The Samsung BlackJack (aka i600N series on back) is the first type 3G PDA-phone we've seen from the Samsung house, its a successor to the GSM-only i320N model from early last year.
Samsung Blackjack Design
When compared to PDA-based phones such as the extra-big Dopod 808 Pro, the Samsung BlackJack weighs in lightly at only 105 grams with the battery inc., and only measures a thin 11.8mm. Its got a bright 2.3-inch screen has a VGA resolution (320x240 total pixels) and is a landscape-oriented screen. The Samsung BlackJack doesn't have a touch-sensitive user screen or a stylus; it has a 4-way directional / nav button, softkeys and a thumb wheel to take care of the navigation.
Under the Samsung BlackJack's screen is a full QWERTY keypad with dedicated button for each key, in contrast to some dual-key QWERTY setups we've seen like on the BlackBerry Pearl and Sony Ericsson M600i. The Samsung BlackJack keyboard will be too small for those with big thumbs and we found ourselves occasionally hitting the wrong key by accident cuz there close together
The Samsung BlackJack, as its name suggests, is entirely black coloured, except for the silver nav-key and camera mirror on back. Samsung also has changed the number keys on the BlackJack's keypad with grey buttons rather than black. With special characters sharing the small button space, it's a cluttered-looking but usable keypad.
Samsung Blackjack Features
The Samsung BlackJack runs the smartphone v. of Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0, which enables push to e-mail -- the instant sending of your e-mail to your mobile device -- and synch of Outlook contacts, Outlook calendar and tasks with all things Outlook or even Entourage. You need to have a e-mail account on Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 (with SP2) at your work place or home office to get this setup working.
Unfortunately the Samsung BlackJack doesn't let you edit MS Office docs; but you can view other formats like MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and Adobe PDF. That's not to say there's a shortfall of apps on the Samsung BlackJack. You'll find Internet Explorer for Internet browsing, an RSS reader for online news feeds, Solitaire the classic game and new Bubble Breaker games and a good range of organisation apps like simple notepad, counter stopwatch, cash convertor, full voice recorder and round the world clock.
Like the recent Palm Treo 750, the Samsung BlackJack does support high-speed downloads up to 1.8Mbps over 3G networkds, subject to network said limitations, but it's not all about business with the Samsung BlackJack. Windows Media Player 10 Mobile is included to provide some nice entertainment during downtime. Other Supported music and video file formats are limited, but still include standard MP3, WMA and WMV. Third-party applications can be installed for other formats.
A basic 1.3-megapixel camera takes stills and up to one hour of sound-enabled motion video at a time. There's a microSD card on the side which supports sized cards up to 512MB; otherwise there's a base of 35MB to 42MB of user accessible internal memory and 128MB of flash ROM.
Samsung Blackjack Performance
As a mobile messaging device -- the screen when you turn the Samsung BlackJack on says "The Utra Messaging" -- the only drawback here is the squashed keypad. We then found we often hit two buttons by accident and couldn't then type as fast as we'd have liked. But, Practice helps here and those with smallish fingers or long fingernails shouldn't have as much of problem.
For around $899 USD outright, the Samsung Blackjack has a customised BlackJackt, BlackJackov for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, respectively. The Vodafone and Optus versions have the dual cameras and support Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), whereas the limited Telstra Next G version has a single camera on the back and no Wi-Fi. and BlackJack
All Samsung Blackjack versions support high-speed downloads up to 1.8Mbps, but this is subject to network availability and of course capability (Optus hasn't rolled out HSDPA 1.8 yet, for instance).
We were sent the basic Wi-Fi-less Samsung BlackJackt for review so we can't actually vouch for the battery performance over wireless LAN. We then managed three to four days between charges with occasional use of email, SMS, voice calls and all organiser features. Samsung provides an additional long life battery in the Telstra pack and an additional standard battery with the other sales packs. (Battery life though, was pretty good)
As a total mobile device aimed at business users looking for a balance of work and play, the Samsung BlackJack delivers the goods to some extent. Provided you get used to the keypad, it performs well as a phone, PDA and good messaging device with just a handful of little things that deviate from an otherwise solid package.
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