Danger Sidekick-iD

The Danger Sidekick-iD is a bargain hunting text messager's dream – but that's about all it has going for it. This is really a lackluster device that is designed to resemble the other phones from the Sidekick family without including any of the cool features that makes the other Sidekicks so snazzy. In other words, unless you are broke or cannot talk someone else into footing the bill for you, then the Danger Sidekick-iD is still not even close to the best phone that you should get. It's that poor of a device.

There are few phones currently on the market that look as high tech as the Danger Sidekick-iD but provide really no good features to speak of. The Danger Sidekick-iD is a dual band GSM phone that will only work in America. As you can expect from such a low-end device, there is no 3G support, so you can only transfer data via the GPRS network – slowly. Fine for texting friends and family, but don't expect to do anything else with the slow speed network you'll be stuck on.

For a device with relatively no features, you would expect the Danger Sidekick-iD to be small and lightweight. Wrong again. The Danger Sidekick-iD measures in at approximately five inches by two and a half inches by one inch. Good luck stuffing that into your pocket. Furthermore, the phone weighs nearly 200 grams (176 to be exact). What were the designers stuffing in to make it weigh so much? Apparently not a battery, as the talk time is only three hours and the standby time is a pathetic 144 hours.

The Danger Sidekick-iD does have a somewhat large screen, measuring in at 240 pixels by 160 pixels, but it is ruined by its 65 thousand color spectrum. As far as other features go, there is a full QWERTY keyboard for text messaging fanatics, a speakerphone, and that's about it. The Danger Sidekick-iD doesn't even support transferring files to and from the computer using USB 2.0 – it's still stuck with USB 1.1.

Pros

• Full QWERTY keyboard
• Sidekick family styling, so at least you can fool your friends into thinking you have a halfway decent phone

Cons

• No features to speak of
• Heavy and large
• No 3G support
• Battery life could have been better

Overall

Simply put: avoid the Danger Sidekick-iD at all costs. If you're going to buy a Sidekick, get the real thing (currently the Sidekick 3) and stay away from this heaping pile of garbage.