Product Reviews

The Sidekick II has been a huge success in the US, and it now arrives on these shores courtesy of an exclusive deal with T-Mobile. Under 25s are the phone's key audience over the pond, with much support garnered from the celebrity circuit. This in part explains the quirky design and the cutesy cartoon menu icon designs. The novel screen certainly lends the phone some wow-factor, springing round to reveal a small rubber keypad that's more than adequate for writing short emails. It isn't quite as speedy for text input as a BlackBerry, but the key clicks are reassuringly firm.

The Shortcut keys are large and well placed. While they're initially a touch confusing to navigate, we soon found them second nature. Using the operating system itself is straightforward, however, thanks to some helpful advice from the onscreen cartoons. As for the software, there are excellent calendar and address book applications - you can export contacts from Outlook via a text file, but there's currently no way of doing the same with a calender. AOL's Instant Messenger client works very well, and there's a web browser, which, unlike many offerings, doesn't

ADVERTISEMENT

place any form of restriction on where you can surf.

Rather than synchronising directly with a PC, the service also includes a personal web portal, which mirrors the data on your handset. You can then log on to a dedicated web page from any Internet-connected PC, allowing you (or anyone else with your password) to change the data. This will then update the information on your Sidekick II in a matter of minutes. It's a groundbreaking feature that will also work with pictures taken via the VGA camera (up to a maximum of 30). We wouldn't store anything too confidential here, but it's compelling to see in action.

T-Mobile is also offering 40MB of web connection with all its various payment packages, which should see you through the month. The handset uses a push-email service that pushes emails at least every 15 minutes. However, if it detects a conversation has started up, it will push email every two minutes. We found it worked well, and while some will prefer the instant push of BlackBerry's business service, for most consumers it should be more than fast enough.

While navigation is simple, making calls on the Sidekick II is a less joyful experience. If the number isn't in the phonebook, you'll need to pop open the screen to get to the number pad before shutting it to make the call. It's also on the bulky side, making it cumbersome to hold as a phone. There's no MP3 player either - a surprising omission.

In the US, where email is king, it's no surprise that the Sidekick II has gone down well, but here, in the text-obsessed UK, its success isn't quite such a dead cert. But there's tremendous potential for this type of device to do for the consumer what BlackBerry did for business users.