Jon Holato

Yes, you read that title correctly, I have given up on my Sidekick 3 in favor of a Samsung t629. To those who are in utter shock, let me assure you this was not a spur of the moment decision, but rather the culmination of weeks and perhaps months of dissatisfaction. For those unaware of what we’re dealing with, here is a picture of the Sidekick 3:

And here is a picture of the Samsung t629:

OK now that we all know exactly what we’re dealing with, a good percentage of you might be asking yourself “why in the world would he do that?” The Sidekick 3 has a qwerty keyboard, bluetooth, email, HTML internet browser, etc., etc., and the Samsung t629 has, well, not all of that stuff. The answer is simple, really, the service.

Carin and I first got our Sidekick 3s as part of the family plan. The idea was that we were going over our minutes and messages every month talking to each other, so why not be able to communicate unlimited; makes sense. At first everything was great, minus the lackluster coverage at her house. However, a few months ago things started to go sour.

It began with me not getting text messages. Carin would ask me if I got her text and I’d respond with “huh, what text?” I would then get the text a day or two later. Fast forward to present day, and this had progressed to about 5% of all my text messages getting delayed by anywhere from 1-7 days. It didn’t end there.

I began to not be able to make phone calls. I would attempt to make an outgoing call and either it wouldn’t let me dial, or I would get the other person’s voicemail with them stating that the phone had never rung. Additionally, on a few occasions I received the message of “out of service” when attempting to call Carin. For the record, I pay the bill and have never missed a payment, her number is not out of service. Another strike.

It got to the point where it felt like a privilege to receive a text message or for a phone call to go through, and for $200/month, that doesn’t cut the mustard. The whole reason we got the plan was to communicate and I felt like it was hindering our ability to do so.

Thus, I aced the Sidekick 3, as Carin did so last month in favor of the Dash, but for the Samsung t629; which thus far has proven far superior in service and battery life, things I am definitely willing to sacrifice the qwerty keyboard for.

Why did I get such a low-end phone you ask? Sure, I could have gotten the Dash or the new Blackberry 8800, but any regular reader of my blog knows that I’m waiting for this.

P.S. The T-Mobile rep Carin and I deal with said to expect a new Sidekick X, or whatever it will be called, before the end of the year. It will be made by Motorola and will be very thin. He added that the leaked Sidekick 3 roadmap was “very real.”