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T-Mobile introduced the Sidekick II smartphone—built by Danger as the hiptop2—at a Hollywood-style premier a couple of months back. Today, a second carrier, SunCom Wireless, delivered the new mobile handset to its customers in the south eastern part of the United States.

Like T-Mobile, SunCom also sold previous editions of the hiptop device. SunCom Director of Product Management Suzanne Lowry said "Our customers embraced the original hiptop device for its powerful set of applications offered at an affordable price, and we think they will be even more pleased with the new hiptop2 product. It incorporates many improvements to the user experience and is even more fun to use."

As with earlier hiptop models, the hiptop2 lets you make phone calls, surf the Web, send and receive e-mail and SMS messages, take pictures and more, from what can best be described as a BlackBerry for the consumer set. Similar to Research In Motion's BlackBerry handhelds, hiptop2's main role is to support mobile messaging and communications, with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard to boot. Unlike BlackBerries with their businesslike, utilitarian design, hiptops are decidedly sleeker and more colorfulclearly designed to appeal to the young and hip.

Though it is called hiptop2, the new version is really the third generation of the platform. The first edition used a monochrome display, while the second model added a color screen (read our review). hiptoip2 promises to deliver much the same features as the first two, but in a more compact and powerful package.

The new smartphone is 25-percent smaller than the previous model. It also integrates its camera as well as a flash to make picture taking more user-friendly. (Snapping images with earlier Sidekicks required an awkward camera attachment.)


Rear Veiw: hiptop2 as Camera

hiptop2 maintains the hiptop platform's distinctive swivel design, whereby its display slides open to uncover its QWERTY keyboard. There is 6MB of memory for storing e-mail and other documents. Users can view attachments too, including Word, image, and PDF files. Lastly, Yahoo! Messenger is now available for download in addition to the previously supported AOL Instant Messenger service.

Phone-wise, Danger added a speakerphone to hiptop. In addition, several buttons on the outside of the device make it easier to use as a mobile handset, while a separate keypad has been inserted within the QWERTY keyboard for dialing numbers. Danger promises 4.5 hours of talk time from a single charge of the battery.

SunCom sells hiptop2 for $319 with a 1 year contract and $219 with a 2 year contract.