Danger Sidekick: nerd machine

While i was at home for the holidays i saw my friends Sidekick and he showed me the terminal program on it. at the time i was havinging a hell of a time with my server and was always looking for an SSH client while i was traveling. So when i got back to chicago i started thinking about whether or not a Sidekick would be a good idea. My friend chris got one and i was hooked. it worked well for him and he was able to IM from anywhere. so i decided to go ahead and grab one.

I ordered my Sidekick from some sketchy ecomm site. it came a couple days later. i called and changed my plan from the default plan they give new phone users to the sidekick unlimited data plan. once that was clear i was free to play.

First impressions: When i first got it i was of course impressed with the flipping screen mech. it ruled. i was afraid however that i would break it off somehow. I used the phone a couple times and wasn’t impressed at all. It seemed kinda hollow and i hated the form factor for the sidekick as a phone - however i relaly think that the user interface for the phone is AWESOME. i like the separation and integration of the address book and the phone. i think more phones need to do this. I was disappointed that i coudln’t use the picture app for pictures i uploaded to the sidekick. it seems like it could have been a good use of a portable photo album. heh. then i could mms pictures from my phoen to my sidekick. hah. but no. that would be supporting a standard - and apparently danger isn’t much into that.

The thing that relaly bugged me was that all of the data is decentralized. it is cool - cuz you “can’t” really lose anything. but you are not able to get to your data either. it took me WAY WAY too long to get all my phone numbers and such into the sidekick. i was disappointed that they don’t have a REAL dekstop client for their website. it woudl be really cool if it integrated into something like palm desktop or whatever. and not through painful importing and exporting. what happedn to SYNCML???

the web browser sucks so bad. seriously. not even worth talkign about. it is shit.

The AIM is incredible. Very easy to learn and well designed. i woudl say that this is the best feature.

The EMAIL client is infuriating. WHY oh WHY didn’t they just make it a legitimate IMAP/POP client. why did they have to integrate it into their shitty “service.” arggh. half of the reason i use smartphones is to integrate with my OWN email service.

They really got the interface right. it is very easy to use. i was able to show people and they picked it up right away. it is also and intuitive device. it justs begs people to use it.

Second Impressions: so after using it for 1.5 months i have come to the realization that i really don’t ssh from the train as much as i thought i was going to ;). however i have totally used it to do maintenance, post to my blog and aim incessently. it has been helpful in many occasions.

i don’t know if i woudl pay a lot of money for it. i think it partially is attractive because of the bling aspect. it is a great companion for a nice cell phone. it is something i would carry in a bag not in my pocket. it is far too big. haha.