Sidekick III gets approved by the FCC

[Guest r3nz0]

1.3 megapixel camera, expandable memory (miniSD), and Bluetooth. Shouldn't be long now before it's released.

[Guest pod]

I'm waiting for the Nokia E61.

Dropped in Feb overseas. Goes for $500 retail.

[Guest ILLMATIC]

I'm waiting for the Nokia E61.

Dropped in Feb overseas. Goes for $500 retail.

+1

Or I might wait to check out all the N series phones.

[Guest pod]

You can get it online actually, but I wanna see it come on eBay.

[Guest slamminshaun]

I finally picked up the Palm Treo 700....its gonna take me 2 weeks to figure out how to operate it.

[Guest ramon]

I finally picked up the Palm Treo 700....its gonna take me 2 weeks to figure out how to operate it.

I'm waiting for the 700p then I'll switch to Sprint.

[Guest pod]

Sprint is for the birds. Stick with GSM providers like T-Mobile and Cingular.

Yeah, there's "PCS Vision" or whatever their wireless broadband service is, but T-Mobile and Cingular are rolling out UMTS service by '07.

[Guest ramon]

Sprint is for the birds. Stick with GSM providers like T-Mobile and Cingular.

Yeah, there's "PCS Vision" or whatever their wireless broadband service is, but T-Mobile and Cingular are rolling out UMTS service by '07.

EVDO (sprint pcs vision) ... plus free incoming .. plus free nights and weekends .. I don't see any GSM carrier coming close in price. I have cingular now, but unless they get their shit together I'm gone.

I'd be surprised if TMOBILE could get their EDGE shit rolled out ffs. Cingular already has UMTS, but if they don't roll out it here who cares.

[Guest pod]

I'll pay extra for interoperability. You're right about the roll-out, but I'm willing to wait and see. I'll go EV-DO if there's no other choice.

Besides, for mobile use, I'm really just needing access to my email and maybe an IM app. Web browsing on a 3" screen is no fun.

[Guest ramon]

I'll pay extra for interoperability. You're right about the roll-out, but I'm willing to wait and see. I'll go EV-DO if there's no other choice.

Besides, for mobile use, I'm really just needing access to my email and maybe an IM app. Web browsing on a 3" screen is no fun.

its good for remote management of servers .. im quite surprised they didn't add wifi for use on their tmobile hotspot networks etc.

[Guest macboy]

I'm dumping my sidekick on ebay right now, while I can still get good value for it.

[Guest pod]

Actually, the E61 supports Wi-Fi...All the new E-series do as well.

It's the first "blackberry-esque" device I'm actually considering. Sidekicks are semi-useful fad devices, Treos are nice but lacking certain features, and Blackberry pisses me off by making you go through their system just to check your email.

[AndrewChibale]

t-mobile is the best OVERALL

every company has its own "special" features like cingular with rollover or sprint with the sound quality of calls but ...

- cingular is expensive compared to others and do not offer good ammount of minutes for ur money

^^ been there done that

- sprint customer service sucks balls, is the worst, pathetic ..

^^ been there done that

t-mobile always have promotional plans which u can get advantage of, great phones and great prices ..

right now i pay around $62/month with taxes for 1500 minutes, unlimited nights/weekends/ and unlimited sidekick data (text messaging, email, blah blah)

ive been using the sidekick for quite a few months now and is great ... hey i can even check myspace on it

lets just wait and see what this new version can do .. maybe i'll wait cause i was thinking of switching to the t-mobile mda

[Guest jamu]

IPAQ best thing ever. I hate my sidekick, I can't run msn messenger on it. And don't like the idea of watching blackberry get their asses handed back to them.

[Guest pod]

T tends to come out with the new tech a little later, but it is largely more mature by that time. EV-DO is nice, but it is still a rather new tech. Works well in the cities, but falls apart outside of them. The one nice thing is that the EV-DO cards fallback to traditional CDMA data if EV-DO isn't available.

