Paris Hilton hasn’t been shy about being seen with her Sidekick 3 in tow. 

Our writer Brando once even made a case for her becoming the next spokesperson for the product line.

Sidekick 3 was produced by Sharp and it looks like Sharp might not be done with the Sidekick franchise.

Renderings of the next iteration of the popular gadget have already been spotted on the Internet. Sidekick 4 has been dubbed Shuriken by Sharp, the manufacturer of the gaming mobile phone carried by T-Mobile.

Sidekick 4 by Sharp is not to be confused with the Sidekick Slide (aka Zante) another upcoming device bearing the Sidekick name to be made by Motorola.

This is a completely different, completely new and secretive direction for the Sidekick.

New rumors about the device came about when the FCC spilled the beans on the project by posting Sharp’s filing on its site. All we got was a label, no images of the device. The label taken from the FCC’s site clearly shows Sharp Corporation has filed a device named Shuriken, model number PV250. This model number follows suit with other Sharp Sidekicks. Sidekick 3 was PV 200, Sidekick 2 was PV100 and Sidekick ID was PV150. FCC received a working sample of the device on May 26^th.

When new communications products are filed with the FCC chances are there is a confidentiality agreement. This means the FCC isn’t releasing any pictures of the device, the only thing we have are these renderings from rabid fans of the product line. Confidentiality expires on Sept 16^th although Sharp has filed an extension to Oct 31^st which means we may not see what Shuriken actually looks like until Halloween. 

That’s all we know for sure! Everything else especially the renderings of what the Sidekick 4 will look like is just speculation.

A website called HipTop3.com believes it’ll sport a 400 x 208 screen, EDGE and a larger battery capacity and that Sharp intends for it to hit the streets sometime in October but before Halloween based on when it released its last Sidekick relative to its FCC confidentiality expiring. Currently Sidekick 3 has a 240 x 160 pixel screen and supports 65,536 (16-bit) colors and has a Lith Ion battery that supports 4.5 hours talk time or 72 hours in standby.

A bump to some of these specs is likely and would be a welcomed improvement, especially its maximum supported 2 GB memory miniSD.

Until we get to see a Shuriken in our hands - Happy Halloween!