We’ve had the following information for a bit, but haven’t been able to nail it down as true or false, so take it as a rumor. It’s an email from an Australian bloke who says:

ok, excitement asside, i have just travelled down to one of my telstra dealers as i said i would in my last post…

i strolled in and wondered over to the hiptop display and picked it up, having a squiz more or less, when a strapping young lad asked if i needed any assistance.
so i decided not to piss fart around and i got straight into it; “hiptop ‘09 blade” i said, “do you know anything about it?”
to which he positively responded with a “why yes i do”…
i continued with a few basic questions about it:
- is it definitely coming to australia?
YES
- when is it coming out?
Around June/July ish, around the time the new iPhone is released (rivals much??)
- will it still be a $30 plan??
he didn’t confirm this, however he said that that was the main reason it was such a popular phone so he said he believed it would continue this tradition.

that pretty much concluded our chat. and i was happy with the information. (i couldn’t believe it, telstra ACTUALLY knew what they were talking about for once!!)

so there we have it, i hope the info i got is of use to you!!

keep in mind i am in australia, so this only applies to the aussies sorry to those in america still searching for information!!

and yes, i know you may be suspicious about this email but all i can do is give you the information telstra gave me which is legit.
any questions just email back.

He also mentioned in comments that he emailed Telstra, but they’re tight-lipped and said they won’t be carrying the Blade. So take it for what it’s worth. For what it’s worth, a release date of June/July sounds possible, whereas the April 1st guess is looking less and less likely.

Here, you might want this.

Thanks Stevo!

With the mention of FCC filings, we’ve gotten several messages about a filing from Option Wireless in mid-January. We took a look at this originally, and were not really sure whether this could be the Sidekick. The more we look at it and research, the more it looks like it just might be. First off, the filing itself is _not_ for a Sidekick, but for a “GSM/UMTS/GPS Module CU1407″. Basically just the radio and GPS (not the cpu, circuit board, keyboard, etc).

The photo, as you can see with our added markups (click for full size), really looks like it could be the right side of a Sidekick 2009, with the 4 buttons, and space for a trackball, not to mention the port in the lower right that could very well be a mini-usb port. We can’t think of anything else that would look like a Sidekick 2009 so much.

So why aren’t we calling this one 100% for sure?

A minor point is that the last two Sidekicks (LX and 2008) have both used Enfora radios. Since the Sidekick 2009 is a 3G phone, it’s very possible that MSDanger would be switching to a different manufacturer.

Also, in the filings there’s this bit:

The antenna(s) used for this transmitter must be installed to provide a separation distance of at least 20 cm from all the persons and must not be co-located or operating in conjunction with any other antenna or transmitter.

This is fine for cards that are meant to go in laptops (Option’s normal product), but totally unacceptable for mobile phones that are held against your head. We’re hoping that this is just Option covering their butts and putting the responsibility of brain-tumor-testing on Sharp/MSDanger because they do also say “If the final product after integration is intended for portable use, a new application and FCC is required.”

And finally, this is not technically a filing for the Sidekick 2009. It’s just for the radio module that might be used in the Sidekick 2009, but has the potential to be used in any other devices. So while the confidentiality agreements say an expiration of April 13th, 2009 don’t get your hopes up for an April 1st release just yet. We still need to see the Sidekick 2009 show up.

Can you tell that we really want this to be the Sidekick 2009? If you want to take a peak at the FCC filings for yourself here they are: FCC ID: NCMOCU1407

We’re getting a couple emails each day letting us know that PhoneDog is pegging the Sidekick 2009 release date for April 1st at CTIA. While we’re just like you guys, we hope the Sidekick 2009 comes out earlier rather than later, we’re not too sure if MSDanger/T-Mobile will be able to hit that date. Here are the thoughts we have:

* Releasing new products at CTIA isn’t great from a marketing standpoint. Your announcement can get lost in all the press about everything else.
* BUT we did however see the Sidekick iD info leak out accidentally via CTIA. It wasn’t an official announcement, but still something.

* An April 1st release does mean that the Grammy Tour could be used for some excellent marketing opportunities and increase the hype around this long-awaited upgrade to the Sidekick line.
* BUT last year’s Grammy Tour (also around April) saw the Sidekick LX as the showcase device, even though the Sidekick 2008 dropped 3 months later in July.

