That would warm my spiteful little heart.
Oct. 7th, 2010 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariIn our last episode, our poor poor Sidekick 2008 took a long bath in Coca Cola. She tried bravely to survive, coming on once or twice, to a flickering LCD screen, and then finally giving up the ghost, showing the power-on ring once, then turning off for the last time.
Honestly, I was never happy with the SK 2008. The Sidekick 3 was a great phone, and when I got the 2008, it felt more like a step sideways than a step up. I had a GREAT screen...but not much else advanced. Only a few months later, the Sidekick 2009 came out...which was better than the 2008, sure, but not really by much. Instead of the step up I wanted, it was more a shuffle forward. So I never got it.
With the Sidekick's major data loss at the beginning of 2010, I gave up on the line alltogether, and shortly thereafter, so did T-Mobile.
So here I was, without a phone, and desperately scrambling to save money for an upcoming January layoff. I'd had my eyes on an Android G1 for sometime, especially after I found out Android was being run by the people who made the Sidekick before Microsoft got their grubby little protruberances on it. I had a lot of people offer their ideas (the security guard at AwesomeJob dissaproves of my phone, as his AT&T iPhone can do no wrong), and eventually, I settled on the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide. The read seller for me? Physical keyboard. The Sidekick got me hooked on that.
So how did I afford this $350 monstrosity when I'm making just above subsistence level? Pretty sneakily. I waited till my billing period ended, August 27th. At noon on the 28th (just to make sure I cleared the billing period), I ordered it from T-Mobile, and told it to add to my next bill. I got the phone in a week...then spent the next five weeks, overpaying my bill. I took every bit of spare money I had, and instead of dividing it between the two credit cards I have, divided it three ways, with one share going to the phone. As of last week there was $300 in credit on there when the bill finally did hit. I still owe $60 on that bill...but because of how I set this all up, I still have until the end of October to pay it all off. Despite the layoff date being moved up, I should still be able to make it. Bills after that? Well, we'll see how we'll pay those off.
In all, I'm REALLY impressed by this phone, which is more a Hiptop than the Hiptop was in its later years. I was floored (and somewhat scared) by the complete and totaly integration it had with my online stuff, such as Twitter and Facebook, and how much it did. I had, at best, expected a phone with an Internet Browser, and IM applications. I got a Monster Machine with GPS directions, barcode readers, and Microsoft Office reading capability. Holy bajeezus. It was a bit much, though. I immediately removed and locked down things like Google Latitude, and the location info it wanted to share (and post) with Twitter and Facebook. I must be the only person in the world who thinks telling the entire world exactly when and where you are at any given time is a REALLY bad idea.
Picture taken by the Nintendo DSi Lousy Camera.
I am pleased with my purchase. This phone is everything I wanted and a crapton more. The screen is bright and crisp and sharp, almost the size of the whole Sidekick 2008 flip-face, too. The headphones with music controls was a nice touch, and I love the five screen display, where all these often-used widgets sit. I might need the seven screen desktop here if I get anymore really good applications. An my wanting a good keyboard? The Swype onscreen keyboard isn't bad at all, and feels very comfy just sliding my finger across the sccreen to type, versus tapping every letter out on screen.
While it came preloaded with a ton of apps, I downloaded more, and removed others ("Peep" especially, as it crashed just looking at it). The main ones that I sat on the dekstop are:
AndFTP (FTP client)
Camera (Camera)*
ConnectBot (Telnet client)*
Contacts (Contact list)*
ConvertPad (Measurement converter)*
Desk Clock (Clock)*
ES File Explorer (Network Browser)
Facebook *
Gallery (Online and OnPhone picture gallery)
Goggles (Search by image recognition)
Google Sky (Realtime astronomy program)
IM (AIM, MSN and Yahoo)*
Internet (Internet Browser)*
Kindle (Book reader)
LjBeetle (Livejournal Client)
Mail (EMail)*
Maps (Google Maps)*
Market (Android Market place for MORE apps)
Messages (Text Messages)*
Music (Music Player)*
Navigation (Google Maps GPS Navigation!)
Notepad (Notepad)*
Paypal (Account access)
Places (Google Business Locator)*
PocketCloud (Remote Desktop)
Shopper (Grocery item search)
Talk (Google Talk)
The Weather Channel (Weather Radars)*
Tricorder (GPS info and compass)
Twitter*
Weather (GPS weather information)
Youtube
(Anything marked with a "*" had a compatible Sidekick application)
There are a few things that irk me about the phone, though.
