T-Mobile Sidekick Slide to be Android 2.1 based HD2 with QWERTY keyboard?

Sometimes a leaky rumor comes along that you desperately want to believe, and here's a good example.  Tmonews and PhoneDog reckon that T-Mobile are preparing to launch the Sidekick Twist, an Android-based handset made by HTC (but bearing the Sidekick brand) with a hardware QWERTY keyboard, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and a whopping 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display.

There's also talk of a front-facing camera and 16GB of onboard storage, presumably augmented with a microSD card slot, the usual T-Mobile apps and a summer release.  It's certainly not the last time we've heard talk of Android replacing T-Mobile's Sidekick range, but at the time there were suggestions that the MyTouch Slide would be the device that would do it.

Having met with HTC last week for a preview of the new HTC Wildfire, they were cagey about the prospect of hardware QWERTY devices saying that their research this year tipped the monoblock touchscreen form-factor as more popular.  We're also a little curious about the Super AMOLED reference, too; if that refers to Samsung's technology – as on the Samsung Wave S8500 – then as far as we can tell only Samsung themselves have been using the panels to-date.  We'd love this Sidekick Twist rumor to pan out, but we're not holding out breath.

[via Android Community]