ah, the sidekick. man, what a great device. no, seriously. i love the sidekick. its easy for me to say that, because i never owned one. cool, trendy phone that does all of the things that you want it to do using the (in my opinion) most user freindly interface out there.
that being said, here is some more info for you.
its being phased out. before the middle of next year, there will be a sidekick 3, and a sidekick mini. you can quote me on that.
i can almost promise you that at some point, you will need at least one warranty replacement. probably more. if you get a sidekick, and dont buy the insurance, you are in for trouble.
t-mo's weakest link is their network. i know it. they know it. everybody knows it. why they dont improve it, ill never know. if you are ok with rarely having sevice outside of columbus or away from major metropolitan areas, no problems.
edit i also wanted to mention that you will get better corporate customer service from no other cellular company. when you call tmo, they are there to help.edit
im interested to know, when you say the service at verizon sucks, are you speaking of the customer service, or the network? if its the customer service, then i can help to try and improve that for you. if its the network, then nothing at tmobile is going to make you happy.
as far as verizons devices, they kind of speak for themselves. the "v" (9800) is a really cool device, but its not a carbon copy of the sidekick. the v has a megapixel camera, stereo speakers, an mp3 player, vcast, bluetooth, and expandable memory.
for a truly broadband wireless web-surfing, text messaging, mp3 playing badass device, you really ought to have a look at the tre650. oh yeah, its a fairly nice pda, as well.
feel free to pm me or give me a call for a chat, regardless of which way you decide to go. i still have a lot of contacts in tmo, as well. id rather you be a happy tmobile customer, who will tell your friends about this guy you know who sells verizon and takes care of folks, than a customer of mine who wishes hed rather gotten a sidekick.