Why the Sidekick Slide is dying
I've had one issue with my Slide shutting down and now we know what the problem is with the random power cycling. I'm glad Motorola has found the problem and is working to resolve it, but I think my days with the Sidekick are coming to an end.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Sidekick Slide only reached shelves this past summer — our July introduction to the device followed Gizmodo's note that the Motorola-built Zante variant still ran on EDGE — so a confirmed hardware defect within months of launch lands on a product still in its honeymoon window.
The timing compounds a rough stretch for Motorola: the company pre-announced disappointing second-quarter results in July 2007 and spent August pushing the Razr2 lineup across AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and Alltel. A widely covered defect on a flagship T-Mobile exclusive gives the turnaround story another black eye.
First-order effects
- Slide owners are living with random shutdowns and power cycling right now, and early adopters like the CrunchGear author are already talking about abandoning the platform even though Motorola says it has isolated the cause.
- T-Mobile carries the support burden for a defective exclusive, handling returns and complaints on a device it positioned as a marquee holiday-season offering.
Second-order effects
- A quality stumble on the Slide undercuts the carrier-by-carrier Razr2 rollout Motorola is counting on to stabilize its handset business, giving carriers and buyers reasons to hesitate on new Motorola hardware.
- Rival handset makers courting T-Mobile exclusives gain an opening to argue their devices carry lower return risk during the critical holiday quarter.
Third-order effects
- If defect-prone launches keep landing on carrier-exclusive devices, carriers will face pressure to demand tougher pre-launch qualification from manufacturers, shifting some quality-control accountability up the distribution chain.
- For Motorola specifically, repeated hardware missteps risk converting a cyclical downturn into a reputational one, where each flawed flagship makes the next launch harder to sell regardless of specs.
The trend: Carrier-exclusive handsets are entering an era where a single confirmed hardware defect can outweigh a manufacturer's entire marketing push, raising the stakes of pre-launch quality assurance.