Cellular phone companies and service providers have always kept in mind of the users who need a communicating device just for messaging, email and IM. Nokia has released 6810, Siemens is with SK65, Motorola with A630 etc. Infact they captured text messages and e-mail the most but not IM.
T-mobile came up with this idea and introduced a product named "Sidekick" in a joint venture with "Danger". The device was a foldable cellular phone, with large screen and full QWERTY keyboard specialized for IM and e-mail. The product got a huge hit in the market with all items sold in first go. There were few discrepencies that need to be removed in this new concept to groom it further. As a result t mobile Sidekick II got announced and then released.

t mobile sidekick II External Look and Feel

The external look is somewhat of t mobile sidekick II is big i.e 130mm x 66mm x 22mm and 184g in weight. But i think it is necessary to embody a large 240x160 pixel color screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. The foldable style of t mobile sidekick II further gives an elegant look.

t mobile sidekick II New Features

In t mobile sidekick II, the monochrome screen is replaced by 65k TFT. The design is somewhat more wide but relatively thin thus giving an elegant look and more space for the keyboard. This time a VGA camera is also built into it rather than an optional external accessory.

Main Features

As specially focused on the interaction of a GSM/GPRS network with web,t mobile Sidekick II comes up a lot of bundled features with it. It includes, Web Browser, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo messenger, Email, Camera, and 5 games. T mobile sidekick II also holds your phonebook, calendar and to-do notes.

t mobile sidekick II Shortcomings

T mobile Sidekick II was released to remove the descripencies and add further most wanted features. It got better but still not perfect as some people say. Many people are not satisfied with the camera quality and so-called LED flash. While some software bugs are also found in t mobile sidekick II. Email client dont has vast capabilities like corporate email, but still it works. While some people really missed Mirc in t mobile Sidekick II.

Conclusion

I must say that T mobile sidekick II is not a PDA phone. Its an IM phone. And since targeted on millions of people who need lot of IM, sidekick II got admired by masses. AT&T also worked on similar concept and released OGO messaging device. But OGO lacks cell phone features, web browser and it is just meant for IM.