T-mobile has come out of the gate with a cellular phone meant to replace its aging Sidekick series. The Mytouch 3g slide leads the family of new MyTouch series phones manufactured by HTC. It’s built with a full QWERTY keyboard, a huge touchscreen, and the Google Android operating system.

The best aspects of the MyTouch Slide are in the hardware and design. The mobile phone comes with a reusable, durable plastic case instead of the zippered pouch of previous models. It won’t earn any awards, though, so most users will still be looking for myTouch 3G Slide cases soon after purchase. The T-mobile mytouch slide is available in three color choices: black, white, and dark red. The mobile phone is shipped with the standard USB/wall charger and a USB data cable. This model also comes with earphones.

The 3G Slide is a little bigger than its brothers since it houses the full qwerty keyboard. It measures 4.55” long x 2.37” wide x .6” thick. There have been very few complaints on the size as customers prefer the easy-to-use keyboard with plenty of space between each key. For the few who do not like the keyboard, the virtual keyboard can be used.

The display on the myTouch 3G Slide is 3.4” and features multi-touch functionality. This is a downside, as most Android-based phones have at least a 3.7” display. Though, it is an increase over the old models of MyTouch 3G cellular phone. The upside is that the colors are crisp and clear, and the display is bright enough to view in direct sunlight. A MyTouch Slide screen protector is suggested to keep the display from getting scratched.

Under the display are the hardware buttons. The T-mobile mytouch slide features 4 buttons: Home, Menu, Back, and the new “Genius” button. The right side of the phone also has a camera button, and there is a volume control on the left. The power button and headphone jack (3.5mm) are at the top, whereas the USB cable connects to the bottom.

On the software side, the slide comes equiped with android 2.1 with a promise of a free upgrade to 2.2 sometime in the future. The user interface is custom-designed for the phone and is similar to the HTC Sense. The phone is great for using with social networking internet sites. It automatically updates contact information from the networks and provides a Friend Stream for new status updates and links posted by friends.

The MyModes feature of the phone enables users to customize their homepage for work or for play with all-different widgets, apps, and wallpapers for each. The Genius button, pointed out earlier, is used with Android to turn it into a voice-command system. The system is buggy at first, but as it learns your voice, it improves over time.

The phone also features a 5-megapixel camera. The camera works best outdoors. Indoor photos are noisy and dark.

Overall, the performance of the Slide 3G is very impressive. The OS doesn’t lag and internet speed is fast. The price is right, too, at less than $200. This will leave plenty of money for extra T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide acessories.