For all you non-T-Mobile customers, now is the time to get your Tony Hawk LE Sidekick LX. They’re going for $299 right now, but they’re a limited edition, so if you don’t hurry, you’ll be forced to scour eBay for one before too long. Along with the full launch of the Tony Hawk Limited Edition Sidekick LX, T-Mobile has also redesigned the sidekick.com site to turn it into “Tony’s World”. It’s a pretty rad interactive flash site with Tony, his new Sidekick, multiple locations, and a couple Easter eggs. Let us know what you find with your eagle eyes on the site, and keep an eye out for that Yeti!
Everyone keeps asking where their video OTA is for the Sidekick LX. It’s still in the pioneer phase right now. This means it will roll out to a small percentage of the Sidekick LX users first. Things will be tested to make sure nothing is wrong, and then it will roll out to everyone. The OTA has been in the pioneer phase for about a month, with no word on an official full roll-out date yet. It’s unclear as to why things aren’t rolling out to everyone, but it could be anything from a small bug, to larger problems on the back-end servers. Hang in there guys. It’s totally worth the wait!
The video above from Crunchgear shows the unboxing of the Tony Hawk Sidekick LX Limited Edition. If you are a T-Mobile customer, these devices are already available. If you aren’t a T-Mobile customer already, you should be able to get it on July 16th, but sign up over on www.sidekick.com to get an email reminder when it does go on sale for the general public.
Just in case you didn’t get the SMS, exisiting T-Mobile customers can now upgrade to the new Tony Hawk Limited Edition Sidekick LX. The price will vary from person to person, based on the last time you upgraded your phone. I upgraded to a Sidekick LX (no contract extension) the day they were available and the above price is what T-Mobile showed me. All you need to do is log in to My T-Mobile click on Shop -> Upgrade Phone and then you should see the Tony Hawk LX if you’re eligible to upgrade. You can also call Customer Care to upgrade, or even upgrade in select stores (call first to see if they have the Tony Hawk LX in stock).
We’ve had a number of people write in to point out what looks like a Limited Edition Famous Stars and Straps Sidekick LX on the Famous website. It turns out that unfortunately this isn’t a limited edition that we’ll see being sold in stores. It was a special batch of devices just for Travis Barker, a long time Sidekick user, and crew. I know I know, based on the number of Famous Stars and Straps themes that have been uploaded, I bet a lot of you would be waiting in line to buy this device if you could. In the meantime you’ll just have to make your own with Colorware or a can of spray paint.
Will I be able 2 see videos on youtube with THE new ota
Here’s the answer. Yes and No. Let me explain.
No you will not be able to fire up your browser and point it to youtube.com or m.youtube.com and watch a video on your device. Sorry.
Yes you can convert a youtube video on your computer to the proper formats and view them on your Sidekick when you transfer them to your memory card. This is the ONLY way you will be able to view videos on your device. We will be going into greater detail on how to do this on both Mac and Windows in the near future, so be sure to keep an eye out for those.
Want to change the color of your Sidekick LX but don’t want to ship it off to Colorware and spend a ton of ca$h? There are some auctions up on eBay selling “Sidekick Lens Frames”. These will replace the plastic pieces of your Sidekick, changing the color to whatever you want. Several people in the past have dismantled their Sidekicks and then painted the pieces. You can skip that messy painting step with these. Here’s a auto-updating list of the auctions available on eBay:
One of the new features that comes with the 4.6 OTA for the Sidekick LX is the “Quick Find”. Basically this is a super quick way to search your entire Sidekick for something. Here’s a quick video of it in action:
So everyone has seen the video recording capabilities of the Sidekick LX, but what about video playback? We converted a video into .3gp and tossed it on the Sidekick to see how it looked. Surprisingly it turned out pretty good! It’s not unreasonable to think that people could be watching TV shows and music videos on their Sidekick. We won’t say movies are a possibility because we haven’t done any testing to see just how much of an impact this has on battery life. Anyways, enough talk, here’s the video:
