I owned the Color Sidekick for 9 days before trading it in for a much more expensive, full-featured Sony Ericsson P800 at the last minute. Still have fond memories of that GREAT keyboard. At $300, the price beats the Treo 600 or 650 by a mile. I could afford this.
But then I go into the specs and features and get stuck. The 160x240 screen vs. the rumored and hoped for 320x320 in the Treo 650 gives the Treo a huge advantage for those who can put together an extra $200. Even though Danger has done a good job with the basic set of organizer / communicator apps, I prefer the proven Palm platform to the Sidekick *platform* which was supposed to open up but never has. Throw in a memory card slot and the expected Bluetooth and the 650 looks like the perfect phone/PDA.
But, I really have no idea when they're going to release the 650. It will never have the keyboard of the Sidekick - and I like keyboards a lot. And the 650 is still vaporware as far as I'm concerned.
Matt at Hit or Miss got me started.
Ever since pictures of the upcoming SideKick II were posted, I’ve been sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for it to be released. I briefly had one of the original models, but the signal strength wasn’t strong enough in Kirksville, MO and I had to send it back.
I’ve been a Palm user for years and I wasn’t looking forward to giving up on my favorite applications (like Vindigo) if I got a SideKick. But I always thought the Treo 600 was really big and clunky from the pictures.
Then, one of my new residents showed me his Treo the other day and I’ve fallen in love with it. Now that pictures have surfaced of the Treo 650, I’m counting down the days to its release instead.Grace Aquino, PC World:
After testing an early production sample of the Sidekick II for two weeks, I can report that it works much better as a phone than the original. Voice quality in my informal tests equaled that of a standard cell phone. The unit's speakerphone was good, too, though it needed a bit more volume. Nevertheless, the unit's flat design and relatively large size made holding it against my ear feel awkward--especially during longer conversations (the unit does include an earbud)."[via Armwood Technology Blog]
However, Engadget's excellent interview with Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Danger has me still hanging in there. The problem is that I like what Hank is saying and I like how he's saying it.
Things have not happened as quickly as many of us would have wanted, but plans include higher resolution displays and possibly adding wi-fi and bluetooth. Love the price point. Love the keyboard. Love the horizontal orientation. Love the targeting towards the *consumer* market rather than corporate. Check out this interview and see what you think:
Down the road, there is going to be some accommodation by everybody to support not only mobile wide area networking functionality but through Bluetooth or WiFi converged chip sets or some other means, people like ourselves will be figuring out how to provide both functionalities in the same form factor. It just makes sense.
I think the compelling aspect of this product is the fact that we’ve been able to blend these applications together on a single device — messaging, email, web browsing, a phone service — with what I would call doing justice to each application. We make it available to the user through a very effortless, simple interface. I’d compare us to Apple’s iPod or to the TiVo. That’s our major achievement, we’ve simplified the complexities of all these phenomenal services so mere mortals can enjoy the fruits of this device.
Eighty percent of the people do use the device as their primary phone, so that’s very popular. But the thing that’s really amazing is the messaging activity that takes place. I call them messaging engines. The people who are using IM on these devices are sending and receiving 110 instant messages a day. They’re also doing 25-30 emails a day, and they’re accessing 25 web pages a day.This is a popular device. I don't know, maybe I need to pay more attention to usability and less to features and technology. The price is right...
By the way, I've already read the Gizmodo horror story about T-mobile. But, I am a happy T-mobile subscriber and don't figure the other providers are much better.
There's a good hands on comparison of the Treo 600 and Color Sidekick (not the II) over at Twelve Black Code Monkeys dated July 13, 2004.