Everything about the Sidekick II says it's the phone for kicking back, and it's hard not to fall under its spell while playing with it. Shortcomings are obvious—no Bluetooth or expansion card slot—but it isn't meant for business use, anyway. What it does have are several ways to stay in touch with your friends and a colorful, cool interface.

Also known as the Hiptop2, Danger, Inc. create the phone, although it is sold by T-Mobile as the Sidekick. The tri-mode (900/1800/1900-MHz) handsets works internationally, and it has 32MB of RAM, 16MB of Flash memory, and offers 4.5 hours of talk time or 60 hours of standby.

The Sidekick's appeal starts with its clever design. Like the first version, the Sidekick II uses a swivel screen that rotates 180 degrees out and up to reveal a decent-sized thumb-operated QWERTY keyboard.

Give the screen a nudge with one thumb and it pops up while the phone powers on. The phone is slightly longer and thinner (5.1 x 2.6 x .9-inches) than the first version, and the flatter shape makes is easier to hold to your ear (although it's still not as comfortable as a traditional cell phone).

Navigitation
Sidekick II implements a new button layout and it takes a minute of study to learn it, as the icons on the buttons seem odd, at first. In the Sidekick II's four corners, you'll find buttons for bringing up contextual menus, returning to the to the main screen (called the Jump screen), canceling what you're doing, or returning to the previous screen.

A directional pad in the center left lets you navigate through Web pages or fields, while a clever scroll wheel/button combination in the center right performs various tasks, like letting you scroll, select items, and start or stop phone calls.

That's not all:

Buttons along the top and bottom of the Sidekick II let you power up the phone, take photos, and control the volume. We love that the developers made the volume controls so easy to access, but these top and bottom buttons are easy to press accidentally when you're trying to do other things.

The Sidekick II's main screen presents the various apps in a circler menu, which you scroll through to find the one you want. Besides making calls, Sidekick II also bundles a Web browser, AOL IM client, e-mail client, text messenger, address book, calendar, to do list, notepad, camera, and one game. You can also browse the catalog for more ring tones, games, or applications.


Circler Menu/Sidekick Closed

Phone
As is typical of smartphones, the Sidekick II is weakest at being a phone. As mentioned, it's awkward to hold so large a phone to your ear. You'll want to use the included earbud, although it's irritating to have to fish a cord out of your pocket all the time. Since the phone doesn't integreate Bluetooth, you can't use a wireless Bluetooth headset.

To dial, you either flip the screen up to use the keypad, or use the on-screen option, where you scroll through the numbers to select them. Since the main screen says "Flip to dial!," many users probably don't realize there's an on-screen option. We got consistently good voice reception in our testing.


Screen Rotated Up

You can also make calls by selecting a number from your call history or selecting a number in your address book. Once you've dialed, you can activate the speakerphone.

Camera
The Sidekick II not only has a VGA camera, but also a flash, which is a rarity in a combination device. While the camera works acceptably well in outdoor or well-lit conditions, most indoor pictures are extremely grainy.

The pictures are fun, throwaway shots—you can easily e-mail them from the device—but they're nothing you'd want to print. The flash, though, is awful.


Back of Sidekick II with Camera Lense

Take a shot without it and then the same shot with it; they'll probably look identical. Perhaps a useful flash would have taken too great a hit off the battery. The camera has three image resolutions and can hold 36 pictures, regardless of the resolution.

The Sidekick II's camera performs acceptably well in bright light conditions, but the resolution is low and the photos are grainy.

Communicate
The three communication apps—AOL Instant Messenger, text messaging, and e-mail—all work well. Typing on the thumb keyboard will seem tedious if you're not used to it, but it's hardly the smallest one around.

We found it easy, compared to others. The IM client lets you hold ten chats at once, and automatically jumps to active discussions. The e-mail client works with any POP3 or IMAP account. Best of all, these apps are always on, so you don't need to tell them to check for messages.

Getting the communication services, though, requires signing up for T-Mobile's data plan, which costs an extra $20 a month if you already have T-Mobile voice service. If you don't want a call plan, the data plan is $29 per month.

A PR representative told us that the Sidekick has a strong following in the deaf community, whose members appreciate being able to get the data plan without a voice service.

In Sync
You can synch your computer's calendar, to do list, and address book with the Sidekick II, although you do so in an untraditional way that turns some people off. Most devices connect with a cable, so synching is a one-button operation.

With the Sidekick II, you get your own Web account when you first register the smartphone, and you input changes through the website. For $9.99, you can download an Intellisync application that lets you easily sync your online account with your desktop information, providing you have a Windows computer and use Microsoft Outlook.

The online documentation says that you can perform up to eight syncs in an eight-hour period, which seems like an odd limit, but not a stingy one. We're not crazy about having to pay $9.99 for easy synchronization, but we love the wireless way of doing it. When you sync new information, it shows up on your Sidekick II only a few minutes later.

Other Software
The Web browser works fairly quickly for a handheld device, although less quickly than a standard dial-up connection. It reorganizes Web pages into one-column views, so be prepared to do a lot of scrolling. We found it handy to have around, but a chore if surfing for long.

The Sidekick II comes with one game, Rock & Rocket, which is really just an Asteroids clone. It's amazing that the phone comes with only one game and that that game is one of the oldest video games around, one that debuted in the 1970s.

Certainly the goal is to get users to buy better games, which cost between $2.99 and $6.99. You can also purchase ringtones of actual songs for $1.99. Surprisingly, you can't purchase or download skins to change the Sidekick II's look.

Besides the earbud, the Sidekick II comes with a leatherette case, which has a belt clip. It won't win any beauty contests, but it will keep your phone safe.

The suggested price for the Sidekick II is $299, but with rebates it's easy to find for $199 with a new T-Mobile account. For the best deal, though, surf to Amazon.com, which is giving it away for free with a new T-Mobile account. It's an amazing offer for such a good phone.