So you didn’t keep an eye out for a Sidekick thief while texting on the subway like we told you to and now your Sidekick is gone. After reporting it to T-Mobile and the proper authorities, what is one to do? Well, if you’re like NY teenager Yudelka Polanco you’ll start doing detective work. The great thing about the Sidekick is that you can still log in to your desktop interface and find out how the person that stole it is using it (as long as they didn’t pull the sim and login as a different user). Most thieves are dumb and will leave behind some clues. Yudelka was able to get ahold of her thief’s email address and through a search on MySpace pulled up his profile. Through some additional detective work online she was able to get some pictures an information on the guy and took that info to the police. The police were able to identify 16-year-old Victor Hernandez and busted him for the theft of the Sidekick Slide as well as a number of other charges. Way to go Yudelka!

via gothamist

Grant Duval, from The Connection (a student newspaper in Sacramento, CA), has put together an editorial titled “What does your cell phone say about you?” In it he mentions Sidekick users:

Sidekick owners have a ton of friends. Even their phone is their “Sidekick.”

People who own Sidekicks are addicted to their friends, not the ones they are with, but the ones at the receiving end of their witty texts.

Sidekick owners are young and may or may not idolize Jay-Z. They are also highly lazy. If spelling out words without using abbreviations and predictive text is too hard, what else is too hard? Getting a job? Paying taxes? I’m on to you Sidekick owners.

Personally I would have said Lil Wayne (based on the number of Lil Wayne Sidekick themes out there) and I’d disagree that we’re lazy and don’t have jobs. How else could we afford such expensive devices? What do you guys think?

If you live in Boston (or anywhere else for that matter) you may want to pause from IMing and texting your friends every now and then to make sure you aren’t about to be robbed! Bostonist is reporting that Sidekick users who are distracted by typing are a target for phone thieves. WBZ TV reports that 23 Sidekicks have been snatched in the last two months from users riding the T (Boston’s subway system).
“Basically they have their heads down,” said Transit Police Sgt Michael Rutledge. “They’re not paying attention to their surroundings and people are taking advantage of that opportunity. When the train doors or bus doors open they’ll snatch the cell phone or Sidekick and run off with it.”

So keep an eye out next time you get sucked into an AIM conversation with the hottie you met last night at the club. Before you know it you may have lost her screenname AND your phone.

A recent patent application from Research In Motion, makers of the ubiquitous Blackberry, shows a mobile phone with a “handheld device with trackball navigation and Qwerty hide-away keyboard”. Sounds kind of familiar, eh?

via gizmodo

It sounds like T-Mobile had a huge theft of phones over the weekend. Someone broke into a warehouse and stole around 36,000 phones, roughly worth about $8.2 million. And the kicker, most of these phones were Sidekicks (we’re assuming LX and Slides). T-Mobile of course has all of the IMEIs for the devices on record, and they’ll be keeping an eye out for any of these devices by monitoring who activates them. So if you see a deal that looks too good to be true, and the dealer is a little bit sketchy, you might want to pass. Here’s the internal email that got sent out to T-Mobile dealers:

“Wanted to let you all know that one of our warehouses was broken into over the weekend and some 36,000 phones were stolen (worth about 8.2 Million). The most significant phones stolen were the Sidekick phones. Please make sure you inform the dealers who like to purchase gray market handsets that we are aggressively working with law enforcement to prosecute anyone who has these handsets. We do know the IMEI’s of the stolen phones and once they end up on our network we will go to the dealer code that activated the phone. So if your dealers get a call about Sidekicks and the deal is too good to be true you will know why.”

via

Got a Hiptop 3 and a provider that allows MMS like Telstra? Then Viva has written something you might be interested in, how to create your own mp3 ringtones. We’ve posted it here so that it’s preserved for future usage.

UPDATE: If you’re looking to just download Sidekick ringtones for the Sidekick LX 2009, you can get them over at Skringers.com!

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

Some people will be getting the Sidekick LX for Christmas this year, while others will be getting the Sidekick Slide, but one lucky lady will be getting a one of a kind Sidekick 3 for her Christmas present. A Sidekick 3 made of wood. The creator says that the Sidekick 3 is the favorite phone of his lady friend. However, he also mentions that he did not make the screen flippable because “she’s not THAT special”. *ouch* It looks like it will be a bit bulky for her pocket, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

via SomethingAwful forums thanks Heather

It hasn’t even been a week since the release of the Sidekick LX, and there are already hardware mods for it. Both the blue and brown Sidekick LXs come with blue moodlighting around the edges that flashes with alerts. A lot of people have complained and wished that there were different colors. Instead of whining, AcidAngel actually did something about it. He is now the owner of the only Sidekick LX with green LEDs in existence. All it took was a steady soldering hand and some patience. If you know how to solder, then you should be able to do the same. If you don’t know how to solder, you probably shouldn’t even bother attempting this. Needless to say, this totally voids your warranty but it’s pretty cool.

Video of the Sidekick LX with Green LEDs

Today we’re celebrating the 5th anniversary of the T-Mobile Sidekick. The original Black and White Sidekick went on sale today in Palo Alto California.

Reading the original review of the device from SfGate.com written by Henry Norr, he hit the nail on the head.

“I believe the Sidekick, despite some significant shortcomings, is destined to be a genuine mass-market hit.”

If you want to take a trip down memory lane, visit some of these links…
SfGate.com review
Danger Inc Snags all you can eat deal for Hiptop debut (TheRegister.co.uk)
Danger.com in 2002
Hiptop.com in 2002