UPDATE: While there’s still no support for mp3 ringtones on the Sidekick 3, you CAN add mp3 ringtones to the new Sidekick LX 2009! You can download Sidekick friendly ringtones for the Sidekick LX 2009 over at Skringers.com

So everyone is clamoring for the ability to set MP3 ringtones. Let us start by saying, “Not gonna happen” (well at least not this way). Here’s the original info that was floating around the net (Don’t bother trying, it doesn’t work):

Hello everyone! My name is Melissa Trepan, and as well as working for Random House Canada, I am a software technician for Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the Blackberry family. Being in the handheld device “industry”, I’m very interested in my field of work, and after visiting New York City last week, I’m very interested by the T-Mobile Sidekick 3. I understand that many of you have complaints about MP3 files for the player. sonicBOOM, not being ‘transferable’ into the ring tone application on your Sidekick 3. Working with Blackberry’s latest 8700 series, I’ve been trained to have a feel for the whole MP3 file transfer, as it was implemented on our newest devices.
Well, enough of the long intro! Let’s get started!
What you’ll need to begin:
Your T-Mobile Sidekick 3 (fully charged, ready to go)
A working USB cable designed for the Sidekick 3.
An hour or more to get this done.
Unlike the Blackberry 7290/8700/07), after inspecting the OS COD. files, it’s got what we call at RIM, a “ventilation” file, which is blocking the transfer of mp3 files from your sonicBOOM/MiniSD, to the actual hardware of the Sidekick 3 – keep in mind, that all of your MP3s aren’t actually “ON” your Sidekick, they’re just temporarily there, and housed by your SD card.
The “ventilation” file is known as VENDOR.XML , and is (almost) encrypted into the device – this is something that Danger obviously does not understand, because the VENDOR.XML is on the Sidekick 2/Hiptop 2 as well. Throughout the rest of this tutorial, I will refer to that file as Vendor.
The Vendor file is completely pointless (other than blocking out certain options). This file HAS to be deleted in order to transfer files to your Sidekick 3. If you have a blackberry, you may know what I’m talking about. Often on blackberries, the system will crash to a “JVM” error, most commonly errors 102, 103, 507 and 544. To fix this on a blackberry, the Vendor file must be removed as well.
Lets get deleting! Now, you’re going to need a device that is specifically designed for Blackberry devices, Blackberry JDE Component Package v4.1.0 by Research In Motion. This is also known as Javaloader. This is not designed for the Sidekick, but it will work. This can be downloaded at https://www.blackberry.com/developers/downloads/jde/index.shtml , click the first option, Blackberry Java Development Environment v4.1 .
Once downloaded, you will be prompted to install the software to your computer.
Now, the satisfying part – lets delete Vendor! If you chose to run JDE upon finishing the download, close it now. Click the following on a Windows operated PC:
Start>All Programs>Research In Motion>Blackberry JDE Component Package v4.1.0>JDE Components Commands Prompt.
You’ve just opened the Command Prompt, kind of like a DOS Prompt that some of you may be familiar with. For those of you that are a little intimidated by it’s look and feel, don’t worry, this is simple. What we’re going to do now is tell the prompter that we want to delete all ventilation files (there’s only one, Vendor). We’re going to do this by simply typing in the following:
Javaloader -usb wipe
This is going to wipe the ventilation file on your device clean, i.e., no more Vendor.
Press enter.
You’ll notice the Sidekick 3 and computer communicating. Don’t worry, you’ve done everything right so far.
Now, we’re going to need to download the Blackberry Desktop Manager, which is also compatible with most handheld devices. We can get this through the T-Mobile SE site, https://software.se.t-mobile.com/ . Scroll down until you see “8700g”, and download the Desktop Manager version 4.1.1.12. You will be redirected to www.T-Mobileapps.com where you will be prompted to download.
Once downloaded, close and restart. Now, click Options>Connection settings>select USB>Connect.
Once connected, minimize.
You’re almost done! Now you’re going to transfer your MP3 files to your Sidekick 3. We downloaded 3 files from a file share program called BearShare (this is not required, it’s used to download music etc). Save the selected MP3 files to My Documents. Make sure that they are MP3 files.
Now, back to Blackberry Desktop Manager. Click on Application loader. You should get a message saying that no additional software was found. This means that you need to scan manually for your files. Go to Add. From My Documents, select the MP3 files you wish to transfer. Click next, and voila! When we tested this, we tried to transfer 40 MP3 files to the Sidekick, and only 32 transferred due to space restrictions. You may want to delete some of your default Sidekick 3 ringers to make space, if you need it.
Disconnect your Sidekick 3 from the USB cable.
The selected files should appear in your Ring tone library in a name format like the files we transferred, which appeared as “SKI_Jealousy_Paris_Hilton”, which is “Jealousy” by Paris Hilton. After setting this as your phone’s ringer, you’re DONE!
This process takes a while, but once completed once, it should take you only a few seconds to transfer additional files.
Now there’s something you don’t learn at Danger High! Good luck! Happy transferring!

