Samsung BlackJack Smartphone (AT&T, Phone Only, No Service)

I have been a Cingular(ATT) customer for over a year. I live in Kansas and have used a Cingular BlackJack and a Sony Ericson 790A in geographic areas that Cingular insists have good coverage. Dropped calls and spotty service have always been a headache with Cingular but recently, and especially while using my Blackjack, the reception has been Horrible. Cingular's customer dis-service department gives conflicting and confused advice on how to troubleshoot reception problems and ultimately all of the many troubleshooting steps I took failed to improve the phones reception. They replaced the original phone with a refurbished model but still no improvment! I recently discovered that there is a firmware update for the blackjack but customer service never mentioned this during the dozen or so calls I placed to troubleshoot the phone. In any case the firmware update does not work with Vista and I use the phone to snyc my PIM data on a Vista PC. The BlackJack is a horrible phone BY DESIGN. Other phones I have used on the Cingular network are not much better. I travel between several cities in Kansas but even in major metro areas service is always abysmal. Cingular(ATT) refused to replace the useless blackjack, at their expense, with a model that works even though I paid $400 for the phone and i'm charged over $1400 per year in service charges. They know damn well that the phone is a lemon as you'll discover if you do some browsing on the forums but they simply don't give a damn.

STAY FAR FAR AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY. This company is a nightmare to work with.

The phone is great, its decently light, has a nice bright screen, really good reception, and if you use it without bluetooth it holds a charge for at least 2.5 days on the smaller battery. Can keep it in my pocket, it doesn't need a holster like all those PDAs. It is 3G enabled with blazing fast data download speeds, it was like looking at milliseconds on a stopwatch.

The interface though, totally sucks. I tried to transfer my contacts from my earlier Nokia phone, with Nokia its so easy, Copy to SIM, Copy to Phone. Here, you have to copy (to the phone) and delete (from the SIM) the contacts ONE BY ONE. Oof, I have 200 contacts, OK so I don't call every single contact, but hey, I always thought computers and automated went together.
Had a very difficult time getting the back cover off before I discovered a neat trick on the att backjack forum, see my discussion on this page.
Tried it with Microsoft Live Search and a bluetooth GPS device and worked fine except in midtown New York where I just couldn't get the GPS to latch onto anything.
Had to install ActiveSync 4.5 before could sync with my PC, the CD this came with had only ActiveSync 4.2 which I just couldn't get working, it refused to recognise the phone.

I have had a Blackjack for a month now and am very happy with the phone. I previously had a Pocket PC phone with a full slideout keyboard and almost never used it for replying to email or accessing the web, but with the Blackberry style keyboard, I find myself constantly using it to reply to mail and have used the web browsing several times.

A couple of minor issues, and this about the only 'less than perfect' aspects of the phone:

1) I carry the phone in my pocket and therefore use the key lock. To unlock you need to hit the power button on the top, the unlock key and then asterisk. A little clunky. (PS If you have it locked and the phone rings, it will let you answer buy just hitting the answer key).

2) The meeting reminders keep ringing until you dismiss them. It would be really nice if it defaulted to just one ring to remind you. There is prob a setting somewhere to address this.

Great phone for the price!

Yesterday I received the BJ, spent half the night plying with it (including pretty painful process of downloading and installing a new firmware), only to discoverer at morning two "features" which made me return it without second thought:

1. once paired with more than one BT device, it requires several steps manual setting to switch b/w them; i.e. it does NOT recognize and connect to a paired devise automatically (like my old RAZR, for example), and once you connect it to, say, an earphone, you'd need to manually re-connect it to, say, GPS or car BT, if needed - just to re-connect to earphone again!..

2. speaking of car BT - it doesn't really work; well, it pairs with it, but doesn't support phone book synchronization - making the car BT unusable (try to find a contact in BJ while driving!); bewteen my 40K car and BJ I chose to change the phone ;) again, with my RAZR the car BT worked perfectly fine; funny thing - while googling for solution I found out that this is a well-known problem - and people are waiting for SAMSUNG to fix this since 2004! what a shame...

I recognize bluetooth problems might not be that important for others, but to me lack of such a basic functionality is ridiculous - it's like buying a luxury car to discover it doesn't have a radio installed... For me it was a show-stopper... bye, BJ!

So far this phone has been stellar. I can echo the previous comments on the sexy form-factor and the utility of the phone. After custimizing the home screen, my fiance' played around with it and insisted on getting one too. Easy navigation is a big deal for her, and the sidebar feature (push and hold the scroll wheel) - which is customizable, as is most of the interface on this phone - was a big selling point.

My phone came with the extended battery and cover included; that was actually a pleasant surprise. However be aware that it doesn't ship with a belt clip or case. You'll want to pick one of those up as well as a car charger and a microsd card.

The phone is light and sleek w/ the standard battery, but the extended battery gives it a much nicer feel in the hand. My fiance' actually prefers it w/ the extended battery in, and she's got a strong bias for small phones.

Of course it's not quite perfect. I have 2 major beefs w/ this phone:

1. No Wifi. This is extremely annoying because the SGH-i600 in Europe has Wifi, and it is essentially the same phone.

2. Battery life: not utterly miserable, I can go two days of regular use (texting, regular calls to the missus, minimal browsing) before the battery goes out. This is on par with my previous phone, the Audiovox SMT-5600. But it should be better, considering they did so much to keep the power low, all of which annoy the heck out of me:

-Proprietary USB cable

-Three button presses to unlock keypad (since the keypad is locked no user activity is anticipated and the device drops into a deep sleep mode. Power button wakes the phone from this state - that's my guess)

-No LED

-Default 10s till screen turns off

These things do work (and the last is customizable), but my previous phone had none of these 'features' and it still had generally the same battery life.

All in all this is a great phone for the smartphone newbie or geek alike.

Just switched from Sprint over to Cingular because of this phone. I had decent service at Sprint, however, I wasn't thrilled with their phone selection and when I noticed that Amazon had this guy for $25 bucks I couldn't resist; I was going to have to pay a ETF on two lines, but I looked at it as spending the money on getting the Blackjack and the LUC500 (which looks and functions great too).

Well, now that I got that out of the way here comes a breif review, I have only had the phone a few days so I have not had the time to fully look through the phone.

At first glance Positives:

1. Thinness and overall size (seemed larger in pictures)
2. Shipped with two batters (standard/Extended) both last longer than my Samsung A900
3. Lots of features
4. light weight

At first glance Negatives:

1: No wifi
2. ringers could have been better
3. Ringer volume control could be better, only 1,2,3,4, and Loud for settings (not loud enough)
4. I will keep my eye open for some more


I don't know what happened to P.Feng, but Google Maps and Google work fine on mine. I also put on a Java-based Sudoku game that works fine.

With the (included) extended battery, I get good battery life, calls are clear, signal is good. I tried out typing on a Blackberry Pearl and the Blackjack for comparison, and the Blackjack was much easier. I don't make many typos, but more than I would on a regular keyboard, of course.

The camera works well in good lighting if you stand still, if it's dark it's not so good. The video player works fine, I compressed a personal video to about a megabyte for a minute, it looks bad on the computer but on the Blackjack screen it looks pretty good. I won't give up my MP3 player for the music player on the phone, but it works sufficiently if I didn't have my regular player with me.

I didn't get the wired headphones in my box... don't buy them at Cingular because they'll charge you $20. Buy them online, much cheaper for the same thing. Either way, those headphones are not comfortable, and being used to the Shure's that I use for my MP3 player, the sound quality leaves much to be desired. I am going to try an adapter to see if the Shure's sound a lot better or not, or if the phone playback just isn't very good.

The Blackjack is very cute and slim. I'm a girl so i like those features. I love that it comes with an extra battery. But because that extra battery is larger it also has an extra cover which makes the phone a bit bigger from the back. It's not compatible with macs which totally sucks. I really really love it cuz i can get my e-mail in there and i never had that before so i'm in awe! It has all these cool features but i honestly dont use them. For example:
it has like videos that you can watch thru the internet, also internet music and some other things that i honestly don't use but it's still very cute!
overall i recomend this to GIRLS!!!!! Just cuz it's slim and it's fun to text on. & I know that ppl love to text. so go on ahead and buy it.

