.
• Video Features: You can record video with this Android cell phone. We found quality was acceptable, but we preferred watching movies and YouTube videos on the cell phone to our own creations. The Sidekick 4G comes with quite a few media options including T-Mobile TV for streaming live TV as well as shows OnDemand. Speaking of movies, since this is a Samsung cell phone there is access to the Samsung Media Hub if you want to purchase and download more movies or TV shows.

Music Features:

Playback of music through the Sidekick 4G speaker is solid; songs sounded loud, but not distorted or too tinny. Songs sounded even better when the cell phone was placed screen down on the table. We should note that you won’t find the traditional Music Player feature found on most Android phones. Instead, there’s a Media Room app that keeps track of songs stored on the phone, video, and the Slacker Radio app.

• Formats Supported: We were able to play MP3, unprotected AAC (Apple’s audio format), and unprotected WMA (Microsoft’s audio format) music files.
• Features: Repeat, Shuffle, and Playlists (you can even create playlists on the cell phone). You can also save tunes stored in your cell phone as a ringtone or as an alarm. There’s a media share feature so you can stream music stored on the Sidekick 4G to a DLNA-compliant stereo or TV via the AllShare application.

Connectivity:

The Sidekick 4G works with T-Mobile’s 3G and 4G networks. If you’re in a 4G market, the cell phone automatically roams onto the 4G network so you don’t need to adjust the cell phone’s settings. It’s also a world phone.

• Bluetooth: The cell phone worked seamlessly with the Motorola T505 and callers didn’t know we were using a Bluetooth connection. We were also able to connect the Sidekick 4G with a MacBook Pro and transfer contacts, pictures, and music.
• WiFi: It has 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (that’s pretty secure) and we were able to log onto available WiFi networks to surf the Web or send/receive e-mail. It just takes moments to set up. The only thing you need is the WiFi network you want to use and password if needed. Additionally, you can use the WiFi network for WiFi calling (Note: Using the WiFi calling feature still uses plan minutes). This feature works well, but we still prefer the quality of calls made over T-Mobile’s network.

Battery Life:

We found battery life on the Sidekick 4G to be better than other Android cell phones currently available. We were able to go about two days before needing to recharge the cell phone, when we had the cell phone’s screen to the brightest level and used it to check e-mail, surf the web, listen to music and take a few pictures.

Overall, the T-Mobile Sidekick 4G has a lot to offer in a fairly compact package. The cell phone’s 1GHz processor and 4G connectivity provide a fairly speedy experience. While the traditional Sidekick design and style definitely appeals to a target user, adopting the dedicated buttons to work with the Android 2.2 OS will take some practice before mastering.