* We know the device is in the hands of some trial users and is being tested in the wild.
* We haven’t found a filing on the FCC for this device yet. With the Sidekick 2008 we saw FCC docs around May 2008, with the device releasing about 3 months later at the end of July. With the Sidekick LX we found FCC docs in the beginning of August 2007, device was released mid-October, again in the 2-3 month range. This FCC filing is legally required for the device to hit the market in the US, but companies don’t want to file early otherwise us rumor sites get some indisputable proof. Even if we find an FCC filing today, April 1st gives them only a month. Not impossible, but cutting it pretty close. Anyone found the FCC filing yet?

So, like I said, we want to believe, but every day that goes by without seeing any promotional material or FCC filings makes us less and less hopeful.

We got the above screenshot in our email. According to the sender and the contents, it appears to be a memo to a Telstra Manager talking about the plans for the “Hiptop LX 2009“. (The Sidekick is marketed as the Hiptop in non-T-Mobile markets) It says that the 2009 was supposed to be release early this year, but is delayed due to “software compatibility issues” and the necessary repackaging for it to say Hiptop/Telstra instead of Sidekick/T-Mobile. The email goes on to say that they expect these delays will “be resolved in the March/April period” and that more info will be sent out then. It mentions that Telstra is going to release the Sidekick 2009 before T-Mobile, much like the Sidekick Slide was released.

We’re filing this under “we hope it’s true” but are very very skeptical. The proof is lacking in context and easily replicated. Just grab a Telstra logo off the web, type up some text, slap it together in Microsoft Word, and save as a PDF. So, if there are any Australian readers out there that can get us more info, please do so! We’d love to hear that this is a worldwide release.

Alright gang, we’ve got some Sidekick 2009 info for you. Here’s the details on the camera that we’ve been able to find out so far.
* It will take photos up to a resolution of 2038 x 1536, meaning 3.2 megapixels.
* There’s a flash, so those grainy shot-in-the-dark photos will be possible.
* There is a new auto-focus feature, so you shouldn’t have to use the jewelry loupe/magnifying glass trick to get up close shots of things.
* Video recording sounds like it’s set to 15 frames per second for now. But might be possible for 30fps.
* You will be able to upload directly to MySpace, Photobucket, and YouTube
* It will support geotagging

All pretty much straight-forward information. For those that don’t know what geotagging is, it means that you can embed location information in the photos you take. So if you take a photo at your friends house and then upload it to a site that supports the geotagging info, it’ll show up on a map at the location you took it. This uses the GPS that’s coming in the Sidekick 2009. It’s all pretty good info, and about what we’d expect from a Sidekick camera.

Want to use the MyFaves interface on your Sidekick to make it quicker and easier to get in touch with your top 5 friends? Well, rumor has it that T-Mobile will be releasing the MyFaves interface to all Sidekick users for free come March 10th. Remember though, that this is just the MyFaves interface, it’s NOT the MyFaves rate plan where you get unlimited calls to your “Faves”. You’ll be charged the same rates for contacting these friends if you don’t sign up for MyFaves. For those of you that don’t know what the MyFaves interface has:

“The Faves home screen provides customers the advantages of a simple and convenient one touch connection for calling, texting, or sending photos to the people they (you) care about most.”

via CellPhoneSignal

…and cue comments about how this isn’t Sidekick 2009 news in 3…2…

We’ve been emailing back and forth with a reader who claims to have actually held and played with the Sidekick 2009/Blade. We won’t spill the details on how because we don’t want anyone to get in trouble, but here are some of the things he said:

* It looks pretty much like the mock-ups we’ve seen so far, stripe along the back and all
* It’s lighter and “has a more grown up feel to it”
* The keys are more flush with the device and are “flat not round like the lx”
* The USB and headphone jacks are indeed on the bottom of the device
* There is a flash for the camera
* There’s an app for your “My T-Mobile info” that lets you pull up your info (minutes used, sms sent, account info, etc)
* There are lights running along the top of the screen part. Mood-lights anyone?
* It’s being called “Montreal” as an internal codename for T-Mobile. “Blade” is the internal name at MSDanger. It will be sold as the Sidekick 2009.
* It will be running DangerOS 5.0

I know, this is just “some guy said” sort of news, and as such we’re still kind of required to toss this in the “Rumors” category. That being said, we’d put money on the above statements being true.

We’ve been hoping for an official Twitter application for the Sidekick for a long time now. Those of us with developer keys have enjoyed different Twitter applications on our Sidekicks, but had to endure complaints from all our friends who were stuck with SMS and the browser for their Twitter fun. It looks like in the near future these friends won’t be complaining anymore as an official MSDanger app for the Sidekick appears to be on it’s way.