I've been using PDAs/smartphones for years. Prior to the BlackJack, most recently a Palm Treo 650, and before that, a Blackberry. Compared to the Treo, the voice quality and overall reliability are much better (doesn't reboot every half hour). If you're someone who talks on the phone all day, the BJ might be a good choice, if you don't mind recharging every day. Our sales people really like it. It's lightweight and has a slim design. The guys love it because it looks like a sports car. Internet access is much faster than on the Treo, but still a bit sluggish and limited. I'm a heavy email/text user, and I must say I miss my Treo (nevermind how much I miss my Blackberry!). The BJ keyboard is teeny, unintuitive, and there is weird spacing between the sequential number keys. Even after months, I'm still not used to it. The email text on the screen is much smaller than on the Treo, the contrast is much worse, and it displays fewer lines of text (boo!). The charger slot on the side of the device has The Flimiest Plastic Cover Ever. It was hanging on by a thread after just 2 weeks of use. In addition, the battery life is quite poor, and I don't even have Bluetooth turned on. I have to recharge it daily, whereas my Treo or Blackberry could go a few days between charges. If you know someone who has a BJ, make a few calls on it and send a few email messages to see whether it'll work for you. If the Treo were more reliable, I'd go back to it in a heartbeat.

I am incredibly critical of cell phones and this phone is great. The reason I give it 3 stars, however, is because it seems like Samsung is doing a ship/fix with this phone. The phone is shipped to the market, but now it's time for them to do some fixing. I've had 4 cell phones before this one to compare it to. 3 Motorola (SLVR L7, 2 other flip phones) and the Kyocera Slider. My most recent was the SLVR. I know some people love Motorola phones, but I can't stand the software problems that they have. Anyways, back to the Blackjack.


WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE PHONE:

Alarm Clock: I us my cell phone as an alarm clock because I'm a college student and let's be honest, I might not be spending the night at my apartment. Also, it is nice that when the phone is on vibrate the alarm is on vibrate as well. I've accidentally set alarms for PM instead of AM and it sucks when you are supposed to be quiet and the Departed theme song ringtone I have starts going off. AND you can setup a schedule of up to 3 times to wake up each day so you can wake up at 8 during the week, 9 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday if you so choose.

QWERTY keypad: Again, I'm a college student and text-messaging in class is much easier with the keypad. Even when I'm not in class it's great. It also has predictive text for those who love that feature. I'm not going to criticize on the small keys because 1) HELLO! It's a full qwerty keypad. "Are the buttons going to be to small?" "Here's your sign". 2) All smart phones have small keys, that's the whole point of it being a small phone.

Thumb-wheel: WOW! I have never had a thumb-wheel before and it ROCKS! Quite possibly the coolest thing there is as opposed to a directional pad.

Weight: It is almost the same weight as the SLVR, but feels a million times lighter because of the size/weight ratio.

Camera: I don't care what anyone says, cameras on cell phones are all bad. None of them compare to an actual digital camera at all. However, this one is the best I've seen. The camera on the SLVR was awful in my opinion and the Blackjack tops that easily.

Truly quiet vibrate: How many other people can hear their phone vibrate? The Blackjack is actually quiet when it vibrates. It's annoying (to some people it's embarrassing) to have your cellphone heard in class. You might as well not have it on vibrate.

Different Skins: I didn't like the original theme/skin when I first got the phone. I switched it to another style that looks much cooler.

Voice quality: The quality of the call was a million times better than the SLVR and much louder. I always had the volume full blast with the SLVR and could barely hear. With the Blackjack, I could hear everything. Even in a noisy bar (again, college student) I could here everyone.


Now for the bad stuff.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THE PHONE:


Alarm Clock: The snooze feature is faulty. It just keeps going off. The point of a snooze is to get that extra 5 or 10 minutes of sleep or whatever, not to get out of the shower to your roommate pissed that your cell phone alarm keeps going off. When the alarm goes off, there is a message that asks to dismiss the alarm or snooze. I hit dismiss and 5 or 10 minutes later the alarm goes off. You have to go into the alarm settings and disable the alarm for it to go off. That's just ridiculous. I searched to find a fix online and everyone basically said don't use the snooze feature. I'm sorry, but a feature is there to be used. Don't offer something you can't get to work properly.

Not easily Mac compatible: Ok, ya so it's a Windows phone, but seriously. There are Mac people out there too and the iPhone has about a month until it hits the market and it's bound to have a couple problems just like the 1st-3rd generation iPods did. There is a way to get it to work with iCal from what I hear, but it's not that easy of a fix.

Battery-life: I know I'm switching from the SLVR which possibly the longest battery life out there, but this was poor. There was even a fix found on CNET.com that has a fix for it, but that still is mediocre. It does come this an extended life battery, but you have to but the bigger cover on the phone and it's makes the phone bigger as well.

Signal quality: I have had Cingular for the past two years and know all the dead areas. The Blackjack made the dead areas larger. There is a building on campus that had 0 reception with Cingular (although Verizon works perfectly) and whenever I'm simply around this building I have no signal. The SLVR lost reception only when I was in the building.

Voice Quality: Nothing to big here except that when it windy, with the SLVR you could hear when the wind was hitting the phone and people on the other end couldn't hear you. With the Blackjack you can't tell because it doesn't relay that sound to the ear piece. Again, not a deal breaker but it helps for me.

There have also been a couple bugs with the software now and then. The phone locked up when I turned it on one time and I've read that this can happen from time to time (Once a month or less). The Blackjack has also had the little voicemail indicator on for the past 4 days and I haven't received any new voicemail. The software bug with the alarm clock, I can handle. But sporadic use causing bugs shouldn't happen. Being an electrical engineering major, I've done some coding and that's just not right. You don't release a product until you know there aren't any sporadic problems in it unless you are in beta testing. As far as phones are concerned,a that's just wrong.

Overall, I thought this phone was awesome. I love the setup both software and hardware. However, I still feel like Samsung needs a lot of work to be done on this phone. I am returning this phone for another Cingular model, but don't know to what yet. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated, but unless it's a smart phone I probably won't get it. Hope this review was helpful.

I have had my Blackjack for 5 months. So far it is my favorite phone. My two previous phones were the Cingular 2125 and the Treo 650.

I am glad to be back to a full keyboard -- I missed that a lot on the 2125, since I do more data input than actually talking on the phone. It gets much better reception and the speaker is louder than on the Treo. I plan to keep this one until they come out with one that has a better camera, a standard headphone jack, and gps. Waterproof would be nice. :)

Pros: While the keyboard is cramped, I am able to use it effectively, especially with text prediction. The signal is better than most PDA-style phones I have used. With the extended battery it is not so thin, but the battery lasts me all day, even with bluetooth always on, listening to music while walking/driving, some text messaging, checking email every 15 minutes, and lots of calendar and task list input. I only talk on the phone about 60 minutes each month, but it is the only phone for our household (no land lines), and I have not had a problem.

Cons: While better than the 2125 camera, I don't know why they didn't put one that can capture more megapixels -- the technology exists. I would also like GPS in this phone -- similar smartphones have it. It is almost impossible to read the screen in daylight -- have to search for dark shade to use it outdoors. My biggest issue is that there is no standard 2.5 headphone jack. I cannot use earbuds, the adaptors seem to be hit or miss on getting one that works well, and BT stereo headphones are really heavy. For a phone marketed as part music-player, this seems downright silly!

But, I love my phone!

I purchase this phone for both my wife and I, and we both love them. Windows Mobile 5 takes a little time to learn to navigate, but is very versatile and functional. Reception and call quality are great, and pairing with a bluetooth headset was quick and painless. The screen is bright and crisp. There is no 3g in my area, but Edge works good and the speed is bearable for simple web browsing. Media player works well. Battery life is good with 3g turned off. This phone comes with both a standard and extended battery. With pretty heavy usage, I still have 1/2 battery power at night. 3g is said to really suck the power, though. Lots and lots of 3rd party software available to make this phone do pretty much whatever you want.

