This is definitely one to take with a grain of salt, and there’s not really a whole lot of meat to salt! Tmonews is reporting that there are is a new device (possibly two) on the way in July. They say there’s evidence (but not what the evidence is) of a device named “SK Gekko” due on July 27th and a “Sidekick Aspen” launching on July 30th. Like everyone, we’ll have our eye on the FCC site to see what sort of info we can find on these devices if they are in fact real. Could this be the 3G Sidekick we’re all waiting for or maybe just limited edition devices? We’re putting our money on some new limited edition devices since the LX hasn’t had any Limited Editions yet and it would be silly not to offer those since they sell like crazy. Who would you guys most like to see a Limited Edition from?
A topic of conversation was brought up a couple times while I was “on tour” with the T-Mobile/Grammy Concerts. What would you like to see on the Sidekick the most?/How could it be improved? I conveyed some of my own thoughts and wishful thinking (GPS and Google Maps). But I want to open it up to you guys. I can’t guarantee this will have any impact on the future of the Sidekick obviously, but I’m curious to see what everyone out there thinks the Sidekick (LX or Slide) needs. Drop your thoughts in the comments!
A lot of the tech blogs have been buzzing about the Nintendo emulator that runs on the Sidekick. Here’s the real scoop. Yes, it exists and you can play Nintendo games on the Sidekick 3/LX/Slide as evidenced by the video above. It’s slow and more of a proof-of-concept sort of thing rather than a truly viable gaming application. It was basically taking an existing Java NES emulator (Vampant) and wrapping it for loading on the Sidekick since the Sidekick OS supports java. No, it is not going to make it into catalog unless T-Mobile gets real friendly with Nintendo and the license holders of all the roms that you would want to load. The application is a developer app that is only available to Sidekick developers. So basically if you don’t know how to write java, you’ll never get to load it on your Sidekick. When asked for comment, the developer simply stated “HOLLA!”
An anonymous tipster sent us a copy of this video to show what the Sidekick LX is capable of. Whether or not this will ever see the catalog is unknown as I’m sure it would take some lawyers and licensing. But regardless it’s a great example of what the Sidekick LX actually is capable of in the gaming arena.
The 50th Grammy Celebration tour that kicks off in April is going to be sponsored by the T-Mobile Sidekick LX. The tour is going to hit 5 cities, with a different musician performing in each one. The press release says “The tour will provide music and Sidekick fans exclusive access to a concert tour featuring a broad lineup of GRAMMY-nominated and -winning artists”. T-Mobile is being hush hush about who is actually going to be performing. So far we only know the first artist is going to be John Legend, an R&B singer/songwriter/pianist who has won a handful of Grammy Awards. As for the other artists, it’s still unknown for now. Here’s what we do know so far though:
A limited amount of tickets for each of the stops on the tour will be available through special in-store contest giveaways at select T-Mobile stores in the 5 cities. But don’t worry, if you miss out on those opportunities in stores, you’ll have a chance to win the “VIP concert package” through Sidekick.com.
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.
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.”
We’ve got no further information on this yet, so buyer beware, but there’s currently two auctions up on eBay for Limited Edition Black Sidekick LXs. The seller says he has 5 units pre-ordered, 4 of them “Buy-It-Now” style and one up for auction. The seller also says that the devices won’t ship until January 30th. Reasons we’re skeptical:
The photo of the said device is very poor. It’s not a press photo from T-Mobile and the seller says he has devices pre-ordered, not in hand, so how’d he get the picture? Why is he selling most of them “Buy-It-Now” when he could definitely make more money selling them auction style? But if you’re trusting and have the money to spend, here’s a link to the Seller’s Items. He does have 100% feedback for what it’s worth.
UPDATE: Our sources say that this is fake, not to mention the auctions got pulled from eBay. We’ll let you guys know as soon as we hear anything about Limited Edition Sidekick LXs.
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
