Sidekick 4G review

It's been nearly two years since we last reviewed a T-Mobile Sidekick, and it would be a vast understatement to say things have changed. Then, they were designed by Danger and manufactured by Sharp, and were the messaging phone of choice. Today, following fiasco and failure, the Sidekick empire is in ruins. But good ideas and their originators live on, and several of Danger's brightest wound up in Mountain View, California. Danger's Andy Rubin founded Android, design director Mattias Duarte built Honeycomb (after helping craft the Helio Ocean and webOS for Palm) and now, the Sidekick itself has joined its founders in the house that Google built. In many ways, the Sidekick 4G is a return to form, but in an ecosystem filled with similar Android devices, can it stand out from the crowd?

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G unboxing and hands-on

Hardware

We're tempted to say "yes" based on looks alone. Android's got no shortage of landscape QWERTY sliders, and some of them even boast pretty fancy builds, but the Sidekick 4G's matte, soft-touch plastic frame, accented sparingly with a dark brushed metal trim, manages to simultaneously be stylish and utilitarian. It's a thick plastic phone in a world that increasingly idolizes supermodels like the iPhone 4 and Xperia Arc, but every part of its shell is purpose-built for tactile control, and we're mostly happy with the trade-offs.



Samsung may have not seen fit to equip the Sidekick 4G with one of its fancy AMOLED displays, but it certainly dug up a pretty fantastic standard LCD here, which washes out slightly at off-angles but otherwise aquits itself admirably. Of course, it's only got 3.5 inches of real estate, which can be quite the adjustment if you're used to 4+ inch slate phones or even 3.7-inch QWERTY sliders like the Droid 2, and there's enough more than enough bezel on the Sidekick 4G to suggest that the smaller screen might be a cost-cutting measure. That said, you're looking at 267 pixels per inch here -- which means you're rarely looking at pixels at all -- so it's not bad, just not really suited to multimedia. It's pretty nice for touchscreen input, though, with a responsive capacitive digitizer (tracking five points of contact) underneath a smooth Gorilla Glass sheet.

Whether held in the left or right hand, the Sidekick 4G is comfortable to grip in portrait mode, and most critical controls are easy to reach -- the bottom (or left) positions the nice, firm volume rocker right beneath your upper digits, a 3.5mm headphone jack at the very top, and the power button at the bottom where you can press it with pinky or palm. Up top (or right) there's a rotating flap covering the microUSB port, and a somewhat squishy two-stage camera shutter button that can nonetheless assist in taking single-handed pics. There's also an optical trackpad on the front that makes a little bit of sense in portrait mode, but isn't really sensitive (nor accessible) enough to scroll through more than the occasional webpage. We miss our trackball.

Landscape mode is where the Sidekick's hardware is obviously designed to shine, as the handset's large, clicky face buttons don't make much sense in the vertical -- and of course, once you spin the phone ninety degrees, you'll be able to access the Sidekick's famous QWERTY keyboard, though sans the familiar hinge. Historically, the only Hiptop that ever shipped without that trademark swiveling display was dead on arrival, but we can joyously announce that that stigma is no more, as the Sidekick 4G has one of the most ingenious and rock-solid sliding hinges we've seen on a smartphone yet. Push the bottom lip of the display upward roughly a single centimeter, and the mechanism leaps forward with a satisfying snap, propelled by an spring-loaded, all-metal crossbar that simultaneously props up the display at the correct angle and shields its cable ribbon. There's not a hint of play in any direction, nor any question about whether the device is fully opened or closed and though we initially missed our spinning screen we eventually had to admit this one is nearly as cool.

We've tried every Hiptop keyboard made, and while this isn't the best we've ever used -- the Sidekick II's all-rubber matrix is hard to surpass -- Samsung's Sidekick 4G beats the pants off any QWERTY keyboard we've used on an Android machine. You pay a hefty premium to get this kind of real estate, but look at the result: a spacious, staggered five-row keyboard with a dedicated number row, easy access to commas, periods, questionmarks and the all-important @ symbol, and if you're 15 years old (or 15 at heart), an emoticon key too. The domed keys are rather noisy in use, a little shallow and a tad stiff, which can lead to some thumb fatigue after a while -- a little extra padding might have been nice -- and the placement of the Search key tripped us up from time to time when we intended to hit Shift instead. Overall, though, Sidekick lovers will be right at home; with just a couple days of re-training ourselves, we were touch-typing 35WPM (without errors) on the QWERTY keyboard.

Though still decidedly made of plastic, even the back cover of the phone shows some thoughtful design. It sports larged textured grips to make absolutely sure you won't easily drop the phone while typing, and it's thin and flexible enough to easily pry off the rear without requiring excessive pressure. Underneath, you'll find the same user-replaceable 1500mAh battery Samsung uses in all its mid-range smartphones (Transform, Intercept, Craft, etc.) which should make finding replacements easy and cheap, as well as easy access to the included 2GB microSD card (but unfortunately not the SIM slot).