It's a love-hate relationship. I've lived with this phone for about 4 months now...

Simply, this phone is the best way to get your Outlook to synch with your corporate Exchange box--without carrying a phone that looks like it's from the 80's. There's no disputing that.

That said, it does have a LOT of quirks... Allow me to share some of the quirks with you. (Most of it is Windows Mobile 5 related.)

- Cannot run Java based Gmail client app.
- You CANNOT voice dial! (Unbelievable but true. Even with the $39 MS add-on software.)
- Saving new numbers using the phone's UI is incredibly painful.
- The directional key is tricky.
- Using "Profiles" to set ring level & vibration is also painful. You can't just press the side keys to increase the ringer level and enable/disable vibrate.
- The reception "bar" indicator is misleading.
- If you have too many applications open, things slow down!
- Getting ActiveSync to work thru Bluetooth is near impossible.
- Cingular makes it very hard (and expensive) for you to use this phone as a Bluetooth modem.

The basic phone functions that you took for granted are implemented in such a clumsy manner. Most of it is attributed to the Windows-like interface. Microsoft has had 5 revs of Windows Mobile and still, the killer-app (calling someone and receiving calls) is still so clumsy. It's simply unbelievable; no inexcusable.

Bottom line: Cheaper phones will do a better job of quickly dialing and saving new numbers than this device. But hey, I have to live with it because I need the seemless Outlook & Exchange integration.

I've been using my Blackjack for about 3 months now and I love it. Sure there are things I would change, but the Blackjack has come very close to fulfilling all my wishes.

Cons:

* The keyboard buttons are really small, but then I'm not sure how you could fit all of them on the phone if they were bigger. And I wouldn't want the phone to get any bigger.

* If you ever see an ad that has a number like this - "1-800-Big-Deal" good luck on figuring out the alpha-to-numeric translation. Haha. I had that issue not long ago. However, I think all smartphones have that issue.

* Lacks voice dialing via bluetooth headset. This one is big for me. I upgraded to the BJ from a Razr and really miss this feature.

Pros:

The list would be too long if I mentioned all the great features about this phone. So here are a few:

* Browser support is awesome! I can view everything, even Flash apps!
* VPN support. If you are corporate, 'nuff said. This rocks.
* Easy bluetooth setup and management.
* Perfect size for a Smartphone. Not too wide and very thin.
* Glass screen (doesn't scratch) and screen resolution is unbelievable.
* Quick toggle scroll button on side is a life saver.
* Extended life battery comes with the phone.
* Easy side access to SD card. No having to slide the battery off to remove or replace.

There are a ton of great things about this phone. I hear the iPhone is supposed to be the real deal, but until I see for myself, I'm sticking with this beauty. Buy one. You won't be sorry. I got mine for $75 with a $75 rebate. Free? Can't go wrong which ever way you look at it. :)



This phone is a great corporate phone. It is the best windows mobile phone currently available, in my oppinion.

They overlooked a few features:
-There is no LCD light to tell you its charging status - instead the screen has to be on all the time.
-There is no way to know when the num lock key is on - so you just have to press a number key and see what comes up.
-In order to unlock the phone, you have to press the on/off button at the top of the phone, which is not in a very convenient location.
-The track wheel feels pretty cheep.

this has a nice wide color screen with amazing clarity and picture quality. Syncs to Windows PC and MS Office with ease. Great feature is the off phone battery recharging and the included second battery. Having one battery to recharge and using the other until the phone dies should keep the life of the battery longer. Not having to worry about plugging in to recharge is totally awesome. Nice to see this feature return. When cellphone first came out this was a standard feature, then it was optional, then it was gone. Get the extra long life battery if you plan to use this as a video or MP3 music player. Video conversion is a bit spotty and frustrating. Many videos will convert and then not display. Music is no problem. Any MP3 or MS Windows media player audio format will play. Convert is easy with Windows Media Player 10 or 11. Sorry Win2k users (forget NT or Win9X or Me), video conversion is not available on any MS OS older than XP and Windows Media Player 10 and 11 are only on XP. Get a MicroSD card and put your music on that card and you can play it from there. Pictures can also be stored on the SD card or in the 64Megs of internal memory. Since this is a MS Smartphone, there are lots of 3rd party software and games for this phone. Be aware of the aspect ratio, this is a landscape display and not portrait. If you get games or applications for it be sure of the aspect ratio. This is a 240H by 320W display. Size your pictures to the display and you will be happy with the clarity and sharpness.

The thumbwheel is great for navigation and web browsing.

Niggles:
1. Camera is slow and not very clear, but none of the camera phones I have seen are very good either.
2. need more ring tones. The ones that come with this phone are lame at best. Download or create some of your own.
3. Need more menu choices. The ones that come with it are OK but take some navigation to get around.
4. Hate the Cingular activation policy and cost for the internet access service (but that is not the phone's fault so maybe I should not list this complaint).

I wish I had purchased the new Treo 750 palm Treo 750 Smartphone (Cingular)or the 8525Cingular 8525 PDA Phone (Cingular). Here are the cons to the Blackjack:

Cons:
1. The phone takes 10-15 seconds when I press Contact List for the list to load. I confirmed this with another fellow user at Spring VON 2007 last week. Can you imagine what it is like to wait 15 seconds while driving or trying to get a name. Engineers have 100 contacts. Users have 1000's. When people ask me why I do not recommend the phone, I tell them to watch, press contacts, and hold the phone up to them. They are usually tired of watching by the time the contacts load. Samsung tech support acknowledged this is a problem with the phone.

2. Windows problem: When you type Jim or Bill all kinds of names come up. Even though Blackjack has a full key pad the software thinks you are typing numbers not names so it brings up abc letters associated with dialing "1" if you are typing a, b, or c. Ridiculous! Must have been designed by an engineer.

3. I can not view Youtube views or blip.tv or dave.tv or brightcove videos on my Blackjack. Even with Adobe Flash lite 2.1

4. The Blackjack is slow going from one program to the next. I think the Blackjack has a software hardware integration problem. Sometimes you have to wait 10-15 seconds until you can access the phone to get to Call History for example. The phone is busy waiting for another program to finish up.

5. Often the phone will go off line and you can not get on the internet. It requires rebooting. Others on line have complained about it.

6. Battery life is like having a flashlight that dies before you get to the end of the trail.

7. I figured out the ActiveSync problem after days of effort. Also loading contacts was wierd. I first had to uncheck contacts, load all the other information, then check contacts and load it. I found this hack ona forum. Samsung tech support have not a clue about the hack issues.

8. The screen is really too small for heavy email use.

9. The key board is too tiny for lots of use.

10. There is no WiFi on it - a must, WiFi dramatically changes your experience of using a Smartphone or PDA

11. It does not come with a headset and the headset you need has a special jack that is only fits in the Blackjack.

Pros:

1. It is small and fits in my shirt pocket - replacing the pens!

2. Cingular provides the service and it is 3G.

3. A new version of MS Smartphone operating system is around the corner I heard which will allow me to edit Word, PPT Decks, and Excel.


The phone is gorgeous, and the buttons are easy to type on. The only downside of this device is the Windows software. It sort of reminds me of Windows 1998 - limited error messages and a very buggy version of Internet Explorer.

Here's an update now that I've had the phone 3 months. I should have given it 3 stars not 2, but I can't change it.

To upgrade your phone to 3 stars too you must do the following -

1. Follow all of the battery-extending advice you can find. Turn the brightness down, disable email synch in the evenings, turn off beaming, turn off bluetooth, limit the backlighting, use the extended battery, switch to Edge instead of 3G. If you do this your battery life will be 3 days instead of one.

2. Gripe - you cannot edit tasks with this phone, you can only change the title. This sort of bugs me because I use tasks a lot in Outlook.

3. The alarm is buggy - the snooze sometimes keeps going. If you have a sleeping S.O next to you they will be annoyed when you head to the shower and your phone keeps beeping.

4. I got a headphone adpater off Ebay for $5, now I can plug the MP3 player into anything. It still annoys me that they didn't put a standard headphone jack on this thing, the adapter is one more thing to carry around with you.

The rest of my review still stands, and Windows Mobile is still terrible.

