The Sidekick Is Here...Finally
T-Mobile launched the Sidekick today, its version of Danger's Hiptop device. We were at our local T-Mobile store this morning when they opened and snatched up two of the five units they had it stock. A third was sold while we were signing up. After half a day's use it really is the best wireless data value on the market and is incredibly well thought out. POP3 email and IM work great. Web browsing is better than we expected. But the lack of javascript support prevents us from logging into some of our favorite news sites. The home pages of WSJ.com, NYTimes.com and economist.com loaded quickly enough, but we couldn't login. I suspect that this will be resolved eventually since the sites loaded much more quickly than Techdirt even though they are heavier. That leads me to believe that we aren't the only 18-34 year-olds trying to get a news fix via Danger's servers. By the way, Techdirt looks great on the Sidekick. Update: While we didn't have to fight very hard to get our Sidekicks, T-Mobile Palo Alto sold out of 35 Sidekicks within minutes of opening. Man, I miss California sometimes.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
