Sidekick LX Cell Phone Review - Software
OS (6.0)
The Sidekick LX runs Danger's operating system, which we found to be better than most of the proprietary interfaces we see from companies like Motorola, Samsung or Verizon's BREW interface. The Danger OS does qualify as a "smart" operating system because you can install native third party applications. That being said we didn't find it to be as powerful or extensible as other "smart" operating systems we've reviewed like Windows Mobile or Symbian Series 60. It is obvious when using the Sidekick LX that it's operating system was developed to provide a certain set of functionality to the end user in an effective manner. If you step outside of these lines, for example video playback, you are just out of luck. By contrast more advanced operating systems like Windows Mobile or Symbian don't create such artificial barriers, you can do just about anything you want on those platforms. Because the Danger OS supports native third party applications it does qualify for more than five points under our scoring system, but due to its limitations we will only be awarding it six points in this section.
Home Screen Score (6.0)
Like Palm OS the main home screen for the Sidekick LX is also the application launcher. Thankfully Danger have made the application launcher on the Sidekick LX a little more interesting than the simply grid of programs you find on Palm devices. Instead applications are organized into a semi-circular carousel that sits on the left side of the screen. You scroll between stops on this carousel using up/down on the trackball. Some of the items on the carousel are nested, so if you activate them they take you to a second level. For example the organizer item has a second level with the three organizer applications.
The right side of the screen changes dynamically to show you information about the selected application. This can be a simple icon but can also be dynamically updated with information from the application. For example when the notes application is currently selected you see a list of your top notes on the right. The home screen also has a bar along the top of the screen that provides standard phone information like battery life, signal strength, time and date. We found the home screen to be pretty flexible and intuitive to use. It's not as powerful and customizable as the Windows Mobile Today screen, but it provides more information in an easier to use interface than BlackBerry or Palm OS home screen, which are basically just a list of icons.
Extensibility (2.0)
Despite supporting native third party applications the Sidekick OS is not very extensible. In fact we found it to be extremely limited in terms of what can be installed on the device. The selection of native third party applications for the Sidekick LX is very small. The reason for this is that unlike Windows Mobile or Symbian Danger requires that every single application created for the Sidekick be approved and distributed by by them. On the one hand this means that applications are very stable, but on the other hand giving this kind of gatekeeper power to the device manufacturer means that a lot of useful and free applications don't get made. As a result where you have thousands of applications for other "smart" platforms you only have a few dozen for the Sidekick LX.
It doesn't stop there though. Unlike almost every other cell phone on the planet the Sidekick LX does not support java application. This means you can't load programs like Opera Mini or Google Maps on the Sidekick LX. The combination of a very limited selection of native third party applications and no support for java applications makes this one of the least extensible devices we've ever seen. Just as an aside, this is also the model that Apple is considering with the iPhone, which we feel would be disaster.
Customizability (3.0)
The Sidekick LX is not as customizable an interface as we've seen on other smart phone platforms. You have a choice of three different font sizes to choose from. You can also reassign the function of the "jump" button to go to any application in the main menu. By default it jumps to the My Faves application. You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to launch any of the installed applications. What you can't do is reorganize the menu if you don't happen to like its default setup. You also can't use one of your own photos as a background for the home screen. Instead you have to go into the downloads section and pay $1.99 to purchase any alternative background or use one of the five that are already pre-installed. We're not fans of forcing users to pay for functionality that comes for free on just about every other phone on the market.
OS Responsivness (8.0)
We found the Sidekick LX's operating system to be extremely response. We rarely encountered any lag whatsoever, and when we did it had more to do with accessing network services than the underlying operating system. The interface on the Sidekick LX was easily the equal of BlackBerry and Palm devices, which are the most responsive "smart" devices we've seen to date. It blows away Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 devices like the AT&T Tilt or Nokia N95.
Browser Features (4.0)
The browser on the Sidekick LX is not very impressive in terms of the web technologies it supports. Standard HTML pages are supported, however mobile WAP pages are not, which is strange given that this is a mobile web browser. We weren't surprised to see advanced technologies like Java and Flash supported, but we were surprised that more rudimentary technologies like javascript and frames were unsupported as well. You can view images, but they can't be saved to your device. Encryption and cookies are supported, but there's no automatic password management available. The Sidekick LX's browser features were far short of what our expectations for a mobile web browser are, especially as we start to see advanced browsers supporting technologies like Flash. The fact that javascript isn't even supported on the Sidekick LX is silly.