My original review:

I've had this thing for two weeks. Coming from the Blackberry 8700c, this phone is a big disappointment. Work issued this and took away the Blackberry and I'm stuck with it. All I can do is whine on the Internet, so here it goes.

The more I use the thing the less I like it. Here's my list, good and bad.

* Battery life - attrocious. Use the extended battery, throw away the standard one. Trust me. Grade: D.

* Navigation - cumbersome. The keys are too small, the 5-way nav with buttons get pressed accidentally. Workable if you don't have huge hands. Grade: B

* Windows Mobile - I hate it. Why do applications not quit when you end them? Instead they stay memory resident and you have to manually cancel them using the task manager. The menu is pre-loaded with goodies to buy from Cingular, how convenient. Grade: C+ if you bother to learn the shortcut keys.

* Java is broken, Google email doesn't work. Maps DOES work with the new version, thankfully. Grade: C.

* No standard headphone jack. HELLO?? This is suppose to be an MP3 player, right? Somebody explain to me why this is OK. Grade: F.

* Phone quality - Grade A. Yes, they did something right. The phone works great, reception is great, speakerphone is great. Bluetooth is great.

* Outlook & email - This is workable, but difficult. You can write an email, you can edit your schedule and tasks, but it's not easy. If Blackberry gets and "A" (and it does), Blackjack gets a C. It doesn't synch notes, so if you're an Outlook Notes person you're just left out, sorry. Why??

* Hardware quality - Very good, B+. The thing really feels solidly built. The screen is vibrant and attractive. The camera seems to work fine, although I may use it twice per year.

In short, if you really want to get work done on your phone get a Blackberry. If you want a phone that does a lot of things poorly but looks nice, this could be the one for you.

After owning 3 Blackberry's over the years, I made the switch to the BlackJack because of the camera and the ability to add memory. Compared to the Blackberry, the Microsoft operating system is very cumbersome (for me) and was somewhat frustrating to set up initially. On the plus side, the Blackjack has good battery life, the screen is excellent and it has the best reception I've ever experienced. The reason I only gave the phone 2 stars is because after just 3 months of moderate use the ink (ie: the numbers) began wearing off the keys. It's to the point now where the phone is pretty much unusable, especially when it's backlit. I called Cingular first, who passed me on the Samsung where, after 2 hours on the phone, I was told that my only option was to send the phone (my primary source of communication) to their service center and wait 3 weeks. To my surprise, they went on to say that, at their discretion, they might also charge me for the repair. I've read comments on these reviews were people complained about service and I always just assumed they were exaggerating but now that I've encountered this, I do feel it's worth considering.

If you're thinking about a Blackjack, I encourage you to be aware that, for one, the ink may inexplicably wear off the keys, and, that you may well be on your own when it comes to service. I feel that it's reasonable to expect a device as expensive as this to remain functional for at least 3 months and if not, the company who sold it should assume responsibility for making it right.


This review is for those of you debating the merits of the Blackjack vs. the Blackberry Pearl. First off this phone has the best web surfing i've seen so far on a small device. It uses IE as its browser and you get the whole web page as you would expect to see it on your desktop computer. I did find a few sites which hobble their content such as Schwab but then it gave you special pages with charts that you couldn't get on the blackberry. Navigating is fairly easy using the scroll wheel. Occcasionlly I noticed a few glitches. Images were nice and sharp. The Pearl on the other hand gives you the web page all broken up. Photos were nice but graphs and images rather fuzzy. In terms of phone quality the Blackjack has a high quality speakerphone which was superior to the Pearl and overall sound quality on the handset was slightly better on the Blackjack. The Pearl's great strength is much better email system that is easy to use and delivers the mail to you and it's there. And it's easy to manage. I also found the operating system of the Pearl to be easier to navigate and to be more elegant. In terms of styling the looks speak for themselves and it's a personal choice. The Blackjack comes with two batterries and even with it's extended thicker battery it has a nice feel and is not bulky in the slightest. The blackjack's headset is annoying in that it uses a proprietary plugin where the battery charger plugs in which means you can't choose your own headset. I was somewhat disapointed in the game selections for the Blackjack but I'm sure this is a temporary situation. What else? One big con for the Blackjack which may not bother some is that the radiation level for data appears off the charts in comparison to other phones. I think this is because it's a 3G phone and the bandwidth demands mean a lot of wattage coming out. I think the designers were aware as they seem to have made an attempt to redirect the radiation out the base back of the handset. This means the amount of radiation going into your ear may be lower. But of course you still have to hold it when you're surfing. It's just something that people should be aware. of and not necesairly bad. It's the reality of wireless. I just wish manufacturers would focus on a solution. The Blackjack keyboard is very nice. The keys are a little small but not too bad. Overall a nice phone and I'm really on the fence as to which phone to use. It coes down to whether you email more or surf more.

I've had this phone for about 2-3 months now. I really like the email/internet/keyboard features. What I didn't like was having to purchase the memory card and headphones seperately. This added quite a bit onto my investment in the phone. The phone I received also has some kind of glich when searching your contacts list. If I am searching for "kerry" in my contacts I type in "K-E-R-R" and it brings up not only "Kerry" but also "Jimmy" and "Kristen" This should not happen as I am typing with a keyboard and not the number keys. This issue is really annoying. I've read through some bulletin boards online and saw that several other people have had this contacts issue as well.

Only other issue I've had is a couple times the battery has been completely drained within a couple hours after charging, even when the phone is not in use. I have to take the battery out and put it back in and recharge it to fix the problem.

THe phone is impressive looking though, and I like the mp3 feature. The camera is also impressive.

As long as you dont need to edit files this is the one you need.. I tried the Palm the Crackberry and Blackjack... I have the backjack.

I've went through probably 4-5 phones in the past 6 years. I could never find the one to fit my needs. But the Samsung Blackjack has everything i could ask for in a phone. i have absolutely no complaints. Just grateful that I think I will be keeping this phone for a VERY long time.

When my company's IT department decided to lock us out of our webmail accounts, I went looking for a phone that would allow me to send and receive email for my side business. I read all of the reviews and went to the Cingular store planning to buy either a Treo 680 or an 8525. After holding the two aforementioned beasts, I realized that there's no way I would carry a phone that large - I'm not a utility belt type guy, I like a phone that fits in my front pants pocket, but doesn't raise eyebrows while there. After holding all three phones in my hand, I knew that the Blackjack was the one.

I was a little trepidatious after reading some of the reviews here, but the Cingular store guy assured me that I had 30 days to return it, and matched Amazon's price. So out the door I went with my new phone.

After using it for two weeks, I love it! It does just about everything my old Ipaq did and is an excellent phone to boot. My favorite features:

1) Email - that's what I bought it for in the first place, and the email feature works great with my POP mail accounts. Someone posted below about how it deletes your emails as soon as you have read them...that's only the case if you configure it that way. I initially hooked it up through outlook and outlook downloaded all of the emails from my pop mail accounts, emptying my webmail boxes. I have since turned off outlook, and set up the pop accounts on the phone itself. This way the email goes to the phone AND to the webmail boxes. I only keep the last three days emails on the phone, but an additional copy is stored in the webmail box, so I can log on to the internet to read them. I also have the POP email accounts configured to automatically check for new email every 15 minutes. Easy and very functional.

2) Internet - Cingular has a 3G network where I am and it is fast! The BJ has a great browser, which lets me surf my favorite sites from anywhere. The excellent screen makes the sites surprisingly readable, even though the text is small. The added banus, however, was how easy it is to use this phone as a modem. I can connect the BJ to my laptop with the USB cable, go to File Explorer>Windows>Internet sharing.exe and my laptop recognizes the BJ as a network device. Combine that with the 3G network speeds and I have a decent broadband connection on the commuter train!

