Monthly minutes:
AND
Plan Type
OR I don't know


We value your opinion! Please Take our 5 Minute Survey and be entered to win a $250 gift certificate to Best Buy


Home > Reviews > Manufacturer > Sidekick LX Cell Phone Review

Sidekick LX Cell Phone Review - Making/Receiving Calls

Alfredo Padilla
Published on December 11, 2007 Comment on this






Dialing Speed (4.76)

To see how easy it is to dial a number on the Sidekick LX we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have dialed a test phone number. We do this for five different test numbers and take the average for our score. The Sidekick LX took an average of 4.2 seconds to dial a phone number. As you can see from the table below this isn't the speediest time. We have seen worse from phones like the AT&T Tilt, but we've also seen significantly faster. To dial a number on the Sidekick LX you have to swing open the screen and use the number keys on the QWERTY, which adds a significant amount of time. There is the option to use an on-screen keypad that you navigate via the trackball, but this is significantly slower than just opening up the screen.

Cell Phone Time (sec) Score
Sidekick LX 4.2 4.76
AT&T Tilt 5.57 3.59
LG Voyager 4.32 4.63
BlackBerry Curve 8320 3.16 6.33
Helio Ocean 3.1 6.45
Apple iPhone 3.96 5.05

Talk and End Buttons (5.0)
The talk and end buttons on the Sidekick LX are located to either side of the trackball. This puts them within easy reach if you're using the trackball, but we found that because we dialed numbers with the hand that would normally be using the trackball when we went back to hit the send button we often missed it or hit the wrong button simply because it's small. The buttons also don't provide much tactile feedback when pressed, although there is a reasonable amount of key travel. We much prefer the send and end keys on phones like the HTC Tilt or Helio Ocean that are much larger and easier and less likely to be missed by accident.

Call Management (7.0)
The call log on the Sidekick LX can be accessed by hitting the send button from the home screen. This gives you a small on screen list of recent calls, but at the bottom is a link to your full call log. This call log is a full list of your calls with an indicator for type, the phone number or contact name, the time and date of the call and duration. There's no way to bring up more details for any call. You can filter your call log by incoming, outgoing or missed calls, as well as add numbers to your contacts or send them a text message from the call log. You can dial the currently selected number simply by pressing in on the trackball. There are no total call timers or data counters available.

During a call you have an on screen keypad to enter numbers for things like phone trees or dealing with your voicemail. There is another button that allows you to toggle the speaker on or off. All the other functions can only be accessed via the menu button. Here you can initiate another call and conference them together, mute the call, put it on hold or transfer the sound to a Bluetooth headset. Because the Sidekick LX is a multi-tasking operating system you can also go and access other phone functions while you are on a call. The only thing we were missing was the ability to record a call.

Startup to Call (1.77)
In this test we turn the phone off completely and then time how long it takes for the phone to start back up again and dial a number. We use the same five test numbers we used from our original dialing test and take the average for our final score. The Sidekick LX took an average of 56.54 seconds to start up and make a call. This is not a good time, you can see below that only the AT&T Tilt did worse than the Sidekick LX. The Tilt is a Windows Mobile device and they are notorious for taking a long time to start up, but the Sidekick LX wasn't that far off the Tilt's terrible time. In fact it took the Sidekick LX more than twice as long to start up and make a call as the LG Voyager or Apple iPhone, which put up the longest times amongst our comparison phones aside from the Tilt. The bottom line is that if your Sidekick LX is turned off it's going to take awhile to get it going again.

Cell Phone Time (sec) Score
Sidekick LX 56.54 1.77
AT&T Tilt 64.55 1.55
LG Voyager 25.26 3.96
BlackBerry Curve 8320 7.12 14.04
Helio Ocean 9.5 10.53
Apple iPhone 26.12 3.83

Ring Volume (8.45)

To see how loud the Sidekick LX's ring volume gets we go through all of the ring tones on the phone at maximum volume using a sound pressure meter to measure the loudness in decibels. The Sidekick LX's ring tone measured a maximum of 84.5 decibels. This is pretty standard fare, you can see below that all of our comparison phones put up a volume within a decibel or two of the Sidekick LX. In fact the vast majority of phones fall between 80 and 90 decibels in this test, with most of them around 85 decibels, so the Sidekick LX is pretty average in terms of ring volume.

Cell Phone Volume (decibels) Score
Sidekick LX 84.5 8.45
AT&T Tilt 85.7 8.57
LG Voyager 85.6 8.56
BlackBerry Curve 8320 85.6 8.56
Helio Ocean 85.4 8.54
Apple iPhone 84.9 8.49

Ringtone Customizability (0.0)
The Sidekick LX does not allow you to use your own custom ring tones, instead you will need to purchase new ring tones from T-Mobile.

Non Audio Alerts (12.0)
The Sidekick LX's vibrate alert is pretty good. We were able to feel it easily in a pocket, and you can even notice it in a jacket pocket. The vibrate doesn't seem much stronger than some other phones we've reviewed, but simply because the Sidekick LX is so large and the whole phone vibrates it seems more noticeable. When a call comes in the screen lights up with information about the incoming number, and the LX's lights also start blinking it, so you'll likely notice and incoming call if you're looking at it.


Previous    Next
Shop for a wireless plan
Shop Carrier Type Minutes $/Min Cost
Shop Prepaid 0 0.1000 0.00
Reviews   |   About WI   |   Staff   |   Advertising   |