Sidekick set for relaunch as T-Mobile 4G HSPA+

Computerworld - T-Mobile USA will soon launch 4G HSPA+ versions of the Samsung Galaxy S and T-Mobile Sidekick phones, T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm announced early Thursday.

The Sidekick, which T-Mobile discontinued last summer, will be revived as a 4G phone that is Android based, Humm told a New York City gathering of analysts and journalists.

The Galaxy S 4G will run Android 2.2, or Froyo, Samsung and T-Mobile confirmed after Humm's presentation.

Humm didn't reveal pricing or precisely when the new offerings will be available.

During his presentation, Humm presented a slide that appeared to show the Sidekick as a slider device, rather than as a flip device as it was originally.

Danger made the original Sidekick before its acquisition by Microsoft. As part of Microsoft, the Danger team went on to produce the Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two.

The Kin phones had some limited features that produced few sales and Verizon Wireless decided to stop selling it last summer. The carrier reintroducing it with a strong focus on its texting capability later in the year.

Many analysts believe the Sidekick influenced the iPhone and other smartphone designs.

The new Sidekick and Galaxy S phones come in addition to T-Mobile's G-Slate tablet announced in January. The G-Slate device runs Android Honeycomb and a USB modem that uses the faster 42 Mbit/sec version of HSPA+.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen, or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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