This program also appears incapable of deleting a message off your mail server; the spam you discard on this device will show up anew whenever you check your mail from your regular computer.
Instant messaging functions smoothest of all; its AOL Instant Messenger software worked fine, except that it's missing an indicator to show when the other person is typing (as opposed to ignoring you in the hope that you'll stop IMing all the time). A Yahoo Messenger program can be downloaded for free, but MSN's popular service isn't supported as yet.
T-Mobile's Sidekick II
(The Washington Post)
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Like the shots taken with almost every other camera-phone, the Sidekick II's pictures look horrible -- these low-resolution, 640-by-480-pixel shots are blurry, blotchy and often strangely tinted. It doesn't help that the flash isn't engaged automatically. But this camera will suffice for the usual camera-phone tasks of taking snapshots on social occasions and getting spousal authorizations for purchases.
Danger includes a simple but capable suite of contacts, calendar, to-do and memo programs. Other applications can be downloaded from a limited catalogue; most require paying a small fee. This compares badly with the Treo's wealth of third-party software, much of it free.
There's no MP3 playback option; the Sidekick II doesn't have enough internal storage (just 16 megabytes of flash memory) and lacks a memory-card slot.
The lithium-ion battery consistently ran through more than two days of moderate use.
What's remarkable is how Danger has made all of these functions accessible with just a jog-dial switch and four buttons at the corner of the device. In this way, the Sidekick II is like the anti-BlackBerry; its elegantly streamlined design is the polar opposite of the BlackBerry's frequently counterintuitive, inefficient interface.
For the $20 a month that T-Mobile charges for data use -- a sum that covers unlimited Web browsing, e-mail and instant-messaging use on the company's slightly-faster-than-dial-up GPRS network -- you also get an amazingly slick synchronization service. Voice calls, of course, cost extra. All the info on the Sidekick II, from photos to calendar events to e-mail to all your settings, is mirrored on T-Mobile's servers and accessible from any Web-connected computer. There's no need to install any software on your computer, or even to own a computer.
Updates from Web to Sidekick and back happened almost immediately -- I marked a to-do item as done in the Web interface, then saw that item disappear from the Sidekick seconds later. For an extra fee, you'll be able to download Intellisync software to sync up Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendars and task lists.
This is a remarkable piece of work. The one real downside to it is the network it runs on -- T-Mobile is one of the spottier services around, and I encountered gaps in coverage in fairly obvious spots. Fortunately, Danger says its distribution deal with T-Mobile is not exclusive, so AT&T, Cingular and other carriers using the GSM wireless standard can sell their own versions of this later. They should -- customers could use this choice.
Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.
