T-Mobile’s Sidekick Slide is the company’s latest idiot-proof messaging phone for the youth market, following on from the Sidekick II. It may not be as powerful as Windows Mobile or Symbian smartphones, but what it lacks in features it makes up for in ease of use. The Sidekick II’s rotating screen has been replaced with a slide-up display, which reveals the Qwerty keyboard.

As the Slide is wide and tall, there’s a fair bit of room for the keys, which are well-spaced and easy to use. When you first turn on the Slide, a setup Wizard walks you through its main features and gives you an overview of how to use the phone.

Once you’ve scrolled through the licence agreement, you’re asked to fill in your details to create a new T-Mobile Sidekick email account. The Slide will use this account by default, but you can add your own POP3 or IMAP account if you wish. The phone will automatically download email settings depending on the address you enter, and it also has default settings for the most common providers.

The Slide is pretty simple to use. The main menu screen is uncluttered and consists of big, friendly icons for each of the phone’s main functions. The operating system is navigated with a trackball and you click to select each option. This works fine most of the time, as you’re given a clear list of options with colourful graphics for each function.

Some options are, however, hidden away in sub-menus that you access by pressing the menu key, so it's not always clear where a certain option lies. The Slide’s web browser copes better with full-size pages than many phones, and websites look impressive on its vibrant colour screen. Like Apple’s iPhone, the Slide only has GPRS capabilities, but this isn’t a problem when browsing the web as images are heavily compressed by T-Mobile’s servers, so websites load quickly.

There’s also a calendar application with Day, Week, Month and Year views. While the Slide can't synchronise your contacts and calendar with Outlook, the information stored is automatically backed up to T-Mobile's servers. You can access this by logging into your account with a PC's web browser.

While its user interface is far from perfect, the Sidekick Slide remains far easier to use than most smartphones. It's great for email and the online backup feature is particularly useful. 

T-Mobile Sidekick Slide

Specifications

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