Blackjack II

I'm not very good at Blackjack. I know there are some hard and fast rules to help you "win" but in the heat of the moment I always forget them and lose anyway (unless it's just dumb luck).

None of this has anything to do with the new Samsung Blackjack II that I started using last week.

I switched to AT&T a few months ago to get 3G but I didn't really find any 3G phones that suited me. The Blackjack2 is a 3G phone so I figured I would take it for a whirl.

First impression is that this is a good upgrade from the original. Just in the design I see more tapering of the device at the bottom, a slight curve of the bezel up top, and more slimness. I also like the extra high gloss finish and the pair of chrome rails down the side. This thing looks quite polished.

There are two ports on this thing - one is for the microSD card (good) and the other is for the proprietary IO cable that used for syncing, powering and headphones (not good). The little doors snap on there well.

The QWERTY keypad has an extensive set of firm buttons including a dedicated camera, email, and "silent" buttons (good) and dedicated "at&t logo" and "cellular video" button (huh?). It would be good to re-program that at&t button to the home page of my choosing rather than their MEdia Net page. I hit the silent key but the mode stays in "normal" - not sure what it is silencing exactly.

There's a 2MP camera on the back in a bit of a bulge along with a mono speaker. No connectors on the bottom so this isn't docking with anything.

This runs Windows Mobile 6.0 and with all of these phones I do a few things:

• Set up my Exchange server connection - just add my mail server address login name and password. This gets my contacts, email and calendar populated and synced immediately.
• Load up my fav apps -
  • NewsBreak for RSS feeds
  • Live Search for . . . searching
  • Shozu for auto-upload of my photos and videos to their proper place
  • WIndows Live Mobile, which didn't come pre-installed (darn). This app syncs Hotmail and my Live contacts onto my phone, including merging them with duplicates on my phone from Exchange - nice.

The apps that come with the phone are a mixed bag. Under "Applications" there's Camera (doh), Download Agent (?), File Explorer, Get TeleNav (promo), Java (??), MobiTV, PDF Viewer, RSS Reader, Smart Search, Speed Dial, Task Manager, and Office Mobile. Whew! Some of these just run when you open a PDF file or a Word doc or a Java app, some need to be run. A bit confusing. There are also a  bunch of apps not in "Applications" including "My Stuff" which is like a File Explorer that doesn't show all of your files. The browser works well but i suggest selecting View and shifting it into Full Screen mode. Interestingly AT&T music takes me a folder with eight other different apps in it. Oy!

I heard it has GPS but I can't figure out how to turn it on or do something with it. Any clues, folks?

I was pleasantly surprised when I landed in Tokyo on Monday and the phone worked. I set the sync to "manual" so I could limit the data charges but otherwise I was good to go unchanged. Windows Mobile warns you of data charges when you try to sync when roaming - handy.

In general the battery life is pretty good. I am definitely getting more than a day of use out of it. The call quality is eh - the audio sounds a bit compressed without much high end. I wonder if anyone runs these things through a "golden ears" test like they do headphones. Speaking of headphones this works with Bluetooth headsets if you are into looking like a geek.

So where do I end up with the Samsung Blackjack2? Well, it looks cool, and aside from the extra app goo, the eh call quality and the funky power connector this phone is a good step forward, especially if you are connecting to Exchange.

Comments

[Paul]

If you hold down the silent button for a couple of seconds, it will switch to the silent profile. The GPS is activated by the software that uses it. I use Live Search and Google maps and both work well with the GPS.

[Paul]

If you hold down the silent button for a couple of seconds, it will switch to the silent profile. The GPS is activated by the software that uses it. I use Live Search and Google maps and both work well with the GPS.

[sildenafil citrate]

Windows Mobile warns you of data charges when you try to sync when roaming - handy.