It feels so delicate. The Sidekicks felt solid, and took more than their fair share of bumps (especially the Sidekick 2008 which didn't have the rubberized back the Sidekick 3 had). I'm so afraid that one small drop and it's done for. I got a nice leather case for it...just in case.
Having to use Function Keys for numbers. Really? The Sidekick had a fifth row for numbers (as well as a number-pad). It's a real pain, considering all my passwords are mixed case, symboled, and numbered. Flipping between Shift and FN to hit them all takes finger acrobatics.
Keybaord shortcuts! MENU-C, MENU-X and MENU-V on the Sidekick were always Copy, Cut and Paste. Nothing like that on the Android - it's all long-touches. The Sidekick had a soft reboot (ALT+1+0), the Android doesn't. It's a hard reboot no matter what. Which sucks because Android apps don't really have a shutdown option, and usually sit and run in the background eating your battery if you don't reboot at least once a day.
The battery life on this thing stinks. At its best, the Sidekick 2008's battery lasted three days. Heavy use, one day. The Android? Four hours of heavy use, 10 of light use (with a non-lit display, all the location functions turned off, WiFi turned off, and basically in lockdown mode), and with a battery booster, I can get maybe a full day off it.
And the thing that kills me the most: The trackpad. Firstly, I miss that trackball on the Sidekick (not to mention the "D-Pad" on the left). I'm a big fan of mechanical "feedback." I feel the key click, I know I typed it. I feel the trackball move, I know the cursor is moving. The trackpad has no physical movement, so I'm never sure if I'm moving in the right direction. It's also so small and sits so close to the screen that my gargantu-thumbs can't use it easily. I'll hit the touchscreen when I move the cursor left which registers as a touch, and I'll lose my cursor position. Attempting to edit a comment in Livejournal is a pain. Using the trackpad to move the cursor around to your typo doesn't always move the cursor, but unselects the window and begins scrolling you around the page. Considering the sheer number of typos I make (how many in this post?) it's gotten that I don't use any web-forms anymore, and do everything in a notepad and then copy and paste into a form on the web. I can live with the other quibbles, they're easily fixed by just rote use and muscle-memory-retraining. But that trackpad is the only real major dissapointment in this phone, making writing a real pain on anything in the browser.
So. Am I happy with my purchase? With the exception of the trackpad - Hell, yes. It's a lot more than I expected, and all of it was welcome, and definately what the later Sidekicks SHOULD have been instead of just rebranding the Sidekick 3 repeatedly with new forms and graphical updates with no substance).
Honestly, I was never happy with the SK 2008. The Sidekick 3 was a great phone, and when I got the 2008, it felt more like a step sideways than a step up. I had a GREAT screen...but not much else advanced. Only a few months later, the Sidekick 2009 came out...which was better than the 2008, sure, but not really by much. Instead of the step up I wanted, it was more a shuffle forward. So I never got it.
With the Sidekick's major data loss at the beginning of 2010, I gave up on the line alltogether, and shortly thereafter, so did T-Mobile.
So here I was, without a phone, and desperately scrambling to save money for an upcoming January layoff. I'd had my eyes on an Android G1 for sometime, especially after I found out Android was being run by the people who made the Sidekick before Microsoft got their grubby little protruberances on it. I had a lot of people offer their ideas (the security guard at AwesomeJob dissaproves of my phone, as his AT&T iPhone can do no wrong), and eventually, I settled on the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide. The read seller for me? Physical keyboard. The Sidekick got me hooked on that.
So how did I afford this $350 monstrosity when I'm making just above subsistence level? Pretty sneakily. I waited till my billing period ended, August 27th. At noon on the 28th (just to make sure I cleared the billing period), I ordered it from T-Mobile, and told it to add to my next bill. I got the phone in a week...then spent the next five weeks, overpaying my bill. I took every bit of spare money I had, and instead of dividing it between the two credit cards I have, divided it three ways, with one share going to the phone. As of last week there was $300 in credit on there when the bill finally did hit. I still owe $60 on that bill...but because of how I set this all up, I still have until the end of October to pay it all off. Despite the layoff date being moved up, I should still be able to make it. Bills after that? Well, we'll see how we'll pay those off.
In all, I'm REALLY impressed by this phone, which is more a Hiptop than the Hiptop was in its later years. I was floored (and somewhat scared) by the complete and totaly integration it had with my online stuff, such as Twitter and Facebook, and how much it did. I had, at best, expected a phone with an Internet Browser, and IM applications. I got a Monster Machine with GPS directions, barcode readers, and Microsoft Office reading capability. Holy bajeezus. It was a bit much, though. I immediately removed and locked down things like Google Latitude, and the location info it wanted to share (and post) with Twitter and Facebook. I must be the only person in the world who thinks telling the entire world exactly when and where you are at any given time is a REALLY bad idea.
