Hiptop2/T-Mobile Sidekick II (Danger/Sharp) T-Mobile Sidekick II The Hiptop was also sold in Singapore by Starhub in 2004. In Germany, the Hiptop service was also offered from 2003 by E-Plus which included a flat rate tariff. The discontinuation was mainly because the Hiptop is a competitor to Rogers' BlackBerry business. SunCom and Edge Wireless used to sell the device in some parts of the United States, and Fido was the exclusive Hiptop carrier in Canada until sales were discontinued after Fido was bought by Rogers Communications, at the end of the Hiptop 2's life. In the United States, its initial price was $200 and then $40 per month. The Hiptop was sold by T-Mobile in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Austria.

It is slightly bigger than any later Hiptop. A later revision of the Hiptop upgraded its screen from a monochrome LCD to a color LCD viewable with or without the backlight on (unique to Hiptop models until the LX). The headset jack serves a dual purpose, as it is also used for the accessory camera. Along the top edge of the phone bezel is an infrared transceiver. The Hiptop also featured a speaker which is used for device sounds but not telephone. All the units, from the beginning, have featured 'Menu', 'Back', 'Jump' and other keys accessible even when the unit was closed. Released on October 1, 2002, the original Hiptop was unique compared to all other hardware versions. Hiptop/T-Mobile Sidekick (Danger/Flextronics) T-Mobile Color Sidekick The Hiptop line is designed to be held horizontally with both hands, allowing typing with two thumbs, similar to a Game Boy Advance or a console video game controller. The bottom has volume controls and a power button. The top of the unit has two application-specific shoulder buttons. The right side also has two phone buttons: send call (also page-down) and end call (also page-up). On all Hiptops except the original, the left side houses a directional pad and on the right, a track ball (excluding the original Hiptop) The Hiptop 2 and Slide's directional pad contains internal multicolored LEDs used in ringers and notifications, while the 3, 2008, LX, and 2009 track ball contains internal multicolored LEDs that provide the same function. There are two buttons on the left side of the device ('menu' and 'jump') and also two on the right ('back' and 'cancel'). Screens on all Sidekick devices (excluding the Slide and 4G models) rotate 180 degrees 'up' to the open position on a patented hinge pin to and has been considered to be iconic in the mobile devices market. The Hiptop/Sidekick became incredibly popular in the U.S.

All versions of the Hiptop were developed in close partnership with T-Mobile, although carrier-specific features were either removed or added for each carrier, such as the addition of MMS for SunCom and Telstra Hiptop 2 users, where the feature was not available on T-Mobile USA devices until the Sidekick LX in 2007. The Hiptop II, 3, Sidekick iD, Sidekick 2008 and Sidekick LX (2009) are all manufactured by Sharp Corporation in Japan and designed, respectively, by Danger and then Danger in partnership with Sharp. The original Hiptop hardware was designed by Danger and manufactured by Flextronics. This included a catalog of downloadable software applications, email hosting, instant messaging, web proxies and a cloud service for the entire personal data on the device. Danger provided the Hiptop OS software and back-end services for the device. The Hiptop software was designed by Danger, Inc., which was located in Palo Alto, California, and purchased by Microsoft for $500 million in 2008. The Danger Hiptop, also re-branded as the T-Mobile Sidekick, Mobiflip and Sharp Jump, is a GPRS/ EDGE/ UMTS smartphone that was produced by Danger, Inc. The original Hiptop with revised color screenĭanger Incorporated / Flextronics / Sharp Corporation / Motorola / SamsungĢ002–2010 (Sidekick Web Services to 2011)Ĭolor (Monochrome for the 1st gen Sidekick/Hiptop)Īttachable 0.3 Megapixel (Built in for later models)

Pink sidekick phone