For several months now, we’ve heard all sorts of rumors on the next Sidekick device, scheduled to come out at the end of this month. We’ve done our best to keep track of everything and weigh out which one is more likely. We’re tired of it. Here are the names so far that we’ve heard:

Gekko

Gecco

Aspen

2008

Style2

Snap

here at Hiptop3.com, we’re going to go with Sidekick Gekko until we hear otherwise officially. It’s the internal name used by Danger and it’s also shown up on T-Mobile things as well. This is a rumor blog, we do our best to check on things before reporting, but sometimes we feel it’s better to report based on what we have and give a disclaimer. Sometimes we get it a bit wrong. Sorry!

Feel free to submit your rumors/thoughts/opinions in the comments below.

Another hiptop3.com exclusive coming at you. A little birdy showed us some stuff that shows that T-Mobile is working on a site (probably http://www.sidekick.com/shells)where you can create your own shells for your Sidekick. It looks like it’s going to be going to have a fancy flash interface where you can upload your own images to help customize your device. Links at this time indicate that the actual shells are going to be made by skinit.com. (It looks like this means the “shells” might be more like the “skins” we know and love already) In addition, reminiscent of some theme sites out there, you’ll be able to browse around and see what other people have created, and you can even vote on them. I can’t wait to see what sort of theme/shell combinations people come up with. Some screenshots of the site still in development below:

Feast your eyes on some more pictures of the Sidekick Gekko. We’ve also found more concrete evidence that we were right to begin with when we found out the name was going to be the “Gekko”. Of course, this is subject to change. We’ve heard all sorts of names for this device, but Gekko has the most proof at this point.

Want to compare the rumored size of the Sidekick 2008 to the Sidekick LX? Take a look:

Want to know what the full specs on the T-Mobile Sidekick 2008 are? BreatheTmobile has them for you and we’re reposting below:

T-Mobile Sidekick (2008) Specs:

2mp camera w/video
Media Player
Pc-like HTML web browser
Instant Msg
Email
Automatic Backup
Removable Faceplates (customizable at sidekick.com w/your own art or pix!)
2.6″ high resolution wQVGA screen w/ micro-reflective tft lcd
Bluetooth 2.0 w/file transfer
QWERTY keyboard
Trackball
3.5mm headjack
Mirco SD slot w/ 4gb support

Quadband 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
size: 120 x 57.5 x 18 mm!!!!!!
weight: 140 g
standby: 10 days
talk time: 5 hours
Display: 400 x 240 pixel
ram: 128 mb
Flash ROM: 64 mb

It looks like this device is going to be pretty similar to the Sidekick LX, which is no surprise. He also mentions that the device will be “affordable”, although noone is tossing around a price tag yet. His original post can be found on the TmoNews forums.

So the latest rumor on the street is that this long awaited Gecco device is going to be called the “Sidekick 2008″ by T-Mobile. We have to wonder if T-Mobile marketing is serious about launching a device halfway through the year it’s named for, but then again they did release the SKiD. We’ve squinted our eyes and examined the photos and haven’t been able to see anything that confirms that it will be called the Sidekick 2008. On the back of the screen where it normally says “Sidekick LX” or whatever, it just says “Sidekick”. So here’s your salt shaker, this is what we’ve heard. Probably even more exciting though are some fuzzy pictures floating around that you can see above and below. Looks like T-Mobile is prepared to help you customize the hell out of your device with Sidekick Shells.

via Thanks for the tip Dominic!

Someone at Danger has put up the Sidekick Gekko manual a little early for our Viewing pleasure. We have not had a chance to review this manual yet, but we will keep this post updated with anything that catches our eye about the Gekko and the Upcoming OTA for the LX (It’s pretty safe to assume they will have a similar (If not the same) OS.)

Sidekick Gekko Manual Manual has since been taken down.

Ok, so at a quick Inspection of the manual, Here’s what we’ve noticed.
(We assume everything mentioned here except where noted will apply to the Sidekick LX OTA as well.)

View Sender’s Online Status
If the sender of an email is one of your “friends” and is online in one of the instant messaging applications, the sender’s name will appear in bold green font and you will see an instant messaging smiley in the From field:

Videos can be transferred via Email (Upto 2mb) as well as MMS and Bluetooth.

Group Chat in AIM moves out of a Menu + Shift hidden shortcut and into an official feature.

Find Text Messages
You can open the Quick Find dialog box by pressing MENU F. Search for a text message by From, Date, and message body fields.
*This feature works everywhere, not just Text Messages.

Photos can be cropped on device.

Gekko will capture images at 1600×1200, 1280×1024, 640×480, or 320×240.

All videos are captured at 176×144 (We assume this applies to the Sidekick LX as well.)

Media files (Music and Videos) are transferrable via Bluetooth between your computer and between 2 hiptops (Kind of like Zune sharing, but no restrictions.)

Auto-Discard Messages When Mailbox Is Full
With this option selected, once your mailbox is full, the system will automatically make room for new messages by permanently discarding old messages, starting with messages in the Trash, then oldest messages in the Inbox and Sent folders. Messages in the Drafts folder and on the SIM card are never auto-discarded.
This is in the Text Message application – Thanks to Theicool for pointing it out.

Alarm
You can set a basic alarm from the Alarm group box, one that repeats daily at a set time. If you want the alarm volume to be different from the sound profile setting, then select the Override Sound Profile check box and select the Alarm Volume button to make adjustments.
When the alarm sounds, a dialog box will appear, giving you the choice to snooze the alarm for 10 minutes, stop the alarm (it will sound again tomorrow), or stop and turn it off (it won’t sound tomorrow).
Note: The alarm will continue repeating every day at the set time until you explicitly turn it off from this Date, Time, & Alarm settings screen or from the Alarm dialog box.
Thanks to legacy for pointing this out

That’s all we noticed that wasn’t discussed in the new features of the OTA and the Gekko, and some things we went into more detail about. If you happen to notice anything we missed, please let us know via the comments section!

Looks like press photos of the Tony Hawk Sidekick LX that we’ve been waiting for are out. Rumor from BoyGeniusReport has it that it will have grip tape on the back. And like we’ve been reporting, it’s probably going to have all the features and improvements that are coming with the Sidekick LX OTA. Basically it’ll be running the same version of the operating system as the Sidekick LX after the OTA to come. We haven’t gotten official word from T-Mobile yet, so of course the obligatory “grain of salt” is required, but as soon as we have the official word, you will be the first to know!

We’ll be keeping an eye on eBay to see if a Tony Hawk Sidekick pops up. Any bets on how much they go for?

via BGR

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.

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