Clue #1: We’ve seen and heard rumors about an internal Twitter application at Danger that was being developed.
Clue #2: Developer apps for Twitter have not made any progress towards getting into the catalog and several have been made. You would think with a service like Twitter that is growing more and more popular everyday that a cheap application for it would make it’s way into the catalog.
Clue #3: Remember that screenshot from the online survey that mentioned Twitter?
Clue #4: There’s a whole lot of people Twittering from an application that’s only identifying itself as “hiptop”. Several of these people are known to be Danger employees.

So, we’re almost positive you’ll be seeing a Twitter application on the Sidekick LX 2009 / Blade when it drops. We also hope that MSDanger offers a Twitter application in the catalog (or via OTAu) for those users on the older devices. It would definitely round out the social networking capabilities of the Sidekick.

Follow Hiptop3.com on Twitter.

We got the above image in our inbox. The reader sending it in danielle says she was taking a survey about smart phones on QuizPoints and was presented with this one. Here are the specs it lists in the photo:

Social Networking Suite of Apps
- Facebook
- MySpace w/ video upload
- Twitter
- YouTube Mobile Access via browser

GPS Location Based Search
- Turn by Turn Navigation
- Microsoft Live Local Search and Maps

Content Creation
- Blog publishing, editing, and management client
- Photobucket Upload and Management
- Video recorder and upload to MySpace/Photobucket

Communications
- Signature Sidekick IM/SMS/E-mail Experience
- Microsoft Outlook/Exchange synchronization

Hardware
- Large (3.2 inch WVGA) screen with sharp 854×480 resolution
- Thin design
- 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and video recording
- Large QWERTY keyboard
- Expandable memory up to 8GB via MicroSD

Everything seems to match up with what a Sidekick LX 2009 would have. It mentions 3G, which is pretty much a given at this point. The introduction of Microsoft Live Search and maps makes a lot of sense since Microsoft now owns Danger. The addition of GPS (finally!) is also a nice complement to the maps and helps the Sidekick compete a little bit with the iPhone and other location-enabled devices. But I’m sure the thing that everyone is freaking out over now is the mention of YouTube mobile access. It’s probably the #1 request for the Sidekick by the majority of the users. It doesn’t seem that out of reach since the Sidekick can play video already, it just needs a way to get it from YouTube. None of the apps are groundbreaking, but they’re things that a lot of us would agree it would be nice to have on our Sidekick.

The hardware looks about right too. A 3.2MP camera isn’t the 5mp camera we hoped for, but it is a god bump up from the 2MP camera in the Sidekick 2008 (not to mention the 1.3MP in the LX). The screen is higher resolution (too early to start working on those new themes?) and of course the familiar keyboard is still there.

Is this the Sidekick Blade that we’ve been hearing whispers about? Hard to tell. We know that “Blade” is a codename and that internally (in software) it’s know as the “m3“. The “m2″ was the Sidekick 3, so one would guess the “m3″ would correlate to the elusive Sidekick 4 and a “large” upgrade in device. (FWIW, the Sidekick LX was the “m2-hd”) Could MSDanger be working on two devices? It’s very possible, but we don’t have anything to back this up or refute it yet.

So is this for real? We think so. At least we think it’s specs drawn up by someone official that is testing the water with consumers to see what they think. Whether it’s what we actually see in a device in the future, I’m not 100% sure. I think it definitely sounds like the next revision of the Sidekick LX. It’s not too ambitious, but does add a few of the most requested features. Seems to be the way that T-Mobile/MSDanger like to do things with the Sidekick.

An otherwise boring article posted on TWICE has one sentence that sparks a little bit of hope in Sidekick lovers. The article is about Personal Communications Devices (PCD), a cellphone marketing/distribution company. They work with manufacturers to get their devices out on the market. The interesting tidbit is:

In its 2009 product roadmap, PCD will continue to offer HTC-made phones, will offer a “couple” of new Sidekicks for T-Mobile, and plans a second-generation Quickfire multimedia phone for AT&T with a touchscreen and slide-out Qwerty keyboard.

A couple new Sidekicks for T-Mobile? Could this be multiple models? Maybe some Limited Editions? The Sidekick 2009? Details are of course slim, but we’ve already heard whispers of trial devices of the next Sidekick being out there.

(Thanks Mike!)