Before you get all excited, chances are this is just someone with Photoshop that got told “Hey, I need a phone that looks like it has GPS on it” by their boss, so they whipped something up. But we can’t help wonder why the model in the photo accompanying this article is holding the Sidekick 3 so oddly. Then again she is in a mall, and why would you need GPS (let alone being to get a signal) when you’re looking for a new pair of shoes? Regardless, there have been bits and pieces about GPS getting incorporated into a future Sidekick in some way for awhile. Remember that old job posting? From a technical standpoint it would probably be possible to interface a Sidekick with a Bluetooth GPS as it stands now, it would just be a matter of getting a mapping solution on the Sidekick that’s powerful enough. Maybe with Apple’s new iPhone 3G, Danger Microsoft will have some motivation to upgrade some of the hardware capabilities of the Sidekick to keep up with the location-aware mobile computing that is bound to happen in the very near future.

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 https://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:

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:

The Sidekick LX OTA is going to open up quite a few new features for Bluetooth on the Sidekick LX. All of these features are of course software based so everything that the LX is getting, the Sidekick Gekko will also have. Here’s a list of the bluetooth features:

* Phone calls – Use either a Bluetooth hands-free headset or car kit. Read more in Bluetooth Hands-Free Headset (Mono/Stereo) or Hands-Free Car Kit.

* vCard exchange – Send your vCard or any of your contacts’ vCards using Bluetooth. Read more in Set and Send My vCard and Send and Receive vCards.

* Listen to music and videos – Listen to your music or videos using a Bluetooth stereo headset or speakers. Read more in Listening Choices.

* File exchange – Exchange photos, music, or videos that you’ve stored on your memory card with other Bluetooth devices. Read more in Send and Receive a File.

* Print – Print a photo on a Bluetooth printer. Read more in Send a Photo to a Printer.

Yes, it says “Print a photo on a Bluetooth printer! Pretty cool if you ask me. I’ll be at the local Best Buy printing off pictures of my cat if you need me.

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.

A little birdie told us that with the OTA update, the Sidekick LX will finally get support for A2DP Bluetooth devices. What does this mean? In short, you’ll be able to listen to phone calls, MP3s, videos, games, etc. in high quality stereo sound using bluetooth headphones.

(image via)

Colorware has a time line up that indicates they’ll be offering their popular colorization service for the Sidekick LX towards the end of January. So if you want a Sidekick LX in some fancy color other than brown or blue, hang on until January 21st! If you’ve got a Sidekick 3, you can already get the special color treatment from them here

We just scoured through Amazon and collected all the Sidekick LX gel skins that we could find so you’d have one place to quickly and easily browse through them. Check out all the Sidekick LX gel skins.

So chances are you’ve gotten your Sidekick LX, are loving it, and realize that 128mb of space on the microSD card that came with your LX is not nearly enough for all your music, themes, and pictures. We just put in our order for a nice fat 4gb microSD card for all our music. For those curious, here’s the best deal we’ve been able to find so far:
SanDisk 4GB MicroSD / Transflash with SD Adapter (SDSDQ-4096, BULK Packaging)

skLXthemes.com has also setup a little store to help give people a one stop place for Sidekick LX accessories. We also recommend keeping an eye on myTego.com for skins, as well as GyverGear for all sorts of good Sidekick LX accessories (chargers, screen protectors, cases, etc). Wireless Ground should also have some stuff for the Sidekick LX soon.

Just in time for the Sidekick LX to launch to current T-Mobile customers, a theme site launches for the device. Go get your Sidekick LX themes from sklxthemes.com. You can also pick up a microSD card for your Sidekick LX over there as well.