T-Mobile Announces Sidekick 4G

By  |  Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 6:23 pm

After T-Mobile discontined sales of the iconic Sidekick smartphone last July, some wondered if the company had plans to keep the brand alive. There had been some rumors that the company was planning on a new Android-based version of the device — that appears to be true. The Sidekick 4G will hit the shelves later this spring, sporting a familiar design but fast HSPA+ data and manufactured by Samsung.

While the device will certainly look like a Sidekick, it willl have some key changes. The 3.5-inch display is now a touchscreen, and it will be tightly integrated with social media with built in Facebook and Twitter applications. Since it’s now a Android device, users will now have access to the thousands of apps from the Android Market.

The Samsung Sidekick will still feature the pop out screen with keyboard underneath, as well as the jump key to switch quickly between applications. Gone though is the multi-colored scroll wheel, replaced by a more traditional home button.

T-Mobile is introducing two new texting features with this new Sidekick: Group Text and Cloud Text. Group text would allow the Sidekick user to engage in group text conversations easily on their device, while Cloud Text would allow the user to text from outside their Sidekick yet still have those texts synced with their device. The company will also feature the T-Mobile Video Chat application developed by Qik preinstalled — video chatting has become a prominent feature of their 4G advertisements.

Overall it appears that the Sidekick is more an Android device than it is a Sidekick. Most of the services available are not “from the cloud” — but then again all the issues the carrier experienced in 2009 with the service may have given it a bit of pause from depending too heavily on the cloud again.

More information on the device can be found in the official press release from T-Mobile. We haven’t heard any announcement on price, but we’ll let you know when we do.

 
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  1. Joel V Says:

    I think it is exciting that T-Mobile has used Android as the operating system for the new Sidekick 4G. Sure there are a few things that are missing from this phone such as a flash on the camera, a bigger screen, and the swivel feature, but of course, these things can be overlooked since there is a lot more that is improving the view of the last Sidekick. I have a MyTouch from T-Mobile so I have been playing with Android for a long time. Sidekick is pretty cool too, so since they combined them into one, it should be an awesome phone. One app that I would recommend getting on the Sidekick 4G would be the DISH Remote Access app. This app allows me to watch TV anywhere in the world from my 922 SlingLoaded DVR. As a DISH Network customer and employee, I have had a lot of time to use this app on the MyTouch so it should be great on the Sidekick, especially if the phone is on 4G!