Software, performance and battery life

Samsung's never been particularly shy about skinning Android -- replacing parts of the stock user interface with ideas of its own design -- and for the most part, we've tolerated its TouchWiz skins without really understanding the point. Starting with the stellar Galaxy S II, however, it seems there's finally a mandate to make change exceedingly functional and pleasing to use, and we have to say, the Sidekick 4G's interface (based on Android 2.2.1) is pretty dang cool. Filled with translucent blue parallelograms and text that vaguely evoke Honeycomb (and by association, Tron), every part of the UI has seen a stylish overhaul, and it's both seriously eye-catching and fairly useful. The lock screen, for instance, returns you to your content when you slide the lower blade down, but fling the upper blade skyward and it can automatically launch any app or shortcut of your choice.

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G software walkthrough

Threaded conversations don't just look nice, but also let you communicate a whole variety of things without leaping into other apps -- a couple presses and you can attach a quick voice recording, upcoming calendar event, GPS location, picture or video to anything you send, or send an email, Tweet or status update from the same interface, and there's also a Group Text app to let you blast SMS out to all your friends. The Contacts page has similarly seen an overhaul, and it's much like the one we enjoyed using in the Galaxy S II -- there's an alphabetical directory at right for quickly scrolling through your friends, relatives and acquaintances, and a quick swipe right on their name will immediately call them (or swipe left will text them) without further ado. Though Android has had Sidekick-like jump shortcuts since the very beginning, actually tapping the Jump button by itself does something rather cool -- it pulls up a scrolling list of your last eight tasks in order and displays their keyboard shortcuts to make multitasking even less painless than it was by default.

All that said, the UI overhaul isn't without its issues, like how the Dialer and Contacts app is only usable in portrait view, and the way some third-party apps didn't like Samsung's translucent blue text and rendered it invisible. Samsung's worst misstep, though, is arguably its social networking integration. The Sidekick 4G uses Samsung's Social Networking Sync (SNS) service to drop your friends Twitter, Facebook and MySpace updates in a variety of useful places (like a tasteful homescreen widget and a browsable list on the contacts page) and lets you post updates directly from the notifications bar to any of the same. The problem is, the service syncs a maximum of once per day. Needless to say, you'll probably be using dedicated social networking apps instead, but none of them can leverage the same device integrations, and in fact you'll find all of your Twitter and Facebook contacts each listed twice in your contacts list if you have both the apps and Samsung SNS set up simultaneously.

Also, the UI is occasionally a bit slow -- not lethargic by any means, but considering the Sidekick 4G has the guts of a Galaxy S (including a 1GHz Samsung C110 Hummingbird SOC with 512MB of RAM and PowerVR SGX540 graphics) and Froyo on board, we expected a bit more speed when scrolling around, and despite pulling down 5Mbps speeds over T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, the web browsing experience is a little off. Pages loaded and rendered slower than we anticipated, and trying to scroll around while pages are loading resulted in an unsightly checkerboard pattern -- painful if you're trying to read just one of the entries in a lengthy scrolling blog. Benchmarks also suggest that speed has taken a hit in favor of something else, as our review unit managed only 12.5 MFLOPS in Linpack and a score of around 940 in Quadrant. However, gaming performance should still be pretty snappy, as that PowerVR chip still pumped out 49.9fps in Nenamark, and we played some Cordy and AirAttack HD with only modest slowdown, and stability seems good -- we've yet to see a single crash to homescreen or spontaneous Force Close.



Call quality was just fine over the earpiece, speakerphone or Bluetooth, and cellular reception was mostly consistant with the phone sitting still, and we found battery life fairly average but better then some. After a full 15-hour day of moderate use, we hit the pillow with 27 percent remaining charge, while the same test found our Droid 2 (with a recently replaced, but smaller 1370mAh Li-ion pack) barely holding on at the 15 percent mark. You'll still be charging this one at least nightly, but there's a little extra wiggle room.

Camera

Don't let the specs deceive you -- despite clocking in at a seemingly pedestrian 3 megapixels, the Sidekick 4G camera is extremely competent thanks to quality autofocus optics, a good sensor, and top-notch image processing. It takes really nice pictures, with lots of detail, excellent color balance, and accurate exposure. Low-light performance is surprisingly decent, with noise only becoming a problem in extreme circumstances. While there's no flash, you'll find a dedicated two-stage shutter key on the edge of the device, something that we'd like to see on every handset.

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G sample shots

The Sidekick 4G captures video at a smooth 30fps, but resolution is limited to 720x480 pixels (SD). While the resulting videos are reasonably crisp, there's no autofocus during video recording, and audio quality is only average.








