Wondering what the Sidekick will be able to record and playback as far as video is concerned? We’ll we’ve got the 411 straight from the manual:

Note! The SonicBOOM Media Player will play 3GP and MP4 (simple profile) video files, and MP3, WAV, MIDI, WMA, AAC (MP4), XMF, RMF, AIFC, IMY, AMR music files. It will not play RAM, M4P, FLAC, RA, AVI, or any other file that is not listed above.

Sorry gang, no YouTube support this time around. Maybe when a 3G device comes out in the distant future.

As for the format the Camera will record videos in, it looks like that’s going to be .3gp files using the H.263 video codec. Should be nice and small for sending to your friends.

We found the following images in our mailbox, already watermarked for us. These come straight from the manual for what we’re all assuming will be called the Sidekick Gekko (or Aspen). For your viewing pleasure:

An illustration of the Sidekick Gekko, nothing too surprising.

About the Camera
You can take photos with the device’s 2.0 megapixel camera, then save them in .JPG format to two locations:
– your device’s built-in memory (called Device Albume on the screen), or
– the microSD memory card you’ve inserted into your device (called Memory Card Album on the screen)

You can take videos (.3GP format) and store them on the microSD memory card. Note: Videos cannot be saved to the Device Album.

You can store up to 1.75M of photos on your device, and store videos and more photos on your microSD card. The number of photos you can store will depend on the capacity of the card and the size of the photos: 1600×1200 (largest), 1280×1024, 640×480, or 320×240 (smallest).

You can aso save one or more photo or video email attachments to an album. Read more in Saving Photo Attachments to a Photo Album.

Replaceable Shells
You can customize your device with replaceable shells!

Capture a Video!

All in all no huge suprises, but some pretty concrete confirmation of what we’ve already reported on.

Sharp (you know, the guys that make all the Sidekicks except the Slide) have announced a new tiny but high resolution (5MP) camera that even has auto focus. If you ask us, this looks amazingly similar in size and shape to the cameras currently in the Sidekick LX. Sharp says the new camera will be available for mass production in July so chances are we won’t see this in the Sidekick Gekko. But this would be something to keep an eye out for the Hiptop m3 (or whatever they’re going to call it), which we speculate will be coming out at the end of the year.

via CrunchGear

What you’re looking at is the required FCC label for the next Sidekick. What we’re assuming is the Sidekick Gekko/Aspen is now up on the FCC site as a device manufactured by Sharp named PV210. It’s always nice to see a device confirmed by the FCC because that means their is actually a physical device in the hands of someone. Even with the recent excitement of T-Mobile launching their 3G network, the PV210 is not a 3G device, it’s just good old GSM-850 and PCS1900. Beyond that all we can gather from the FCC docs is that it still uses a microSD card, which means support for music, (probably) videos, themes, and more. Oh, and it has a removable battery, no big surprise there.

The confidentiality on the filed documents expires on August 16th, so unless the FCC screws up then we won’t be seeing the FCC filed pictures of the device until after the rumored July release date. We’ll just have to find some other way to get pictures of the device in the wild. But this date means we’ll definitely be seeing a new Sidekick by August!

FCC Docs

It’s official. T-Mobile has announced the new red scarlet Sidekick Slide. So if the purple color was deterring you before, now you have another option. The T-Mobile Sidekick Slide Scarlet will be available for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement. You should be able to get it online
or at stores. There’s not much else different about it, but in case you want the specs of the Sidekick Slide Scarlet, here you go:
· T-Mobile myFaves
· Smaller design with slide screen and QWERTY keyboard
· Available in a black finish with scarlet accents
· QVGA screen
· Web browser enhancements and improved JavaScript support
· Customized MySpace Mobile application available through the Download Catalog
· Personal e-mail access and integrated t-mail account; supports POP3, IMAP FETCH e-mail protocols
· MMS, SMS and IM supported
· Built-in IM clients: AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger
· 1.3-megapixel camera
· Built-in music player that supports MP3 and AAC (requires memory card)
· microSD expandable memory slot; support for up to 4 GB of memory
· Bluetooth
· Dimensions: 4.6 x 2.4 x 0.68 inches, 5.3 ounces
· 2 x 1.5-inch display, 320 x 240 pixels, 65k TFT display
· Battery life: Up to 5.9 hours of talk time and 3.6 days of standby
· Quad-band world phone (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
· GSM/GPRS/EDGE

For all those that were doubting us when we said that video was coming to the Sidekick LX via an OTA, we present you with a page straight from T-Mobile.com. The text reads:

Viewing available memory for pictures and videos
To view available memory for pictures and videos, perform the following steps:
1. At the Jump screen, roll to and select Camera.
2. The available space for new pictures appears in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

The original page for the Sidekick LX can be found here (if they haven’t pulled it yet). There’s also the same page for the Sidekick Slide, although we haven’t heard any details on an OTA for you Slide owners yet and there’s also this page which says: “The Sidekick Slide does not support sending video messages.” So we’re going to stick with saying to expect the video OTA for the LX, but not for the Slide. Sorry Sliders.

Pictures and videos man. Pictures AND videos.

-Thanks to Ryan for catching this.

A screenshot of a Javascript error was posted on the PBD forums. It says nothing about a Sidekick Gekko. It just happens that the engine that Danger uses for the Sidekick browser (on all their devices) back-end web proxy (to be exact) is based on the Gecko layout engine, just like Firefox and Netscape. So, nope this doesn’t confirm anything about the Gekko sadly. Not to mention that this sort of screenshot is easily faked with literally 1 line of code on a webpage. The original screenshot below:

Post on Boy Genius Report

Or at least not planned yet… Joel Evans over at Geek.com is saying that a little birdy told him that there is no plan in the near future for a Windows Mobile Sidekick. He was told this at a pre-Mobius event. Mobius is an invite only community run by Microsoft that apparently hasn’t found our address to send us an invite yet. Actually what he quotes is “no new phone” is in the works. We already know that Danger is working on new devices, but this confirms that Microsoft isn’t working on new hardware and we highly doubt Danger has made any efforts to get Windows Mobile running on their current platforms.

Read more

Everyone and their brother has been sending in links about how there was a comment made by Chris Stephenson, the GM of Marketing for Zune, that mentioned that they are trying to find ways to mesh Danger and the Zune team. As of now it’s just a comment, and there’s no confirmation or discussion of a Zune Phone. Our guess is that Danger is being tapped for their UI experience because their operating systems have always been super intuitive and easy to use. But there’s always the possibility of a Zune Phone, but the question is “Would anyone buy one?”

via

For those of you wondering what the Sidekick 3 OTA that is currently rolling out brings to your device, wonder no more:

* GSM network feature enhancements
* Enhanced USSD Support
* Retry option for failed Text Messages
* Enhanced SIM PIN protection
* Optimized PLMN scan algorithm to improve network registration time when returning to good coverage
* Faster PLMN searches

So in short about the only thing you’ll ‘see’ is better coverage and the ability to resend text messages when they fail.

Thanks tipster!