Hands-on with T-Mobile’s 3G Sidekick LX

Last night I had a chance to go hands-on with the Sidekick LX at a T-Mobile launch party, and I have to admit, it wasn’t what I was expecting. It was better. While I’ve seen a few Sidekicks pass through our offices, this one left the best impression on me. Its large and high resolution display looked great, its keyboard felt awesome, and the 3G data speeds were the expected icing on the cake. I was also impressed by the Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace applications. Each looked clean and was easy to navigate around using the trackball. T-Mobile says you can even send video directly up to MySpace, and that the same feature is expected for Facebook shortly. I fired up the GPS application to check out the maps, which are powered by Microsoft’s Live Search Maps. It’s great for finding the nearest restaurant, but I would have been more impressed with a full Telenav installation to accent it. The Sidekick LX will retail for $199 with a 2-year contract, which is what the current EDGE-only edition costs, so hold off on buying any other Sidekick until this hits store shelves. Stay tuned for our full review as soon as we receive a unit, but overall we think Sidekick lovers will be blown away.