3) Entertainment - I get bored easily, so I always need to be doing something. I used to carry my Ipaq with me all the time, just to have games to play in the checkout line. I stopped doing that years ago, but now I have the equivalent functionality in my phone (which I do carry everywhere). It took a couple of days to get used to the stylus free operation of the Windows Smartphone OS, but after a little playing, I found out that it can do almost everything my Ipaq could. I can read books using the free Mobipocket reader, and I have three novels currently loaded on. I can listen to music or watch videos. or (My Favorite), I can play classic Nintendo games. I was able to get the PocketNester application to work on the BJ, so now I can whip out Mario Bros, or Legend of Zelda or Tecmo Bowl wherever I am. Cool stuff! All this content requires more memory, but thanks to my friends at NewEgg, I was able to get a 1GB Micro SD for $13.

ABOUT THE BATTERY LIFE: A lot of people have complained about the battery life. Cingular included an extended battery and a new battery door with mine. The extended battery makes the device a little thicker, but not in an uncomfortable way. With the standard battery, the camera sticks out a little bit from the back of the device. With the extended battery, the battery door brings the back of the device flush with the camera. Still planty pocket sized. I've never used the standard battery - so I can't comment on that - but the extended battery gives me about 2 days of juice under normal usage (about 1.5 hours of calls, 2 hours of email/internet, 1.5 hours of games, phone on standby the rest of the time). I try to remember to plug it in every night, but when I forget, I have plenty of juice to get me through the second day.

All in all, I couldn't be happier with the device, I will list a few cons, though.

CONS:
- Nonstandard headphone jack. I'm used to it because my Ipaq did the same thing, but I really wish it had one!

- Three button unlock. I wish there was a better way to unlock the phone than having to click three buttons. Two would have been fine.

- Navigation (again Windows problem). Some of the features take a lot of work to get to, like the internet sharing.

- Lack of a clipboard - I really wish i could copy/paste (Windows again).

After researching the Amazon site for cell phones and reviews etc, I picked this phone. But I am reaaaally dissappointed..Here is why...
(1) The Battery dies very very quickly. I change batterries once in the morning and once in the afternoon !! maybe that is the reason this phone comes with an extra battery and a separate charger unit !! But this is a real pain ... the Low battery signal starts up after a couple of hours or so even when I have not used the talk time at all
(2) The PC sync is not as good as my previous phone. Has only default contacts list syn with MSOutlook, could not sync with a second Contacts list like ' Home Contacts' which I setup on my MS Outlook.
(3) Cingular and Amazon forced me to a minimum monthly scheme of $80 per month ( 39.99 for voice and 39.99 for data) and for 24 months
(4) The Office email server setup never worked for me
(5) The wake-up alarm system seems to have bugs and did not work - maybe related to batterries but wierd
(6) I find tha AMAZON return policy to be very difficult so have to deal with this now !!



Hi.. I normally never write a review for any phone.. I like to enjoy reading reviews... but I couldn't help myself form writing a review for this phone... First of all.. this is a superb phone.. awwsome phone whatever you want call good for it.. this phone rocks .. blah ... blah .. and if you know how make things work, this phone is really gr8 than any other phone in the market till today.
1) This phone looks gr8.. Very slick .. light weight and battery life is good ... (it comes with a spare battery for people who want to use internet 24 hours on this phone...)
2) yahoo... gmail and company emails works really awwsome...
3) yahoo, msn and aol messenger works like a champ...
4) Internet like google maps works gr8... I heard someone said it doesn't work.. but sorry to say that buddy it works..
I know I know.. You wanted to know how to make these things works.

First of all this phone only comes with cingular so.. you need to have cingular or need to switch to cingular...

Then sign up for any plan which suites your needs for voice call...

But heres is tricky part... You can get max 200 message bundle from cingular which cost only 19.99 for a month... which is gr8.. since comes with 200 any types of messages like SMS(Normal text messages) , IM (yahoo msn and aol chat.) and MMS (picture and video messages) .. I know this is really small no for people who use chatting all the time..
But good part is it also comes with unlimited media net uses which you can use to check email and browse internet.. get driving directions...
etc...

Once you have enable this feature on you phone.. All you need to do is..

Install IM's using preinstall installer for OZ for all three IM...

Then install yahoo go to check yahoo mails.. and all other yahoo features...

Then tricky part is google.. You can setup google mail pop account .. on the phone.. you can find instruction of there pop and smtp servers information... anywhere on the web.. But before you do that you need to enable pop for all messages or messages from now onwards from setting in gmail account... otherwise gmail will keep asking you for your password on your smartphone.. samsung I607... blackjack..

And for you company emails you need information for your company exchange server...

If you have any problems and would like to get help setting these things on your phone.. please do some googleing before you contact me.. But if you don't get it.. don't worry.. Email me and i will help you...

Hope you enjoy this awwsome phone...

These are some tricks for this phone.. like if you hold home key.. it will take you to task manager like on any other windows OS you select run and then enter taskmgr and enter.. or after ctrl+ alt + delete and then task manager..

Also there is code to enter into admin part of this phone.. you can find instruction on internet...

I bought the BlackJack a few weeks ago and am having a terrible problem with dropped calls in the Los Angeles area. Happens when I'm driving, when I'm stitting still in my office, any time of day. What makes this even more frustrating is that once a call is dropped, the phone loses it's ability to make ANY outgoing calls, and I have to power it down and turn it back on again. Spent last weekend in two Cingular stores and on the phone with Customer Service and after I got a new SIM card and did a hard re-set, the best advice they could give was to exchange the phone (which is a pain after I spent so much time to set it up). I agree with a previous review that the Cingular people as a whole have NO CLUE how to support this phone - *extremely* frustrating. I have a theroy that the phone is more advanced than the network, and we're just going to have to wait until it's done being "built" before the service is solid (the same thing happened with the BlackBerry a few years ago when I got it). Of course, no one at Cingular would say that...

I bought this phone because of its advanced features and Windows based applications. I ran into two problems that after 25 calls to Cingular could not be esolved and I had to returrn the phone. 1) Cingular does not have the expertise to support this phone, 2) The e-mail feature is ridiculus...one must buy a special service for the e-mail and then once an e-mai is read, it is deleted. Every 15 minutes, the user must send/receive to get new e-mails. Once, the user receievs the new e-mail, all old e-mails are DELETED, even from the user server (i.e., gmail, sbc, etc.). The amazing part of this is that Cingular agents don't know about this and it took me a month and more than tens of hours on the phone to find out about this deficiency. There also seems to be a total confusion at cingular on what service one needs for the phone and at what price! Other features are excelent once the user gets them working!

In some ways, it's a great phone - the screen is BEAUTIFUL and the storage of films and audio are great. But those are extras - in what you basically need, it often is terrible.

To search a name, I push the CONTACTS button. If I want "TODD" I used to hit "T" and my old phones would all jump to the T section. On this phone, it jumps to the first name with a T anywhere in it! Like sTeve or lesTer! Argh.

When I get a call from a new number, I push SAVE and store a name next to it. When you go look in your contacts, the name is often NOT there. It may appear in the contacts 3 or 4 minutes later (huh?!?) or not at all. Psycho!

There are various ways to configure the front homescreen, but you OUGHT to be able to put what you want on there - this is software, dumb software - and there should be more control.

I am new to the smartphone universe and I'm wondering how I ever got along without one. At the time of this writing I have owned my BJ for only 24 hours and I am having fun learning how to stay organized, play my favorite music, and actually hear people who call my phone.

The quality on the external speaker is excellent. There is zero distortion of music as it comes through the speaker which is on the back of the phone. I love the fact that you can play music between calls and there is an option to have the music continue where it left off after you receive a call. Phone reception is the best I've experienced in a cell phone, ever. I noticed right away that I could hear callers much better than I could on my Motorola Razr; that is a big plus. The speakerphone option is also an added bonus and it too is crystal clear.

WINDOWS MOBILE 5 was the selling point for me. You don't need special software to get your favorite music, email, or organizational tools. It's already on your computer and all you have to do is load the Samsung Blackjack disc that comes with your phone. I reccomend getting this done right out of the box. Then all you have to do is perform your initial synch to set up your Outlook Calendar and contacts. There are also a few trials on the disc that may be of interest, like NotepadSynch so that you can save the notes you write yourself on your BJ onto your computer hardrive. Windows Media 10 on your PC is already set up to interact flawlessly with BJ media so programming music favorites is a cinch. I had no problems loading songs to my phone and its fast! You can also have a lot of fun using the Song ID. It will "listen" to a song as you play it from your radio or computer and allow you to store the artists' name and song info---how kewl is that! Warning, this feature can be quite addictive.