However, when T-Mobile does do wireless broadband, it will be UMTS which is currently in the lead to be the globally accepted standard due to it's basis in GSM.

[all4tribal1414779019]

not to break any hearts but i believe metro is the best bang for the buck for someone that uses their phone for both personal and business, i do easily 3000-4000 mins a month, prob more, hardly travel out of the state nowadays, but if i do i can make arrangements to get a prepaid for the weekend or use a buddies if traveling w/ guest(s)...the service on my phone is much better than the pos nextel i had in the past...personally i dont care much bout neato phones, but that's just me

[Guest pod]

Metro's alright if you don't travel much outside of Florida. I travel and make a lot of national and global calls, so Metro doesn't cut the mustard. They seem to have fixed their horrid oversubscription ratio to an extent, but I still don't care for their underlying technology.

[Guest rollyp66]

IPAQ best thing ever. I hate my sidekick, I can't run msn messenger on it. And don't like the idea of watching blackberry get their asses handed back to them.

ummm you can run messenger on the sidekick....sue some research

[bornslippy22]

i am all over this sidekick III when it comes out...i have the sidekick II and i couldnt see my life without it...great value...great options...and IMO T Mobile is the best service and quality for the price you are paying....

btw,

Roly send me IM, i wanna know how to run MSN on my sidekick II... ;D

[Guest rollyp66]

you have to unlock the sidekick and add an app called Hiptalk, I added it to mine. you need the usb cable

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/e7789aa138b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

www.skdr.net

[Guest ramon]

Metro's alright if you don't travel much outside of Florida. I travel and make a lot of national and global calls, so Metro doesn't cut the mustard. They seem to have fixed their horrid oversubscription ratio to an extent, but I still don't care for their underlying technology.

its still CDMA.

[Guest pod]

aka crap.

CDMA is just the US carrier's way of keeping you locked to their system. I think the FCC made a big mistake when they chose to de-regulate

The rest of the civilized (and not so civilized) world uses GSM which has a clear path to UMTS. T-Mobile and Cingular were smart and went with GSM. Even though the North American GSM is on a different frequency, 99 percent of the GSM phones made are totally interoperable with the European GSM and vice versa.

[Guest ramon]

aka crap.

CDMA is just the US carrier's way of keeping you locked to their system. I think the FCC made a big mistake when they chose to de-regulate

The rest of the civilized (and not so civilized) world uses GSM which has a clear path to UMTS. T-Mobile and Cingular were smart and went with GSM. Even though the North American GSM is on a different frequency, 99 percent of the GSM phones made are totally interoperable with the European GSM and vice versa.

tell that to Verizon or Sprint which PCS band is inoperable with anything else, but they have great coverage. I'm not a UMTS believer yet until I see it deployed here in Miami and I don't see that for atleast another year. Give me an N93 w/ WIFI kthx.

[Guest pod]

E61 has wi-fi like I showed ya

Coverage is one thing, but interoperability is another. Coverage really isn't an issue nowadays unless you're in the backwoods. I haven't roamed off-network in about three years. If you see a tower, your provider has rented space on it.

CDMA and previously TDMA were the results of the FCC screwing up the move to digital cell service in the late 80s and early 90s. Before that, it was AMPS which was the analog system. The coverage sucked, but it worked anywhere there was a tower...though with roaming fees and shit.

In order to spur the industry forward, the FCC largely let the carriers do their own thing in deploying digital networks. AT&T at the time went with TDMA along with some regional providers, Sprint went with CDMA, along with some other regional people. Companies like Voicestream, Omnipoint and so forth went with GSM. VS bought Omnipoint, then VS was acquired by T-Mobile.

GSM is actually a superset of TDMA, which made AT&T's move to GSM before they sold their wireless division to Cingular, pretty much a non-issue. So we're largely on GSM now except for Verizon and Sprint/Nextel. Don't get me started on Nextel, which goes with yet another standard.