Still a good phone

After going through a long line of simple cell phones, I grew up, became slightly more professional, and came to a point where I required a device that would allow me to check email, surf the web in a limited capacity, and serve as a media player when I didn't feel like carrying a second device. And it would be nice if the call quality was good to boot.

The Blackjack has served rather admirably in all aspects. So lets start with the bad stuff:


LAYOUT
The layout of the keys is amazingly bad. They curve slightly inward, they are too small, they are too close together, the surface is slippery, and the ones you actually use to input numbers are spaced with rows in-between them. Worse yet, these keys are differentiated by the others by being a very dark gray. As opposed to black. This makes learning to dial the Blackjack only slightly less tedious then the useless manual that comes with it.

Add to this an equally slippery directional pad that is far too narrow and too closely wedged to the soft keys and you get a frustrating learning curve. And even when you get the tricks down, you will endlessly find yourself opening and closing menus as you stay a millimeter over the impossibly confined surface. It is like the phone is punishing you.

On the plus side, the jog wheel on the side is well placed and easy to use, as is the handy return button directly below it. The power button is easy to operate when you want to but nearly impossible to activate by accident. And best of all, the micro SD card slot is located behind an easily accessible, rubberized flap instead of buried beneath the battery, like so many other phones, because engineers sometimes forget that humans will eventually use what they are building.


BATTERY
The battery that is shipped with the Blackjack is, frankly, unacceptable. In a cheap attempt to right this, Samsung shipped the phones with a spare battery and a plastic box to serve as a charger. And even with carrying that around, the battery drained so fast I found myself cutting phone calls short.

However, you can spend a few bucks and get a larger battery as well as an expanded battery door cover to accommodate it. And while this ads both weight and bulk to the phone, the new door lines up about flush with the protruding camera lens, so it isn't that noticeable. Ad as this nearly doubles the Blackjack's charge, it is well worth it.


UPDATES
About a month after I got my Blackjack, and update was released to the software installed on it. This was a year ago and I have yet to install it. I want the update, but I simply cannot find the week and a half it would take for me to comprehend the instructions: http://erms.samsungusa.com/customer/sea/jsp/faqs/faqs_view.jsp?PG_ID=557&AT_ID=83176&PROD_SUB_ID=558&PROD_ID=-1

This, right here, is why people pay an absurd amount of money for Apple products; they are easy to use. I don't mind jumping through a few hoops to update an operating system, but the procedure to do so is, in this case, akin to torture. It is like they are trying to keep it a secret.


EMAIL
The email program that comes installed on the device is useless. The problem is that you cannot change where email is saved to, and every profile you create automatically selects the device's internal memory. This means your phone fills up the first time you connect and then won;t download anything else. I end up routing all my emails to my Gmail account and checking them through the web interface.


THE REST
The video player is near useless and bogs the device down so much that it just crashes anyway, the audio player is bare bones (but does delivery good sound), the camera is rubbish but I am not a 14 year old girl so I don't care, and a ghost could leave a fingerprint on the plastic cover over the screen.


But enough of that. Let's get to the good bits:


BLUETOOTH
Fantastic. I never have an issue with paring any of my headphones to it and the signal is always strong. And while it does put a bit of a drain on the already anemic battery, the replacements battery handles the load well.

There is one drawback, and it is admittedly a rather large one. While transmitting audio over the Bluetooth connection, the phone is effectively crippled. Trying to slog through the menu system, which hiccups a bit under the best conditions, is like being drugged in a very boring room.


SPEAKER
This is a loud little phone. With the ringer set to maximum volume, I can hear it even on 14th street in D.C. during rush hour. I can hear it over an approaching Metro train. Quite handy.


CLARITY
Call quality is generally very good and the phone keeps it's connection well, and certainly better then most devices with an internal antenna.


SCREEN
Big and bright indoors, impossible to see in direct sunlight (but then again, what cell phone isn't?), with an impressive clarity and image quality.


FEEL
Even with the replacement battery, the Samsung Blackjack still has a good weight to it. Not so light that it feels cheap and balanced well. Combined with the thin rubberized coating over the back and sides and it provides a very reassuring grip.


And while my eye has been straying an awful lot toward the iPhone, I am still quite happy with my Blackjack one year in, and should be until Apple finally decides to install proper Bluetooth support.