Archive for the 'Features' Category

The official word on the Sidekick 3 from the FCC!

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

Manuals, photos, internal photos, all sorts of stuff are available here
Some quick links for you:
External Photos
Internal Photos
Test Setup Photos
Reference Guide Cover
Sidekick 3 Start Guide
Sidekick 3 Reference Guide (part 1)
Sidekick 3 Reference Guide (part 2)

The manual pages look very familiar. Some interesting observations:
– The SonicBOOM manual page we received matches up almost exactly with the “Music Player” page, so looks like a name change. 🙁
– No video support 🙁
– There’s a considerable section on the “Danger Service Privacy Notice” and what sort of information they collect and share.
– Yes, USB 1.1, not 2.0
– MP3s play off the miniSD card
– EDGE support!
– Bluetooth (as if noone saw that coming)

and I’m sure our commenters will have some other things to point out…

FCC Docs close to release

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

The FCC has updated the page and it looks like we’ll get a chance to see some official documentation, photos, and more very soon. Right now it’s returning a server error, but hopefully that will get straightened out soon.

Sidekick 3 in the wild!

Monday, June 5th, 2006

Legit pictures of a Sidekick 3 in the wild! Woohoo! And you’re seeing them here first! (well except for those 6 guys that saw it on the hiptop forums before they got pulled) Looks like TMobile changed the name to “Music Player”, comes with a miniSD card of 64MB, removeable battery confirmed, and more blurry pics to speculate over.




The memo?

Saturday, June 3rd, 2006


We received this in an email from a new source, who states they are a corporate employee. Not sure how legit it is (if at all), so of course take it with a grain of salt. We’ll let everyone pick it apart in the comments like they usually do. We really, really hope that the 1 MB miniSD card is a typo. From what we’ve heard it sounds like the Sidekick 3 will ship with a miniSD card included in the kit, but not sure what size. Seems like a 1MB card wouldn’t be worth the material to even make.
Some comments from the email explaining the memo:

youll notice the markings on it by a permanat marker. its marking out june to july because it was going to be released in june but just wasnt possible so there pushed it back to july, but these papers were already printed to give to people such as employees and buisness partners. he didnt feel like making so many copies again… plus it would of wasted alot of time, effot and money. i only got one but i managed to copy a few….. so zoom in and read all the new stuff it has. ENJOY!!

Sidekick 3 button layout

Thursday, June 1st, 2006


There’s been some debate about whether or not the Sidekick 3 will have shoulder buttons. The answer is yes. We’ve got another page from the manual to show you. Here’s the layout of some of the buttons on the Sidekick 3. Look familiar?

SonicBOOM screenshot

Thursday, June 1st, 2006

Yes, SonicBOOM is the mp3 player, how about a screenshot of it? Here’s a screenshot of the SonicBOOM app with the mini player window open. This mini player will be accessible from any application by hitting the Jump and the Done buttons.

Sidekick 3 MP3 Player is SonicBOOM

Monday, May 29th, 2006


pandemic nailed the name of the Sidekick 3 MP3 player in only the 2nd comment. That’s right, according to the manual the MP3 player on the Sidekick 3 is named SonicBOOM. Based on the manual page we obtained, it’s no surprise that the miniSD card is going to function as the storage for your MP3s, and will show up as a removable drive on your PC. Luckily no extra software, or DRM codecs or anything to install. Just copy the MP3s over, unplug, and play! With the recent release of 2GB miniSD cards (which the Sidekick 3 can hopefully handle), you’ll be able to carry approximately 500 MP3s. And if you downsample the MP3s, you’ll be able to squeeze even more on there. Just don’t forget to leave some room for pictures taken with your 1.3megapizel camera. Looks like Danger is really listening to one of the top demands users had after the Sidekick II came out!

The Sidekick MP3 Player

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

We’re not sure what all this Hiptunes talk is. In the past, TMobile has tried to distance themselves from Danger in their marketing. TMobile is the only one that calls it a Sidekick, instead of a Hiptop. Why TMobile would switch to using the “Hip” name in their marketing, we’re not sure. And that ad that leaked out is terrible, at least from a marketing standpoint. Why is TMobile the biggest thing on the page? Why not a huge Hiptunes logo and then a typical “only available from TMobile” ? Why would TMobile all of a sudden start using the Danger Hiptop font when they’ve worked so hard to brand the Sidekick? Why is Beyonce’s name bolded and not some eye-catching “play mp3s on your sidekick!” Why isn’t there even a picture of the Sidekick on there? And this ad is definitely aimed at the female market with the butterflies and Beyonce. And what is the text on the image? So we’re calling either photoshop, or fire the guy that thought this was a good ad.

UPDATE: Thanks to Twex on the hiptop.com forums we have a link to the source image used to photoshop that Hiptunes ad. It was also pointed out that there was an SK3 badly photoshopped into her hand that we didn’t even notice. Come on now people, everytime you see a picture of a picture, chances are that it’s fake. Why not just post the original picture?

On a related note, we’re pretty sure that Hiptunes is not the name of the MP3 player on the Hiptop 3. Here’s a hint as to the real name (we’re working on getting proof to you now):

Putting the Sidekick 3 trackball debate to rest

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

So there has been a lot of discussion about the new trackball, and what it will be like. Hopefully this page from the manual will help answer some questions:

MSN Messenger and Address Book

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

We received these screenshots a few days ago, but forgot about them while we drooled over the blue and red trackball! But here they are. The comment with the MSN screenshot was, “Don’t know if the SK3 will keep it at launch. But here’s the login screen.” And our source added, “More to come over the weeks.” To add to their authenticity, we received the MSN screenshot on May 22nd at 4:34pm and the Address Book screenshot at 5:52pm.