A Real Kick in the Side!!
by Gary Woods

T-Mobiles original Sidekick was the first consumer oriented mobile device that combined PDA and phone features with e-mail and instant messaging. Now they have released the Sidekick II, manufactured by Sharp that adds a built-in camera while enhancing e-mail, IM, calendar, and phone capabilities.

With dimensions of 5.1" X 2.6" X .9" and weighing 6.2 ounces this isn't a tiny device but it's at least smaller than the original Sidekick. The Sidekick II's most unique feature is its huge 3.3 inch color flip up screen that swivels to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. Reading and writing e-mail and IMs on the 13 line screen is pretty cool. But the VGA camera is slow to start up, and the photos came out blurry and full of halos and strange color effects.

The internal radio has been vastly improved from the first Sidekick and the sound quality is very good. Both the earpiece speaker and speakerphone are clear and there's a standard wired headset jack.

Setting up POP3, IMAP or AOL email accounts is straightforward, as is setting up Yahoo or AOL Message Clients. T-Mobile's servers monitor your IM and Email accounts and Microsoft Office and PDF attachments show up as plain text built into a message. You can even do basic web browsing.

For a few dollars from T-Mobile you can download clone versions of Asteroids, Galaga, and Tetris. For $300 this is a lot of device, check it out.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910