I really like the camera quality on this phone. I was so frustrated with the Razr camera I just stopped using it altogether. Now I am looking forward to taking pictures and using them with CallerID. My only hangup is the fact that you can only access the camera via the START menu. There is a video feature but I do not plan to use it much as there is no flash on this phone.

I don't understand the complaints. Maybe the Blackberry people are writing them. But the Blackberrys I looked at were too big. The Pearl was bigger, the Q was bigger, etc. This phone is light but solid.

Coming from a Razr, it is easy to love this phone. I needed a phone that would hold my contacts (over 4000), sync my calendar, do email (I have 4 accounts on it at once), and play music. Oh, and be a good bluetooth phone too so that when I get in my car I am automatically connected.

Blackjack does all of that and much more. It does it in a very lightweight, thin form factor that has a great screen. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of what this phone can do.

Since I use ACT! (the older 2005 version) which didn't support Windows Mobile 5.0, I bought companionlink to sync with the phone. It works fine and all my calendar and address book info is on the phone.

Pros: Small and light with a great screen and the ability to do what you need to do. 3G connection is fast for internet browsing.

Cons: battery could last longer - but they give you a backup, which I have only had to use once. I charge the phone in my car and at night when I go to bed. I use the phone all day, including email access, contacts, etc. It has not been a problem for me.

After 2 weeks use, device locked and lost all data. Simply put, get a Blackberry. Not ready for prime time, thanks for the false hopes Microsoft.

I have had the BlackJack for over 1 month now. I love it. I think that it's a great smartphone. Yes, it does lack some battery power but they give you a second battery for that. I don't find it to much of a pain to swap out the batter in the afternoon. I think I would suggest getting some kind of screen protectors to put over the screen to prevent scratching.

I had problems using this phone - so I called tech support multiple times and finally got through to level 3 support after 30 mins of waiting and wadding through crummy level 1 and 2 support. Here are some tips on using the blackjack for your info:
- To do hard reformat - turn off phone, turn it on holding to wheel's up arrow key. You will be prompted - click 1 and y to answer questions.
It's better than the soft "Restore Factory Settings"

- Where is task list? select organizer - task list

where is Unheard voice messages indicator ? look for 0_0 symbol on top of your phone

Press Right wheel 2 secs to get click list
How to update click list?
In Click list - select Edit folder, menu - add, click application, select applications and click OK to put tick marks on them - then click Add.

- In contacts, to use search, type in two or three characters (do not type one character). Eg. "Sam"

How do I stop desktop icons from changing? no way to do that
How do I update SIM contacts - don't bother. Manager your contacts in outlook and export to blackjack using active sync.

- your CD also has MITS Sync software- Wizard 3.0 that will allow you to manage contacts on your Samsung

- Holding Home Key done gives you Task Manager. Click menu, select stop all - calendar will still be running. If you have problems with anything running in blackjack, you can do the above steps to stop all tasks. For example, I was having problems with calendar alerting me about events that were two days out.

- you can use speed dial to short cut to any applications


I love this phone. The BlackJack is a lot of fun and certainly rivals all the blackberries out there, It's thinner and much more my style. The buttons are a little compressed but other than that it's a great phone for the price.

3G is so fast if you don't have 3G in your area move and you will thank me when you do.


Overview
I purchased this Smartphone after 3 months of research. My criterion was that it had to play music via Bluetooth, had to have a windows mobile platform, and had to be comfortable. This phone satisfied all of them for the most part.

There are a few cons to the phone, however; with the windows platform it will not be long until applications will come around to extend the functionality and fix problems. I'm a computer programmer and I'm currently working with the mobile platform to develop new programs with Visual Studio, hence the need for the windows platform. I can safely say that in the next couple of years we will be seeing some exciting new technology that will be developed with the new Smartphone and PDA's that run a platform like window mobile.

The blackjack is an excellent device to introduce you into the Smartphone/PDA universe. With Blackjacks features for Email (3 different options to receive email w/ this phone), Instant Messaging, SMS/MMS, ActiveSync & MP3 player capability it's my opinion that the Blackjack is on par or surpasses any blackberry.

Con Brief & Fixes

1) Music plays on the speakerphone if you have no ear buds.

First the music capabilities of the phone is excellent, however; if you do not want the entire world think that "you like big butts" when everyone hears your song "Baby got back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot coming from your Blackjack's speakerphone. I would suggest getting the wired ear buds or a stereo Bluetooth headset. After a little research I found out that if I wanted wireless music from my Blackjack I would have to have a Bluetooth headset that had a feature called Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) and if I wanted to control the music from a Bluetooth device I would need Audio/Video Remote Control (AVRCP). The Blackjack has both capabilities so all I needed to do is to find a Bluetooth device with the same. I found two that are not big headsets: LG HBS-110 and Sony Ericsson Bluetooth HBH-DS970. I bought the LG HBS-110, I just bought it when I did this review so I can't tell you 411 on it yet but I can say that both devices WILL work with the Blackjack.

2) The battery life of the phone is very poor

Come to find out the new G3 network from Cingular takes a lot of power to maintain. For a music enthusiast, like myself, I am looking for longevity when it comes to my players batteries. So I did some searching and come across a small little hack with the Blackjack that will turn off that G3 feature so the batteries can last for up to TWO DAYS in normal use. Let me advise you now, if you do not know what you are doing when you are in the settings of the phone. You can seriously damage your saved data on your phone or even lose it completely. So, I advise that you get in, change what you need, and get out. Do not experiment unless you are willing to lose your phones data. On the main screen of the phone type the following: *#1546792*# the admin screen will appear, scroll down to selection "3 Network & Call Settings" and hit OK. Next, scroll down to selection"5 Network Mode" and hit OK. Next, scroll down until you see "GSM" with a black dot next to it. Then, push the soft touch button with the word "Done" on the screen associated to the button. Now exit the Admin Settings by hitting the Home button (the button with a picture of a house on it) and you're finished. In a few seconds you should see the icons on the top of the home screen change. Next to the signal bars you should see a picture of an antenna instead of G3. This little hack should extend the life of your batteries tremendously. Also, by changing the Network Mode you should NOT lose any functionality from the phone, the only change should be the speed at which you send and receive data on the network. If you do experience problems, reset the network mode back to "Auto" by repeating the above steps; then start your troubleshooting of the problem.


I have had the phone for a week and I am returning it. Samsung really swung for the trees on this and the expectation was high. However no matter how good this phone looks on paper or industry reviews it simply fails to deliver. If you are a consumer that plans on using more then 75% of the features you will be disappointed. Here is why:

Lets outline what 75% feature usage means: Phone, addressbook, email (either POP or Xpress etc) some, Calendar, To do's and organization, a bluetooth accessory plus maybe 10% of the day on streaming content and/or the occasional web surf (which you need to setup and maintain email). First. you will get about 4 hours, maybe less of battery power until the phone is completely dead. Add the second battery that is bundled with the purchase and maybe you can make a phone call on the way home from work. If you are used to other PDAs or blackberrys, you will HATE the navigation through the phone. Excessive menus make it hard to find a command quickly. Plus the scroll wheel doesn't scroll like a blackberry, therefore you can't use it to select everything on the page.

Price for services is high.To get email,text messaging and have 'limited' streaming capability (meaning NOT HBO or XM) plus the basic phone package, will spend close to $150 a month depending on your personal preferences. While that might not be high for some, think about that plus cable plus home internet and then consider what your paying just to stay 'connected'.Even if you cut out the streaming content, cingular will try and convince you otherwise because while using the phone, its easy to stumble across a feature you are NOT paying for and get 'hit' with the bill at the end of the month. Cingular will not refund you for this under any circumstance. Look at the warning explained above in the product details: Warning: If you want to enjoy the full audio and video capabilities of your UMTS phone, please select a MEdia Max service plan option during checkout. If you do not sign up for a MEdia Max service plan option, you will be paying per KB when you use the over-the-air UMTS audio and video features on your phone (upwards of $10 per minute).

