T-Mobile’s Sidekick line of pagers has been very popular with deaf and hard of hearing users since the first (with a grayscale screen, even!) Sidekick debuted five years ago this month. Now T-Mobile will be releasing the sixth model in the Sidekick line on October 24th. Rather than going with the obvious name, “Sidekick 4″, T-Mobile has chosen to call it the Sidekick LX (LuXury, Large eXtra, 60 - roman numerals, etc?)

What’s new and different about this pager - especially for deaf and hard of hearing users?? The most obvious change is that the LX has a much larger screen. The SK3 had a 240×160 pixel screen for a total of 38,400 pixels. The LX has a 3 inch diagonal screen based on Sharp’s Aquous LCD TV technology that is 400 pixels wide by 240 pixels tall for a total of 96,000 pixels, nearly triple that of the SK3! In addition, the LX’s LCD is widescreen. This certainly will make for a more pleasing viewing experience. It’s not immediately known if fonts will be proportionately larger, or if the ability to change font sizes will be included in the new version of the Danger OS on the LX.

Second major change is that the LX has a keyboard that is very similar to the Sidekick 2 - a rubberized cover. This may be good news for some who prefer the “softer” touch of that keyboard, and bad news for those who hated their keyboards warping or even coming off. We’ll have to see if the warping issue has been licked.

Another interesting addition is that of “mood” lighting. Rather than use the plastic bumpers like the SK2 or the iD, the LX has colored LEDs around the edge of the device that can be programmed to come on at various times and in various colors in response to events on the LX. It’ll be interesting to see if this serves as a better visual alert to incoming messages than the multicolor LED in previous models.

Interestingly enough, even though the LX sports pretty much the same form factor as the SK3, the weight has been shaved down from 6.7 oz for the SK3, by a full ounce to 5.7 oz for the LX. Unfortunately, battery life will probably be the same or worse for the LX as compared to the SK3 due to the larger LCD screen. The stock battery is slightly bigger at 1540 mAh, as compared to the original 1500 mAh SK3 battery. Too bad. Most other specs such as the camera, music player, memory card, etc. remain the same as the SK3.

A bit of good news for hard of hearing users, the LX’s HAC rating is M3, which should allow you to use your hearing aid with it. This has been a highly requested feature for this group of people. As always, you should test any phone with your hearing aid before purchasing. Don’t take our word for it, but test it out and let us know what you think!!

There have been various updates to the Danger OS, as shown via screenshots at BoyGeniusReport, but we don’t know if there have been tweaks beneficial for a deaf or hard of hearing user, like stronger vibration. We’ll have to wait for October 24th to find out.

The LX will be available in blue and brown on Oct 24th from T-Mobile, for $299 with a two year contract, and supposedly will cost $500 without a contract. Rumor has it that there will be a OS update for the LX after it is released to enable video viewing (probably via memory card, possibly via web streaming)!

It does look like the LX will be a worthy successor to the SK3 if you are a deaf or hard of hearing user that relies heavily on SMS/text, email, and instant messaging. You can’t beat getting a larger screen!