Browsing Interface (4.5)
The Sidekick LX's web browser reorganizes all web pages to be displayed in a single column. This means full web pages like our own has their content reorganized. Although this has been standard amongst mobile web browsers we are starting to see many browsers like Safari on the iPhone or Web on Series 60 that are able to display web pages as they appear on your desktop. We do have to admit that the Sidekick LX's web browser does do a decent job of reorganizing content without making it appear too busy as we find on some mobile web browsers. This makes pages relatively viewable, albeit you can expect to do a lot of up/down scrolling on large pages.
The history on the Sidekick LX's web browser is just a simple list of web sites visited in chronological order. All you can do from the history is to visit the site, you can't save it to your favorites. You also can't delete individual history items, instead you can only clear the whole list. We also found that the history is not saved when you cycle the power on the Sidekick LX, so make sure you bookmark any pages you might want to visit later.
The bookmarks are somewhat better featured than the history. You start out with several folders of bookmarks and we were very happy to see that you can create your own folders as well. You can also edit existing bookmarks, including the ability to move a bookmark into another folder or a new one. This is in sharp contrast to Windows Mobile Professional devices like the AT&T Tilt where bookmarks are stuck in the folder where you place them originally. The bookmarks on the Sidekick LX should be sufficient for even power browsers.
The menu options in the Sidekick LX browser provide you with a reasonable selection of options. You can change the display font for the browser to one of five different levels. You can copy and past text on the page, as well as copy individual links you have selected. There is a find feature in the browser so you can search for terms on a web page. We also found the method of entering a web address in the browser to be extremely simple. Just start typing and the web address bar will pop up. You can also search from this bar, just type out the search term and hit enter and the search will be sent to your default search engine, which can be changed in the settings.
Overall we found the Sidekick LX's web browser does a good job of laying out content in its limited fashion and was easy to use. The lack of advanced features that are found on most mobile web browser like javascript are a disappointment. We also wish that the browser provided users with better viewing options, especially the option to view the web page as you see it on the desktop withe an easy overview to navigate around the page. This has become a standard feature on more advanced web browsers and the Sidekick LX's browser is just lagging behind at this point.
Browser Access (10.00)
It took us four steps on the Sidekick LX to launch the browser and navigate to our website. This is pretty good, and we achieved this score by taking advantage of the keyboard shortcuts from the home screen to launch the browser without having to navigate to it. As you can see below the Sidekick LX is tied with the Tilt and iPhone for the best score amongst our comparison phones in this test. To determine the number of steps it takes to launch the web browser we count the steps starting from the home screen unlocked until we see our own web page on the screen. We count typing in the URL as a single step. We use steps in this test rather than a timed test because we don't want network connectivity issues to skew our results.
Gaming (5.67)
The Sidekick LX ships with a single full version game: Bob's Journey to the Center of the Earth. This is a simple platformer game that's pretty fun to play and will let you kill some time. The controls on the Sidekick LX are well suited for playing games as they are laid out very similarly to a game console, with two directional keys and a bunch of control buttons available. As we saw in the extensibility section the selection of third party applications for the Sidekick LX are somewhat limited. We are thankful that there is a decent selection of games available, but still nowhere near the selection you see on other platforms like Windows Mobile. The inability to play Java games also severely limits your selection. That being said most people should be able to find at least a couple of games they'll enjoy and they are reasonably priced at between $3 and $7 per game.
Calculator (0.0)
The Sidekick LX doesn't have a calculator, which is just ridiculous. We can't think of another phone that lacks a calculator, even the
Samsung Juke, which has an extremely circumscribed operating system, has a calculator. You can purchase a calculator as a third party application, but why should you pay for functionality that's standard on almost every cell phone on the planet?
Alarm (0.0)
The Sidekick LX also lacks an alarm, see what we wrote in the calculator section above to see what we think of this.
Document Software (0.0)
Although the Sidekick LX's email program allows you to view Word and PDF files in line with the emails there's no separate program to view or edit any office files.
Other Software (1.0)
In addition to the software we've already discussed the Sidekick LX has one additional application that we thought was worthy of mention. This is a mobile client to view your myspace.com profile. Although we aren't particularly excited by this we realize that many people, and even more in the Sidekick LX's target demographic, use My Space a lot, so we decided it was worth a bonus point.