And here’s the word from appletech as posted on the hiptop.com forums:

Just a little note to yall that the recently posted MP3/Ringtone “hack” thing is nothing more than an elaborate prank by a troller to get your hopes up and waste time.

There’s absolutely no way the trick will load an mp3 on the device. The procedure won’t even work on a blackberry. The vendor.XML file is a PC-side file not a device side. There’s nothing we can find at all with respect to the term “ventilation” and a blackberry, and that javaloader cmd will indeed wipe a blackberry device but the tool won’t talk to an Sidekick at all.

The good news you won’t brick your device trying to do so. We’ll keep banging away at the app to make sure though because if you do manage to screw up your device with this “hack”, Tmobile won’t replace your device and you’ll be out a few hundred dollars.

But its a good way to make someone kill 3 hours trying

Does this randomhouse person really work for RIM? I doubt it. Looks more like a recently banned user, kickside2, who attempted to start a bashappletech website. His/her blogger profile ID even was “RIM!”, the company randomhouse claims to work for. Coincidence? I think not.

And why would a RIM software tech work for a book publishing company (Random house Publishing) anyway?

So again folks, don’t waste your time. Nothing good, or bad, will come from this little prank…only a few hours of wasted time.

Yeah, it’s finally July 10th. For those that have been waiting, you probably don’t need me to tell you to go out and get one. For those of you that have been under a rock, now’s your chance to grab a Sidekick 3.

So you’re having bad battery life on your brand new Sidekick 3. Before you open your mouth and start complaining, give this a try:

We tried this and noticed a significant increase in battery life right away. We got to 12+ hours with heavy internet usage all day long. One thing we did notice but aren’t sure of the validity: When indoors and with a bad signal, it seems the battery drains more quickly as it searches for a tower.

On a similar note, yes you will see the battery having weird percentages sometimes after charging. Ours likes to show more than 400%. Either reboot the device (1+@+0 at the same time) or plug/unplug a charger and if should go back to normal.

Finally, hang tight, since the battery is now removable, there are companies out there working on extended life batteries that will keep you going for much longer. Be prepared to drop a few $$s for them though.

Ok, so maybe #8 and #9 don’t apply to us because we all know the Sidekick 3 rocks and we like to show it off to all of our friends who won’t be able to get one till Monday! But we still wanted to bring you some of the cell phone commandments: The Ten Commandments of cell phone etiquette

We apologize for the lack of updates in the last few days. We’ve been playing, proking, and prodding around our Sidekick 3 non-stop since Friday.
With our exploration of the Sidekick 3 and its secrets, we’ve come to realize that there is a ton of functionality that isn’t even being taken of advantage yet. While we can’t reveal these details due to the NDA agreement with Danger, we can say you guys will be very happy with the device within the next few months.
So far we’ve heard three main complaints, (a) ringtones/apps/games, (b) slow browser, (c) battery life.

Ringtones/Apps/Games
Like most people we were a little disappointed to see that apps and ringtones aren’t transferring over, but we kind of understand from a business perspective, it is a new phone. People complaining about the lack of apps and games should be patient. With the Sidekick 3 there were a lot of changes in the OS that require work on these older applications in order to make them work right. Even the splash screen for all apps has to be changed! We hope that all games and apps will be ported over soon, but ultimately it’s up to the programmers to do this. The lack of ringtones, well that’s just T-Mobile and we’re not happy either having to pay for the same ringtones that came free on the Sidekick II.

Slow Browser
Like everyone else we had some difficulty with keeping G and loading webpages the first few days. This has gotten a lot better in the last 24 hours or so. when a webpage does load, boy does it scream! I was so used to switching over to AIM or email while waiting for a webpage to load, and now with some pages I don’t even have time for that. Keep in mind that this is a new device, and I’m sure it’s putting some strain on Danger’s servers. Give them some time to tweak the servers and I’m sure things will be running smoother and faster than ever.

Battery Life
I’ve seen in passing some comments about battery life. Since we haven’t done any conclusive testing, we’re not sure how much merit is in these complaints. We do recommend you charging the battery fully, then letting it drain all the way, rinse & repeat. This will help condition the battery to get the full amount of life out of it. If anyone wants to do some serious battery testing and has results, let us know. We’re talking “I unplugged with 100% battery at 7:23pm, received a phone call for 23 minutes, browsed the web for 15, etc.” type research, not “uhh yeah, it lasted for 5 hours.” Additionally, there are companies already working on new extended life batteries, so those should be out soon.

To wrap things up, we’re very happy with the Sidekick 3. It has lived up to most of its hype, and will only continue to get better. To all those that have received the blessings from UPS and have received their Sidekick 3, we hope you’re enjoying it! For everyone waiting on UPS or the 10th, hang in there.

Before you comment on this post, think about what you’re posting. If it relates directly to this info, go ahead, but if it’s unrelated please head over to the forums and post it where it’s easier to carry on a conversation. Thanks!