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Home > Android Phone Reviews > T-Mobile Sidekick 4G by Samsung
Sidekick 4G Video Review
What's hot: Hardware captures the essense of the Sidekick, software rocks Android.
What's not: The usual for Sidekicks; it's large and plasticky.
Reviewed April 18, 2011 by Lisa Gade, Editor
in Chief
The Sidekick once ruled the messaging world, at least for teens. Though Microsoft bought Danger, makers of Sidekick software, Samsung and T-Mobile have carried on the tradition with a thoroughly modern smartphone that combines the power of Android with a form factor that's strongly reminiscent of the Sidekick. The Sidekick 4G has a solid QWERTY keyboard hidden under a flip-up display, a 1GHz Hummingbird CPU and a 3 megapixel rear camera. It sells for a reasonable $99, and runs on Android OS 2.2 Froyo with Samsung software customizations that accentuate social networking and messaging.
Samsung includes a collection of artist-designed themes and wallpapers that give the Sidekick 4G a unique look that sets it apart from the Android crowd. But deep down inside, it's all Android, and that's a good thing. This is a fast and powerful phone that's compatible with the hundreds of thousands of Android apps on the Market, and it has Android's powerful Webkit web browser, Adobe Flash capability and Google Maps.
Like Sidekicks of old, you can use it in candy bar form for making calls, though it's a somewhat bulky beast-- but that's standard for Sidekicks. The casing is unabashadly durable plastic that should survive life with even the most rugged teens. There are plenty of buttons and controls, in fact the phone is a minefield of buttons and we did find ourselves accidentally opening menus or going to the home screen when we didn't intend to.
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