The camera interface is typical Samsung, and similar to what we've encountered on the company's many Galaxy S phones. It's pretty intuitive to use and provides features like touch-to-focus and a panorama mode. Overall we're quite pleased with the Sidekick 4G camera; it's easily one of the best 3 megapixel shooters we've used in recent months, and we don't mean that in an anachronistic sense. There's not much to say about the unit's front-facing camera, which is merely passable, but even as a token offering for T-Mobile's Qik-powered video chat, it's appreciated.

Wrap-up

The growing Android empire has legions of slatephones big and small, and a growing stable of physical QWERTY devices led by the likes of HTC's G2 / Desire Z, Samsung's Epic 4G, and of course the Motorola Droid 2. All of those play at the higher end of the market, though, where folks can afford phones built from metal or filled with organic LEDs, while this perfectly passable Sidekick 4G rings up at just $100 on contract. It's solid, stable, feature-packed and incredibly stylish for the price, and we don't think it's an exaggeration to say it might single-handedly raise the bar for what a mid-range smartphone can be -- compare to the Samsung Transform we reviewed last year. Is it worthy of the Sidekick name? That's a little harder to say, but we've long thought the best features of Danger's Hiptop OS (like email, calendar and contacts storage in the cloud) were present in Android anyways. We think the best test is this -- head over to a T-Mobile store, and get your thumbs on that five-row QWERTY and fantastic sliding hinge.

Samsung Exhibit 4G coming to T-Mobile on June 8th?

It wasn't even two weeks ago that we first glimpsed the Samsung Exhibit 4G for T-Mobile in the wild (and spied its FCC footprint). Now it looks like this Gingerbread phone will go on sale June 8th -- if this flyer sent in to TmoNews is to be believed. Still no word on pricing, though we know dealers will pay $325 a pop. To recap, a peek at the filing and unauthorized photos reveals the Exhibit 4G is an HSPA + handset running TouchWiz on top of Android 2.3, with front and rear-facing cameras, an LED flash in the back, and a microSD card slot. The site's sources also suggest the phone will pack a 1GHz Hummingbird CPU and a 3 megapixel back camera, a departure from the speculation we were treated to earlier this month. In any case, it looks like T-Mobile will set the record straight in a matter of weeks.

TmoNews

Droid Charge review

We're still shaking our heads and sighing longingly at the performance of Samsung's Galaxy S II, a phone that wowed us in Europe but likely won't be coming to American shores for some time -- and who knows what it'll look like when it does. But don't get too down, dear reader, because here comes another slice of Samsung and this slab has that same 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display tucked in there. It's a little less slim, a little less classy, and a little less quick than Sammy's latest world-conquering wunderphone, but the LTE-equipped Charge is a proper contender in its own right. Read on to see why.

Samsung Droid Charge

Hardware

The Droid Charge is definitely a bit of a handful, as you'd expect with its 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 display. Still, we wouldn't call it a big phone by today's standards. It's .46-inches (12mm) at its thinnest, though it swells slightly in a little flare at the bottom (out to about 14mm). That's in the same ballpark of the recently-released Thunderbolt, which we're thinking many people will cross-shop this with. The Thunderbolt comes in at about .52-inches (13mm) thick, but the taper and profile on the Charge makes it seem thinner.

It's considerably lighter, too, 5.04oz (143g) versus 6.23oz (177g), though that relative lightness comes at a cost: a somewhat plasticy build. It certainly doesn't feel as bad as that Samsung flip-phone you had back in 2002, the one you rocked until your dog got ahold of it, but compared to the metal and unibody offerings seen elsewhere the Charge lacks any feeling of prestige in the hand.

It doesn't feel bad; there's a comfortable taper about it, a little bulge at the bottom that shifts the center of balance of the phone downward toward the center of your palm when holding it. It's quite comfortable to hold, helped by the smooth, glossy back that, sadly, seems a bit prone to scratches. There's a small grille on the back. Throw the phone in speakerphone mode and the voices of whoever you're speaking with come through loud and clear -- stress on the loud bit. Overall call quality and audio quality was good.

When in the hand, screen forward, power button on the right side and the volume rocker on the left fall to fingers quite readily. But, and here's something of a shocker, those aren't the only physical inputs here. On the phone's chin, which is designed with a hint of a pointy goatee, you'll find four honest-to-gosh buttons. Touch them and they actually depress! Some might call this a dated throwback to the olden days of cellular telephony, others will quite appreciate their presence. We like them, though we do wish they lit up a bit brighter.

Display

The buttons may be a bit dim, but there are no issues with brightness on that display, which again is 4.3-inches of Super AMOLED Plus goodness. Resolution is not jaw-dropping at 800 x 480, though the contrast is. Blacks are, naturally, perfectly black and the brights are borderline blinding in a darkened room, while viewing angles are unlimited. Even outdoors in the screen is quite readable. We had no problem composing shots when the sun finally broke through the clouds and lit up our weekend.

