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 