Functionality wise, the Keypad layout is difficult to see. The numbers and the letters are all the same size on very small keys so I found myself just staring blankly for several minutes trying to figure out where my character was. Not saying you don't get used to it but be ready to hit the wrong character several times because of the close proximity of the buttons. I never had that kind of a problem on my blackberry.

Additionally Samsung claims that the Balckjack can perform as a blackberry however, after I purchased it, I found it is not. You can communicate (limited) with a blackberry server, however you need to load a 3rd party client software on your computer and for it to sync your messages throughout the day the computer needs to be on and running. Plus any meetings and Tasks are lost completely. I really think Samsung should explain this better and I feel Samsung really wanted to release something big and crammed a whole bunch of features into a slim sleek package but never tested it with 'real' consumers with 'real world' type usage.

I'll finish up with what they did do right. The phone is beautiful. Perfectly designed, a nice weight and contrary to another review it feels like a quality phone. (Minus maybe the small keys and the disfunctional scroll wheel) The screen is maybe not as big as others but that was the point wasn't it? To make a smaller PDA phone. However, fyi, the streaming video comes in at half the size of the screen resolution. Earpiece is good and clear. Over all dimensions blow away all others except maybe the Blackberry Pearl. Cool, black RAzorV3 kind of finish. I would love to keep it if the phone actually delivered the functionality it needed to.

Overall, I agree with most of the comments already posted indicating that the BlackJack is nice.

Unfortunately, I came across one unpleasant surprise that you won't hear about until after you buy the phone.

You can not stream XM via the browser using your existing XM account.

In order to stream music via XM, you have to open a XM mobile account for an additional ~$9 a month. This is a disappointing as I was attracted to the blackjack with the expectation that I would be able to stream music with my existing account.

Called customer service to make sure that I was not just missing something and they indicated that they were getting a lot of complaints regarding this...


I was looking for a fast (3G) phone that had windows mobile on it so I could use it for streaming television from my slingbox. As much as I love my Nokia E62, it just doesn't take pictures, have 3G, and won't play my slingbox. So here's the lo down on the Blackjack:

PROS:
Small
Sleek
Black
Bright screen
fast broadband like speeds
3G for 400Kbps to 700Kbps (never really get it though)
full query keyboard
two batteries (you'll need them!)
Windows mobile 5.0 smartphone edition (watered down version of PocketPC edition
Able to watch slingplayer (until it froze which was often)
Nice camera with many options
Camcorder

CONS:
Feels kind of on the cheap side in construction
Both batteries give me less time than one battery on my Nokia E62
Screen is small (2.2" compared to 2.8" on the nokia)
freezes often
websites stall very often compared to Nokia E62
websites hard to read compared to Nokia E62
Couldn't get it to be a modem for my laptop even with customer support (Nokia was a breeze)
Cramped buttons
not much usable memory
Can't edit Microsoft Office docs (Nokia you can)
speaker phone not nearly as good as Nokia

Anyways, I'm keeping my Nokia, it would be perfect if it had the 3G, a camera and the symbian was a bit faster but I returned this as I am happier with the Nokia which is built much better with aluminum case, a much larger screen, longer battery life, better browsing and much cheaper.


This is a great smartphone by Samsung. I just got it a few days ago and let me tell you it blows my Nokia 6620 (also a Smartphone) out of the water. The phone is great. It has great reception, quadband, yadda yadda (why restate the specs when they are right up above this review anyways?!)

Battery life seems decent - I have yet to use the phone for a full day as I just activated it yesterday. Amazon.com fails to tell you that you actually get two batteries and an external charger/case for the second one.

The only problem I have with this phone are the buttons - and I'm not talking about the tiny qwerty keyboard; that's just fine for my fingers. I'm talking about the send and end button - the end is more of a problem. If you are doing anything with this phone while on a call with someone, be careful as you may accidentally hang up on them. The buttons should have been raised or something, and made a little smaller so they aren't touching the rocker pad. The back button does take a little getting used to as well. Sometimes you will expect it to take you to the last screen you saw and it will end up dumping you back on the Today screen - not a big deal but still a minor annoyance.

As far as the "number spacing" it's not a problem. Actually it's a feature. What Samsung has done with this phone is set 2 buttons on the keypad for every number (except 0, *, and #). The letter directly to the right of the number you want will also activate that number when dialing a number on the phone. You can even press down both keys at the same time and it will only register as one button press.

E-mail setup was a breeze. I am using the built-in POP setup for GMail, and I have Yahoo! Go also set to sync to the phone. The sheer number of applications available for this phone give anyone who buys it lots of flexibility and options. Just beware that The MIssing Sync still seems to have a few issues (not sure if it's with the phone or not - I can't sync my address book through it, cause of some retarded error).

Pros:
Easy to use
Comes with 2 batteries
Very flexible due to all the applications available for download
Look at the specs 'cause I am too lazy to list the rest.

Cons:
Back button takes a little getting used to
Send/End buttons are too easy to accidentally press.

I am giving this phone 4 stars due to the problem with the send and end buttons. I'm sure I won't always have a problem with this, but Samsung could have designed it a little bit better. All-in-all I am very happy with my "purchase" (well, I got the phone free, but I would still buy it if I wasn't offered it free [I know people are gonna hate me for that =P].) If you need e-mail on-the-go or just want an easier time text messaging - this phone is probably for you.

I am going to purchase a Blackjack as soon as my Nextel contract expires... I have been using an iPaq for a PDA. My question is... and this is directed to those who have used Windows Mobile before... - is the Pocket Outlook in the Blackjack the same as the Pocket Outlook in any other PDA using Windows Mobile?

I have a database loaded in my Ipaq that I can sort based on company names (in a list) and need to make sure I will not lose this functionality with the Blackjack.

Also... is everyone using one of the Media Bundles for their data service, or do you have to use Data Connect (which I think is more expensive and does the same thing)?

Thanks

I have to confess that this is the first PDA cell phone that I've purchased even though I work in IT for a living. I've resisted the crackberry for as long as I possibly could. But no more...

I did try out the Treo 680 and found it to be dated. I remember using the Palm OS back in the late 90's and the Treo is still using it. The Treo graphics weren't as sharp or crisp either.

So I ended up with the Blackjack. And I have to say that I'm really enjoying it so far. The battery life was an issue or so I've read but I've found a way around it. Just turn off the Bluetooth and you're fine. Bluetooth eats the battery. And while I work, I just keep the phone charged via the USB cable. I have not had a battery issue since.

That being said, the navigation controls are a little bit cramped. I do find myself hitting the wrong button at times. The OS is a little bit slow at times. That's life. Nothing is perfect and nor is this phone. But it's pretty darn close. I like the OS a lot. I found out how to drag and drop files onto my phone. I've got a 2GB micro SD card in here and listen to music at the gym with my phone. I love being able to tweat pieces of the start menu just by using Windows and the USB cable to browse out to the phone.

That being said, I'm very happy. I've ditched my PDA and I walk around with my contacts 24/7. Sending email from the road is a snap and I'm in touch more often than not. I'd recommend this phone over the Treo in a heartbeat. Can speak to the Blackberry but I will say the color on this phone is sharper than the Blackberry Pearl and 8730. I also can't say whether this phone is better than the Cingular 8525. It just looked too big compared to the sleek Blackberry.

I've had the Blackjack for just over a month now - and I love it. I've had several phones in my time, but this one takes the cake. Not only is the battery life great, but the phone came with an extra battery and a charger (for the second battery). If my phone is low on battery power, I just switch out the batteries! Obviously you can charge the phone directly as well.

The screen looks great and the camera actually takes great pictures (better than any camera phone I've owned before - even other 1.3 megapixel cameras). I highly recommend this phone. SamSung has really proved themselves this time.

I will say that the most annoying part of a cell phone is the latency associated with navigating the menus, browsing the web, etc. My razr is so slow to go through menus, to cycle through contacts rapidly, browsing the web is a chore. I get so mad waiting for the phone to react even though it only takes a few extra seconds it will sometimes miss key strokes and is just painful to use when it is so delayed.

