Review: Sidekick LX 2009
The Sidekick LX 2009 keeps the familiar semi-circular carousel from Sidekicks past. Use the scroll wheel to sift through them one at a time, or the D-pad on the left to jump five selections at once. What I find is weird is that the circle doesn't keep going around. It stops at the top and bottom, rather than just recirculating the choices. This seems a silly limitation to me.
With each selection, swiping the trackball to the right often shows you several different actions you can take for the given menu selection. For example, if you track right with the messaging app highlighted, you'll be able to open either the text messaging or picture messaging apps.
The trackball and basic navigation are easy to master. Figuring out how the Menu key (upper left corner of the phone), Back key and X keys do will take some practice. The Menu key is the real powerhouse button on the LX, and is your gateway to all the extended options for each application or service on the phone.
What's absolutely ridiculous about the Sidekick is all the noises. Every time you do something in the menus, it feels like you are unsheathing a sword, re-sheathing it, or walking around in a suit of armor with all the clanks, clinks and clunks. Of course, that can all be silenced, but still.
What really bugs me is that the LX completely fails the one-handed test. Because so many of the features and functions require you to press buttons on both the left and right sides of the screen, there's no such thing as quickly performing actions one-handed.
Preview: Sidekick LX 2009
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Sharp Sidekick LX 2009
