Danger Readies Its Sidekick 3

For the handset fanatics, the big news this week is the impending launch of Danger's Sidekick 3 by T-Mobile. The RED HERRING writes "Danger plans to start selling the device to T-Mobile customers on June 28 and to the general public on July 10. The device is priced at $299 with a two-year contract, $349 with a one-year contract, and $399 with a prepaid service plan. The service pricing will also include the cost of any of T-Mobile’s voice plans, plus an additional $20 per month for an unlimited data plan."

John Jackson at Yankee Group said, “There’s every reason to expect that the Sidekick 3 will be as popular as the Sidekick 2.”

The article looks at the business side of the company and Jackson opined that "given the price at which the company is selling the device, it is not likely their margins on their hardware are particularly high.”

Regarding the new product, Michael Gartenberg at JupiterResearch wrote:

I've been a fan of the Sidekick from day one. They've carved out a nice niche for themselves. They really don't compete with the Blackberry, in fact the Sidekick is really the anti-Blackberry crowd. So what's new in the latest version? Well, it's smaller and lighter than the old SKII, about 20% smaller so it's got a really nice feel in the hand. It's got a new trackball for navigation and adds in Bluetooth, EDGE support and mini-SD for playing music. The batter is also removeable. All in all, it's a nice evolutionary upgrade to a well designed product.