The Sidekick Was the Best Smartphone Ever

Phones have become boring slabs of glass. The Sidekick pointed another way.

Last weekend, I cleaned out one of my Messed Up Old Tech drawers, with help from my 14 year old son. We tossed out some ancient Mesopotamian Zip drives, a copy of Microsoft Office 2000, and a tangle of cords whose original functions are lost to the mists of time.

At the bottom of the drawer we found a real prize, though:

My 2004 Sidekick II phone.

If you were in your teens or twenties back around the turn of the century, you probably remember this device. The first version arrived in 2002; the second (the one you see above) in 2004.

Back in the early ‘00s, mobile phones were still awfully basic — they made phone calls and sent texts. To compose a text, you pecked away on the twelve-button keypad. That was it, mostly.

So the Sidekick arrived like a pure blast from the future. It had a complete web browser, built-in messaging apps (like AOL Instant Messenger)…