I bought the Sidekick II the day it came out, and I’ve been using it almost everyday since. I tried replacing it with a Treo 650 and a Nokia 6680, but both times, I ended up switching back. I’ve used all kinds of phones, PDAs, and personal information management system, and I’ve found that the Sidekick II offers the best overall experience of them all. But as impressed as I’ve always been with the Sidekick II, I recently gained an entirely new appreciation for it.
Without getting into too many details, my Sidekick got destroyed the other day (let’s just say that Sidekicks are tough, but cars are tougher). For a brief moment, I thought I might try to wean myself from the Sidekick and go with something like the Motorola RAZR which I’ve always really liked, but I ended up walking out of the store with another brand new Sidekick II (I had pretty much worn my old one out anyway, so I didn’t mind replacing it). I took it into the office with me, plugged it in to charge, and that’s when the magic happened.
All I had to do was insert my SIM card, log in, and wait about 30 minutes, and my new Sidekick II was, as far as I can tell, 100% restored to its former glory. All of my PIM data, applications, settings, and configuration had been completely restored, right down to my custom sound profiles and POP email accounts. I knew my PIM information (address book, calendar, etc.) would be preserved, but I had no idea all the additional applications I purchased would not only be automatically restored, but with all the data from my previous Sidekick — every birthday, high score, and preference. I don’t know of any other device in the world that would have made that process so painless.
A couple of things to think about…
- Why isn’t it that easy to migrate from one computer to another? When I get a new computer, it usually sits in the box for a couple of days until I can find the time to do the painful manual migration.
- As much as I love the Sidekick, I’d still really love to have a smaller phone like the RAZR for certain occasions. Why can’t I have both (without the pain of switching SIM cards, which is far from ideal)? I’d love to have multiple mobile phones on a single account so I could just grab whichever one is more suitable for the day’s activities.
Living Digitally 
Christian,
I think you’re hitting on one of the major issues with the increasingly “connected” society we live in. The lack of integration, particularly among devices such as PDA’s, mobile phones, computers, MP3 players, and even things like TiVo’s and TV set top boxes. I think that is the next big leap for the Internet. I think it is going to be difficult, not from a technology point of view but rather because you have different manufacturers and software providers who have different agendas and financial interests to protect. I think this leap needs to happen though for the true power of the internet to be realized.
Ray
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I had the exact same experience with my Sidekick when I needed to get it replaced (mine got fried during an OTA update). I was blown away by how well this swap of devices worked.
I also noted this as one of the Sidekick’s killer features in a blog entry here.
The Sidekick isn’t perfect, but it has a few features like this that make it hard to beat.
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Sidekick can’t view youtube.com video!!! Why??? It say your flash is old verison so I try to dl new flash but it won’t work damn it help me lol why it can’t view video on internet nor hear music on people page such as myspace … replay to my email aznminhboi@tmail.com thanks
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