However, color reproduction can leave a bit to be desired. On the default, automatic-brightness settings, white sections of the display instead fall toward green. Remove that toggle, dial up the brightness and you get far more pure shades -- just make sure you squint a little before popping on the display in a dimly-lit area. The color-tweaking feature found on the Galaxy S II? Sadly not here, though the display is still mighty impressive even without.

Performance and battery life

The Charge is sadly not a member of the dual-core militia, but despite its 1GHz Hummingbird internals we found it to be quite responsive. You know, snappy. It won't blow your mind with ridiculous benchmark scores but, more importantly, it never left us waiting. In fact benchmark scores were something of a mixed bag, leaving us unconvinced that they're correctly reflecting the performance of the phone. Quadrant delivered scores around 1,000 and Linpack 13.8 MFLOPS -- on the poor side. Neocore, meanwhile, managed 56.8fps and Nenamark 45fps, while the Sunspider Javascript benchmark completed in a respectable 6,194ms. Again, most importantly the phone feels quick to use -- it's no Atrix, but it's certainly on par with the Thunderbolt.

When it comes to battery life, there's no competition. The Charge blitzed through a full day of what we'd consider typical use, coming off the charger at about 9am and not getting slotted back in again until 9pm the next night. Yes, you read that right, two working days of what we'd consider average use with GPS and WiFi on, taking pictures and videos, all powered by a single 1,600mAh battery. Granted, we weren't running our performance benchmarks at the time, but we were hammering the LTE antenna to get some speed results.

And what results they were! On LTE we managed a maximum download of 15.1Mbps down and 3.9Mbps up, enough to shame your average cable modem. And those with lots of friends (or lots of tablets) can share that connection with up to 10 devices.

Oh, and in case you're still worried about the GPS performance of your Sammy handset, fear not. The Charge didn't exactly impress us with its geolocation abilities, occasionally struggling to find a lock when in an occluded area, say on a porch or inside near a window. However, once in the clear it found enough orbiting birds in the sky quickly and accurately.

Software

The Charge comes with Android 2.2 Froyo installed and, yes, that's a bit of a disappointment in these days of Gingerbread, but the light customizations applied here by Samsung help to keep it looking somewhat fresh. The phone's lock screen has you dragging a puzzle piece to get access to the main OS, though missed calls and other events will pop up here and, if you put them in their place, you'll be taken right to whatever event caused them to appear in the first place.

A healthy seven home screens are on offer, and pinching on any of them zooms you out to see them all from high, high above. By default the middle one is your go-to screen, but you can choose any of them to take that place. Samsung adds a few custom widgets to the mix, but nothing too mind-blowing, like a dual-clock that will tell you what time it is at home and afar, plus a task manager widget that's handy if you think you're better at memory cleaning than Android.

The cool accelerometer-augmented gestures for zooming and moving on the Galaxy S II are sadly not here, however there are a number of inclusions here that are rather less wanted -- a huge amount of icons for bloatware and game demos that cannot be removed. They're not exactly filling the phone to capacity, but having three full pages of apps on your phone the first time you boot it up seems a bit excessive.

Camera

Out through a little chrome highlight on the back of the phone peers what we believe is the same eight megapixel sensor that earlier impressed us on the Galaxy S II. It impresses us here, too, capturing bright, clear images even when lighting conditions are less than optimal. Tap-to-focus quite naturally works, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that the camera used auto-focus when capturing video.


The payback is a little bit of focus noise injected into your footage, a sort of tapping you can hear in the sample above, but we didn't find it to be too obtrusive. However, the auto-focus is a bit slow, so we still preferred manually focusing by tapping. Video quality is again quite good, not quite the 1080p stuff that the Galaxy S II can deliver, but there's only so much you can do with a single core processor.

Samsung Droid Charge sample images

Wrap-up

The Droid Charge is a total sleeper. We'll be perfectly honest that we weren't expecting to be wowed but, well, we're certainly impressed. In terms of performance it's more or less on par with the recently-released Thunderbolt, but battery life is far superior and, while the Super AMOLED Plus display has its quirks, we think they just add character. The imaging sensor 'round the back is top-notch and, overall, this is a very good phone. The only real disappointment? A plastic design that probably will be looking a bit rough after a few months in your pocket.

And then there's the cost: $300 on-contract puts the 32GB Charge in an unfortunate tie for the position of Verizon's most expensive smartphone. That tie is, of course, with Apple's 32GB iPhone 4. That's $50 more than the Thunderbolt, which also comes with the same number of gee bees. Worth the extra? Given the battery life and display improvements here, we'd be inclined to say yes.