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Occasionally the best things in life are free. Or at least they appear that way. Take T-Mobile Sidekick II smartphone—introduced at a lavish Hollywood-style premier in August—for example.

Although the hip new handset has only shipped since September, you can now get it for free, sort of, from Amazon.com.

Here's how it works:

The list price for the Sidekick II is $299, but Amazon.com sells it for $199. The online retailer will then subtract $200 from the purchase price if you sign up for a service contract with T-Mobile for $40 a month or more. The discounts, which are available in the form of rebates, are available for customers to print and mail in on Amazon.com’s Sidekick II sales page.

Sidekick II
Base on Danger's hiptop platform, the Sidekick II, like earlier models, lets you make phone calls, surf the Web, send and receive e-mail and SMS messages, take pictures and more, from what can best be described as a BlackBerry for the consumer set.

Like Research In Motion's BlackBerry handhelds, Sidekick's main role is to support mobile messaging and communications, with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard to boot. Unlike BlackBerries with their businesslike, utilitarian design, Sidekicks are decidedly sleeker and more colorful—clearly designed to appeal to the young and hip.

Though it is called Sidekick II, the new version is really the third generation of the platform. The first edition used a monochrome display, while the second model added a color screen (read our review). Sidekick II promises to deliver much the same features as the first two, but in a more compact and powerful package.

Sidekick II is 25-percent smaller than the previous model. It also integrates its camera as well as a flash to make picture taking more user-friendly. (Snapping images with earlier Sidekicks required an awkward camera attachment.)


Rear Veiw: Sidekick II as Camera

Sidekick II maintains the hiptop platform's distinctive swivel design, whereby its display slides open to uncover its QWERTY keyboard. T-Mobile bundles a number of messaging applications to keep Sidekick-users' thumbs busy.

Software includes a free e-mail account and the ability set up three external e-mail accounts for delivery on the Sidekick II. There is 6MB of memory for storing e-mail and other documents. Users can view attachments too, including Word, image, and PDF files. Lastly, Yahoo! Messenger is now available for download in addition to the previously supported AOL Instant Messenger service.

Phone-wise, T-Mobile and Danger added a speakerphone to Sidekick II. In addition, several buttons on the outside of the device make it easier to use as a mobile handset, while a separate keypad has been inserted within the QWERTY keyboard for dialing numbers. The companies promise 4.5 hours of talk time from a single charge of the battery.

At the time of the Sidekick II announcement, T-Mobile said it will offer customers a myriad of ways to personalize their new Sidekicks, such as downloadable ringtones based on chart-topping songs, voice messages from music celebrities announcing incoming calls, and games over-the-air. Taking its cue from other mobile device vendors, T-Mobile will sell seven color bumpers to customize the Sidekick's appearance.