The T mobile sidekick phone‘s landscape orientation allows concealment of a wide thumb-pad. Sidekick’s keypad is just right for my thumbs, not requiring too much reach. I recall that the original Sidekick’s overall width made typing a little more comfortable, at 4.5 inches from side-to-side, but the iD’s 5.1 inches don’t make Sidekick difficult.

The Sidekick’s interface has gained a few buttons, and has one too many navigator methods. The main navigator, a track ball, is also found on the Sidekick 3. This trackball works great, though. Sidekick’s slight texture improves traction. It’s a white translucent plastic that allows T Mobile Sidekick iD to glow and change color (slow flashing blue for standby, flashing purple for an incoming call, for example).

One exception is in pull down menus, where a second flyout menu is accessed with a roll to the right.
Easily the most unique and fun part of the Sidekick is the swing-around screen. Press lightly on the upper right or lower left corners and the screen rises out of the keyboard trough, swings around, and snaps back down into the trough, resting at a slight angle toward the user. While it seems odd, this method of opening a computing device becomes more natural, and is certainly quicker, than opening a clamshell.

The new Sidekick 4 is the latest and best member of the Motorola Sidekick family. The phone packs a tremendous set of features including built-in MP3 player, 1.3 megapixel camera with an LED flash, quad band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), audio jack, SD card slot for expanded memory, and an improved screen compared to the Sidekick 3.

The Sidekick 4 measures 5″ x 2.4″ x 0.7″ and weighs 5.7 oz. The large display screen swivels up and locks nicely. The sidekick 4 comes in brown or navy blue. The backside of the phone is textured for better handling. The phone (other than the QWERTY pad) has 10 buttons plus a d-pad (speaker combo) and trackball. The 3 inch display has 65 million colors with a 400 x 240 pixel resolution. Pressing on the top left corner will allow the screen to swivel and will snap into place. Typing on the QWERTY pad is comfortable and easy to type with. The keyboard, send/end keys, and trackball are well lit and the back lighting is set via a light sensor at the edge of the screen. Also note that there are multicolored LED lights that flash in certain patterns or colors for phone events (text, incoming call, etc.)

The MP3 player on the Sidekick4 is easy to use and provides several views such as album, artist, genre, etc. The Sidekick 4 can surf the net via the built in web browser. The phone browser appears as a mobile browser to websites but can handle most websites. The phone includes a populated bookmark list with sites such as Mobileburn, Facebook, MySpace, etc. There is also the ability to send a page by email, MMS/SMS, which allows sharing these sites with others.

In conclusion the Sidekick 4 is a great addition to the Sidekick family with the new additions of the 3.5 mm audio jack and the high quality screen. The Sidekick 4 is definitely a phone where the charger does not need to be carried along. The phone is solidly constructed and includes good instant messenger as well as MP3 applications.

Find more information about sidekick mobile phone here.

Get handy facts about internet marketing – give a look to this publication.