Picture taken by the Nintendo DSi Lousy Camera.
I am pleased with my purchase. This phone is everything I wanted and a crapton more. The screen is bright and crisp and sharp, almost the size of the whole Sidekick 2008 flip-face, too. The headphones with music controls was a nice touch, and I love the five screen display, where all these often-used widgets sit. I might need the seven screen desktop here if I get anymore really good applications. An my wanting a good keyboard? The Swype onscreen keyboard isn't bad at all, and feels very comfy just sliding my finger across the sccreen to type, versus tapping every letter out on screen.
While it came preloaded with a ton of apps, I downloaded more, and removed others ("Peep" especially, as it crashed just looking at it). The main ones that I sat on the dekstop are:
AndFTP (FTP client)
Camera (Camera)*
ConnectBot (Telnet client)*
Contacts (Contact list)*
ConvertPad (Measurement converter)*
Desk Clock (Clock)*
ES File Explorer (Network Browser)
Facebook *
Gallery (Online and OnPhone picture gallery)
Goggles (Search by image recognition)
Google Sky (Realtime astronomy program)
IM (AIM, MSN and Yahoo)*
Internet (Internet Browser)*
Kindle (Book reader)
LjBeetle (Livejournal Client)
Mail (EMail)*
Maps (Google Maps)*
Market (Android Market place for MORE apps)
Messages (Text Messages)*
Music (Music Player)*
Navigation (Google Maps GPS Navigation!)
Notepad (Notepad)*
Paypal (Account access)
Places (Google Business Locator)*
PocketCloud (Remote Desktop)
Shopper (Grocery item search)
Talk (Google Talk)
The Weather Channel (Weather Radars)*
Tricorder (GPS info and compass)
Twitter*
Weather (GPS weather information)
Youtube
(Anything marked with a "*" had a compatible Sidekick application)
There are a few things that irk me about the phone, though.
It feels so delicate. The Sidekicks felt solid, and took more than their fair share of bumps (especially the Sidekick 2008 which didn't have the rubberized back the Sidekick 3 had). I'm so afraid that one small drop and it's done for. I got a nice leather case for it...just in case.
Having to use Function Keys for numbers. Really? The Sidekick had a fifth row for numbers (as well as a number-pad). It's a real pain, considering all my passwords are mixed case, symboled, and numbered. Flipping between Shift and FN to hit them all takes finger acrobatics.
Keybaord shortcuts! MENU-C, MENU-X and MENU-V on the Sidekick were always Copy, Cut and Paste. Nothing like that on the Android - it's all long-touches. The Sidekick had a soft reboot (ALT+1+0), the Android doesn't. It's a hard reboot no matter what. Which sucks because Android apps don't really have a shutdown option, and usually sit and run in the background eating your battery if you don't reboot at least once a day.
The battery life on this thing stinks. At its best, the Sidekick 2008's battery lasted three days. Heavy use, one day. The Android? Four hours of heavy use, 10 of light use (with a non-lit display, all the location functions turned off, WiFi turned off, and basically in lockdown mode), and with a battery booster, I can get maybe a full day off it.
And the thing that kills me the most: The trackpad. Firstly, I miss that trackball on the Sidekick (not to mention the "D-Pad" on the left). I'm a big fan of mechanical "feedback." I feel the key click, I know I typed it. I feel the trackball move, I know the cursor is moving. The trackpad has no physical movement, so I'm never sure if I'm moving in the right direction. It's also so small and sits so close to the screen that my gargantu-thumbs can't use it easily. I'll hit the touchscreen when I move the cursor left which registers as a touch, and I'll lose my cursor position. Attempting to edit a comment in Livejournal is a pain. Using the trackpad to move the cursor around to your typo doesn't always move the cursor, but unselects the window and begins scrolling you around the page. Considering the sheer number of typos I make (how many in this post?) it's gotten that I don't use any web-forms anymore, and do everything in a notepad and then copy and paste into a form on the web. I can live with the other quibbles, they're easily fixed by just rote use and muscle-memory-retraining. But that trackpad is the only real major dissapointment in this phone, making writing a real pain on anything in the browser.
So. Am I happy with my purchase? With the exception of the trackpad - Hell, yes. It's a lot more than I expected, and all of it was welcome, and definately what the later Sidekicks SHOULD have been instead of just rebranding the Sidekick 3 repeatedly with new forms and graphical updates with no substance).