The blackjack is not as bad as the razr and navigating the menus is pretty quick. There is occasional slow downs if memory is low and you try to do something that requires several menus to go by in rapid succession (for example ending a call and then quickly pulling up contacts to make a new call will take like 5 seconds). HOWEVER, web browsing on this clunker is very very slow. Even with 3G the latency is horrible. You can expect very slow responses when going through multiple pages/frames, etc. If you want to download large files, it goes very fast. If you want to browse the web as quickly as on a computer, the blackjack is no way going to make you happy and it is quite frustrating in the number of pages that have to be refreshed/reloaded in order to load since many times it hangs.
Using the Gmail app to check my Inbox takes about 40 seconds from main screen to seeing new messages but the amount of data (3G or EDGE or GPRS) is very small, the phone just can't process the data fast enough and the network's latency (or the phone's networking latency) makes this a very slow process.


This is due to the phone, not the 3G speeds. The phone just doesn't have the computing power to load web pages quickly and make browsing the web the same as on a computer with just a smaller screen. It also doesn't come with a flash player which makes many websites have problems.

Also I live right in the middle of Philadelphia and sitting on my couch I go from having 3-4 bars of 3G to four bars of EDGE even though I haven't moved. The 3G coverage is not consistent and the phone seems to pick it up when it feels like it.

I'll echo the two previous reviews. I love the clarity and brightness of the screen, and the many thoughtful features. It takes a while to get used to the tiny keys which are harder to use than the Blackberry or Treo products, but eventually quite usable. The scroll wheel is a big help and the back key really helps, once you figure out where it's likely to take you. The menus are NOT as user intuitive as they could be, however, and I hope they'll revise them in a future iteration/upgrade. They could have given more interesting choices in the included ringtones. One fabulously annoying thing: the LOUD whooshing sound they included for the "turn on" and an equally noxious sound for the "turn off" of the device. And all the other sounds can be changed or muted or added to, but not these. You just can't get rid of them and that makes it astoundingly embarrassing when trying to turn your phone off at a meeting or in a conference. This was simply stupid designing by some committee somewhere.

All in all, the best sound quality of any phone I've yet had; a great form factor which is easy to hold and deal with, and easy to use synching with Outlook --- if you have just your own computer to deal with. When dealing with Microsoft Exchange Server -- you're out of luck unless you have a great IT tech (as we do) who after an hour of fiddling, found a document by googling that gave a work-around so we could synch with our Outlook, Calendar, etc. However, it will only synch with your 'personal' calendar and since we've got a company wide calendar and a personal, it would be helpful if one could synch with two calendars as some phone/pda's can currently do.

I recommend the phone most highly.

All and all It's not a bad little phone, The sound quality is good, reliable reception in places where other phones drop out... but there are some bugs.

1. If you're going to connect it to a laptop to use as a modem via USB, beware it won't charge from USB and will deplete a fully charged battery in an hour or so. I'd shop for something else for this application.

2. Seems a little squirlly when switching between activesync and modem mode, or from 3G to Edge; sometimes I loose imap email connectivity, not sure what's causing this - maybe something I'm doing wrong, but can't find anything in the documentation.

3. Difficulty when connecting to websites that require a logon such as ebay or web email. For somereason it does something to the logon info. I'm still troubleshooting this too. Have heard others having similar problems.

4. User manual is pretty brief and sketchy, doesn't provide a lot of info like modem setup and troubleshooting, error codes. Samsung and Cingluar websites don't offer a lot of KB help either.

Maybe Samsung will fix some of these bugs in a future firmware release.

Otherwise it's a pretty slick little phone, the slim design fits easily into a shirt pocket, the buttons for answer and hang up are big compared to other keys and easy to answer. Nice little toy.



Plus points:
- Great form factor. Never thought I'd like a Samsung before
- Nice display. Will need a screen protector though.
- Stable. No crashes, no lockups yet.
- Bluetooth etc works without a single hitch
- Switches between 3G and Edge seamlessly
- Great sound quality. Also looks like there is better background noise reduction with this phone. (maybe a network feature. new vocoder?)
- very lightweight. Lighter than the Verizon Q.
- Decent camera. 1.3 MP with some cool effects.
- Barely feel it in my pocket. Awesome.

Cons:
- Top of phone gets pretty warm against the ear during a long conversation (scary)
- Wierd connector. Why can't Samsung go with a standard Mini USB?? Losers.
- No wired earphone/handsfree with the phone.
- Keys may be a little too close, for some people
- How about a GPS chip in the next revision?
- Can't enjoy the music unless you really get a stereo bluetooth headset.
-

Great phone in all, the shortcomings look more like trade-offs for the most part rather than defects. It is in my opinion a even call with the Q and if the Q came out on any other network besides Verizon, I would seriously have had a tough call between the two.


I have a Blackjack, and would echo the comments of the other reviewers that it is in most respects an excellent phone - although having coming from the Treo / Palm world, the Windows Mobile UI seems hard to use and confusing.

I just want to make clear, however, that this phone doesn't run Java based Google mobile apps like Gmail or Google Local well, and constantly asks for permission to connect. If you care about running Java apps like this which require a data connection, then until Cingular fixes this problem, this phone is not for you.



This is the first smartphone that I've owned -- and what a great introduction! Since my last phone was a RAZR, I was spoiled by the ultra slim form. With this phone, it fits just as comfortably in my pocket as the RAZR, but with 10 times the power and productivity.
The only thing missing? Wi-Fi connectivity, but it probably would have resulted in a bulkier phone.
Also, the phone didn't come with a traditional instruction manual, just a "Quick-Start" guide, so there has been a lot of trial and error with this phone, especially with regards to shortcuts and navigation. If you're unfamiliar with smartphones (like I was), it might take some time to get it all figured out. But that's been part of the fun!
Overall, a wonderful phone - superb sound quality, decent camera and just fun to use!

PROS:
-Thin
-Full QWERTY keyboard
-Excellent call sound quality
-Fast 3G internet w/ full web browser
-Plays Mp3s
-Micro SD slot for extra storage
-Alarm works even when ringer is silent! (Takes some tweaking and, Yes, this feature is a big deal)
-Comes with extra battery that can be charged without being inside the phone

CONS
-No Wi-Fi
-Battery drains quickly (still better than the Motorola Q from what I hear, but should be charged daily just to be safe)
-No 8mm headphone jack (Why do cellphone companies keep doing this!?)


I have had cingular service for a long time now. I have also had my fare share of phones, lately everything from a razor to a blackberry. I love the blackjack.

If you dont need all the extras stay with something like the razor.

If you are looking for a phone that can do just about anything go with the blackjack. I bought it after having a blackberry for a year. The blackjack blows my blackberry out of the water. It does everything my blackberry could do and more.

I use my new blackjack with my Mac and it works perfectly with the aftermarket software "the missing sync". I highly suggest this software if you are mac user with this phone.

All in all this is the best phone I have ever had with cingular.

Cingular has shown its commitment to the Windows Mobile platform in releasing the Samsung i607 BlackJack Smartphone. The BlackJack sports 3G data, superb voice quality, a full QWERTY keypad, a brilliant color display and Windows Mobile 5 with Direct Push via Microsoft Exchange, Service Pack 2. It's thinner than the Motorola Q, sexier than the Treo 700 and gets reception in the remotest of cell hell holes.

I've been getting near 1 megabit of bandwidth on Cingular's 3G network in the Little Rock, Arkansas market. The voice quality of this phone is on par with most other bar phones on the market today.

The only drawbacks are (a) it lacks full MS Office, and has a viewer package instead. I can't imagine how anyone could actually edit a Microsoft Office document on their PDA, however... I'd have to be pretty desperate and (b) no touchscreen, but uses a wheel instead.

It's about half the price Cingular is expected to charge for the Treo 700w, and has 90% of the functionality. Direct Push works beautifully from my company's MS Exchange server, and battery life is better than most Windows Mobile phones. Using the new (supplied) 3G SIM card, dropped calls from SIM card failures seem to be a thing of the past. I highly recommend this smartphone if your company is committed to the Windows Mobile platform.