T-Mobile Sidekick

[ Music ] ^M00:00:02 >> Hi, I'm Bonnie Cha, Senior Editor at CNET.com and today we are taking a First Look at the T-Mobile Sidekick. Now some of you who might have been reading about rumors of this Sidekick under the codename of Gekko, but they have officially announced it as simply the T-mobile Sidekick. As far as the design it's very similar to the Sidekick LX. It's slimmer and lighter, so you're gonna get a bit of a smaller screen, but you get this nice keyboard here and it's got this swivel design. But the unique part about the Sidekick's design is the interchangeable shells. It ships with two shells in the box, you get a black one and this really neon green one if you want it, but you can also create your own specific skin website. You can add your own graphics or images, so you can have a one-of-a-kind Sidekick. It's very pretty cool and easy to use. You can get two casings for 14.99 or one for 9.99. As far as features, it ships with all the new functions that were announced with the Sidekick LX software update. And that includes stereo Bluetooth support, as well as video recording and playback and you've got some nice tweaks to the web browser, as well as instant messaging. Some downsides of the device, the speakerphone volume was kind of soft, so I had a hard time hearing my friends, but they said everything else sounded good to them. Also, I might have liked to see the inclusion of Wi-Fi or 3G, just as an alternative for surfing the web because the Edge can get pretty slow. But overall I think it's a great all-in-one communication device for its intended audience, the younger T-Mobile customers. And it's pretty affordable at 149.99 with the two-year contract. I'm Bonnie Cha and this has been your First Look at the T-Mobile Sidekick. ^M00:01:40 [ Music ]