When phones become more than phones part5
Focused more on fun than on work, the neet T-Mobile Dash is a device designed to appeal to the Sidekick set. Though it resembles the Motorola Q, this candy-bar-style phone is rubberized, rounded, and in general made friendlier for riding along in a pocket when you hit the road.
Unfortunately, the Dash lacks some key software components. The handset includes Wi-Fi, and its e-mail works well, but it has little in the way of office applications, bundling only the ClearVue suite for viewing–but not editing–documents. Typing on the cramped keyboard is tricky, too, as the tiny buttons feel mashed together.
As an entertainment-oriented gadget, the Dash is a hit, with a standout media player and a microSD expansion slot so you can add music to the device. But as a phone, despite lasting 10 hours in our battery tests, it has faults. Calls are loud and clear, but dialing them is difficult: Unlike every other smart phone, the Dash lacks an on-screen dialpad for dialing digits by their letter alternatives. Whoops!
Hollywood’s “it” phone is now in its third revision. The Sidekick 3 packs an impressive set of features, headlined by a suite of easy-to-use e-mail, text messaging, and Web browsing applications.
As a phone, the Sidekick 3 is a bit bulky and difficult to hold for long, and you have to flip it open to dial a call. But its speaker is clear and loud. The Sidekick 3 turned in an excellent talk-time battery life of 9 hours in our lab tests. Navigating with the unit’s light-up trackball is a pleasure–you may never want to use a thumbwheel again.
Features new to the Sidekick 3 include a music player (which handles only MP3 files) and a faster CPU. The camera has been upgraded to a resolution of 1.3 megapixels, and you can expand storage beyond the included 64MB via a miniSD card.
Ultimately, the Sidekick 3’s Achilles’ heel is attributable to T-Mobile: In lieu of a genuine 3G network, the company continues to offer its roughly 120-kbps EDGE network as its fastest service. Compared with phones that use a 3G network, the Sidekick 3 feels dated (and decidedly slower). And lacking Wi-Fi, the $350 phone gives you no way to bypass the cell network to take advantage of the device’s otherwise sweet Internet capabilities. It’s too bad, because the performance shortcomings really hamstring the Sidekick 3’s usefulness.
