While the device will certainly look like a Sidekick, it willl have some key changes. The 3.5-inch display is now a touchscreen, and it will be tightly integrated with social media with built in Facebook and Twitter applications. Since it’s now a Android device, users will now have access to the thousands of apps from the Android Market.

The Samsung Sidekick will still feature the pop out screen with keyboard underneath, as well as the jump key to switch quickly between applications. Gone though is the multi-colored scroll wheel, replaced by a more traditional home button.

T-Mobile is introducing two new texting features with this new Sidekick: Group Text and Cloud Text. Group text would allow the Sidekick user to engage in group text conversations easily on their device, while Cloud Text would allow the user to text from outside their Sidekick yet still have those texts synced with their device. The company will also feature the T-Mobile Video Chat application developed by Qik preinstalled — video chatting has become a prominent feature of their 4G advertisements.

Overall it appears that the Sidekick is more an Android device than it is a Sidekick. Most of the services available are not “from the cloud” — but then again all the issues the carrier experienced in 2009 with the service may have given it a bit of pause from depending too heavily on the cloud again.

More information on the device can be found in the official press release from T-Mobile. We haven’t heard any announcement on price, but we’ll let you know when we do.

It’s not clear whether or not this move has anything to do with the Kin announcement. The Sidekick and Microsoft’s social phone are somewhat related: the Kin was developed with the help of the folks from Danger, although it was based on Microsoft’s code and not the Danger OS.

With the turmoil in the Danger division, including the fact that most of the original team behind the Sidekick is now gone, and you begin to think that T-Mobiile may have decided this was a good time to get out. It’s hard to see how Microsoft comes out with a new Sidekick in the midst of the mess that is its phone division at the moment.

T-Mobile says it is looking at its options going forward for these types of devices, but would continue to support those who stick with the phone despite Thursday’s move. It does sound as if the carrier has some hope that a new version of the Sidekick could be launched sometime soon, however.

Let’s remember that either model T-Mobile sold is practically ancient in phone terms: the last LX refresh was in May of last year which added 3G (although has been around since 2007), while the other model (the 2008) is over two years old.

Either way, it may be a sad day for those still clinging to what was truly the first widespread data phone for consumers. You had a good life, Mr. Sidekick.

At least two states, California and Washington, are in the process of suing the company over the data loss. T-Mobile itself has done a little damage control by giving $100 credits to unhappy customers. All in all, October was a month the carrier would like to forget. Let’s just hope this time they have a backup…

No exact time frame has been given for the full restore. However, for those who have been affected by the issue (I actually met somebody over the weekend that lost nothing, so it’s not everybody), this is now two weeks after the initial data loss. You have to figure that many have recovered most of their data through other means, so a restore is becoming less and less useful.

Apple’s excited about Windows 7.

Google readies an e-book store.

Amazon.com does same-day delivery.

Latest iMac rumors (no Blu-Ray).

Firefox 3.6 is in beta.

Google plans Chrome OS event.

Twitter enters the wine business.

Ringtones are legal after all!

________________________

Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

A few notes:

1) By way of explanation for the meltdown, Ho’s letter says that Microsoft has “determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up.” That’s pretty much a tautology given that the company had already warned customers that the data might be lost forever.

2) Ho’s title is kinda unfortunate at the moment: Corporate Vice President, Premium Mobile Experiences.

3) A service outage/data disruption that lasts half a month isn’t as bad as losing user data forever, but it still ranks among the worst service breakdowns in the history of personal technology. (In fact, if you can think of any involving major companies that lasted anywhere near as long, remind me.)

Presumably, what Sidekick users really want is to keep on using their Sidekicks with the data they thought was safe and sound. But if their stuff really is gone, what would be an adequate action on the part of T-Mobile and/or Microsoft? Free service for a year? Two years? Three? A cash payment of $250? $500? $1000? Immediate upgrade to any device sold by the carrier at no cost?

I’m dying to know what you think–especially if you’re a Sidekick owner…

I’m still scratching my head and trying to think of any remotely comparable examples of large companies simply losing huge amounts of essential customer information, and I’m coming up short. (The closest parallel–instances of companies leaving customers in the lurch by intentionally shutting down services-isn’t really comparable.)

This incident may be unique, at least for the moment. But do you think it’s an early warning sign of danger to come as we all live more and more of our lives on the Web?

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information.

Breathtaking. Extended Internet-related service outages are commonplace, but major examples of data loss involving large companies aren’t so common. (This brings to mind Ma.gnolia’s meltdown in January, but that service was run by one guy–not by the largest software company in the world.) It’s going to be fascinating to hear Microsoft’s explanation of what happened, and why it apparently has no usable backup of its customers’ data. And to see just what long-term effect this has on the Danger platform, which is supposedly the basis for Microsoft’s allegedly troubled “Pink” phone project.

My assumption is usually that big Internet-savvy companies are going to do a better job of religiously backing up data than I am, but this is a wake-up call: None of us really have a clue how safe our data is when it’s stored in the cloud. Not to mention a massive embarrassment for Microsoft