This Jekyll/Hyde Phone Will Serve You Well And Aggravate Too

I'm an attorney, so my calendar is very important to me. I was looking for my first "Smartphone", something that would replace my PDA (an HP iPAQ) and my rather flimsy Motorola RAZER that had been dropped one too many times. The Blackberry phones available at the time seemed rather large to me, to I settled on the Blackjack.

The call quality and coverage was noticeably better than my old RAZR. The speaker phone is very robust and it was also the easiest device I've ever used in terms of pairing with Bluetooth devices. Call quality and volume are both excellent.

The Blackjack peformed very well in most respects, but it is far from perfect:

KEYBOARD/LAYOUT
I use the calendar and email functions quite a bit while I am in court, so the layout of the phone is pretty good for two-thumbed typing. One odd feature about the keyboard, however, is that the numbers are not grouped together. They are separate by a row of letters, but the number keys are gray. Dialing can sometimes require a bit of concentration.

If you sync your contacts list with a program like Outlook, dialing is a little easier the Blackjack will bring up choices based on a partial number or a partial name. The more you type, the shorter the list of possibilities to choose from.

One minor inconvenience deals with the lack of traditional alpha-numeric notations on the number keys. If I call a voicemail system that requires numeric input to pull up a name (i.e. spelling out a name via the number keys), I need to switch to a land line.

Navigation is easy enough with a directional pad or the job wheel on the right side of the phone.

The phone has a Micro SD slot on the side. With 64MB of internal memory, the memory card is a must even if you take only a small amount of pictures or want to play MP3 files. I used a 1 gigabyte card and set it as the default storage for pictures and software installation.

BATTERY LIFE
My phone came with two batteries. The smaller battery is worthless and even the larger battery only lasts a day. Charging the phone daily is a necessity. Between the 3G and the Bluetooth, the battery life is very poor.

The phone came with a wall charger, but charging also occurs when the phone is synced with your PC with the propriety USB cable. I am at my desk constantly throughout the day, so I am always synced up.

SOFTWARE
The phone is shipped with Windows Mobile 5. The installed software is a little sparse. It does come with necessary basics (i.e. web browser, task list, calendar, contacts, etc.). If you update to Windows Mobile 6, you can purchase Windows Mobile Office. The steps to upgrade are a pain and will take at least an hour, and that was with the help of Samsung. I tried upgrading to Mobile 6 as a possible solution to an ongoing problem I have with the Blackjack.

EMAIL
The email program is easy enough to set up and use. You cannot store emails on the storage card, so you should be careful to set the size limit on email downloads so that you don't use up all of the system's memory. Once the memory is used up, you won't be able to send any messages at all.

CAMERA
It is a one megapixel camera. It's okay in daylight or some website pictures, but not much else.

INTERNET
The 3G access is very fast for most purposes, but playing video and sound is next to impossible. Don't expect much there.

THE MAJOR GLITCHES
This is where I get to the love/hate relationship I have with my phone. When it works, it is a wonderful business tool for me.

In my line of work, my calendar is my life. I need to be in court on time and for my appointments too.

Every since the start of Daylight Saving Time, my calendar has been off. Sometimes the time of day is incorrect, off an hour either way. Sometimes my calendar entries are off an hour either way. It seems to happen on the 3G towers. I've had my phone replaced twice and the problem still persists. It also happened on the Blackjack that my wife owns. I've downloaded all the patches and spent a BUNCH of time talking to Samsung and AT&T.

They are finally upgrading me to the Blackjack II to see that fixes the problem.

To be fair, I cannot say for certain if it is a phone issue, a network issue or a defective SIM card. We'll see if things change with the Blackjack II.