Samsung Blackjack II Cell Phone Review - Hardware
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Alfredo Padilla Published on December 31, 2007 Comment on this |
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Keypad
Text Words Per Minute (10.44)
To see how good the Blackjack II's QWERTY keyboard is we calculate how many words per minute (WPM) we can type using two hands. As we've seen throughout the review the Blackjack II's keyboard is very good, we were able to type an impressive 52.2 WPM on it. This is at the high end of what we see from QWERTY keyboards, as you can see below it's the best score amongst our comparison phones. Heavy texters/emailers will love the Blackjack II's keyboard. We found that although it was a little small this actually made it easier as we didn't have to reach far for the keys. The buttons are also small but they are well differentiated with excellent key travel and tactile feedback when pressed. | Cell Phone | Words Per Minute | Score |
| Blackjack II | 52.2 | 10.44 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 34.4 | 6.88 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 49.8 | 9.96 |
| Palm Centro | 39.4 | 7.88 |
| AT&T Tilt | 49.95 | 9.99 |
| Apple iPhone | 39.6 | 7.92 |
T9 and Auto Complete (0.0)
The Blackjack II does not support predictive text entry as it lacks the standard keypad that makes that necessary. More disappointing was the lack of support for word completion, which could have sped up the already speed text entry.
One Hand Usability (6.40)
For those who like to type one handed we do our words per minute (WPM) test again using only a single hand to both hold the device and type. Like most QWERTY keyboards we saw a significant drop-off from using two hands, but on the Blackjack II it wasn't as bad because the narrower keyboard puts the keys in easier reach than on many QWERTY devices with wide keyboards like the AT&T Tilt. We were able to manage 32 WPM on the Blackjack II with a single hand.
| Cell Phone | Words Per Minute | Score |
| Blackjack II | 32 | 6.40 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 38.8 | 7.76 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 26.5 | 5.30 |
| Palm Centro | 26.6 | 5.32 |
| AT&T Tilt | 16.93 | 3.39 |
| Apple iPhone | 32.1 | 6.42 |
Keypad Backlighting (5.0)
The Blackjack II's keypad backlight does a good job of illuminating the characters on the keyboard, with even light across the keyboard. Although there were no specific settings for how long the keyboard backlight stays on the Blackjack II does offer you settings so it will only come on during certain hours. This might be useful for some, but we don't find it so. If you're in a dark place and outside of the hours when the backlight is supposed to come on you'll have to go back into settings to turn it back on. Unfortunately the Blackjack II lacks a light sensor to turn the keyboard backlight on as needed or any way to adjust the brightness.
Controls
D-Pad/Joystick (7.0)
The D-Pad on the Blackjack II is much better than the original iteration. The biggest improvement is that it sits above the surrounding keys, making it much easier to find by feel and reducing mistaken presses significantly. Like the T-Mobile Shadow the D-Pad rotates to act as a scroll wheel, but well get into that further below. The important thing to mention right now is that the rotating D-Pad does not significantly hurt accuracy when you simply want to press up/down/left/right. The center select key is slightly raised above the rest of the D-Pad and this makes it easier to find by feel and press, but it doesn't lead to mistaken presses at all. Travel and tactile feedback are good across the board. It's not as good as the excellent D-Pad's found on devices like the Treo 750, but it's a solid D-Pad. Touch Screen (0.0)
The Blackjack II does not have a touch screen.
Jog Dial (7.0)
The original Blackjack had a jog dial for quickly moving up/down lists but on the Blackjack II this has been replaced by a rotating D-pad that fulfills the same function. Although not as fast as a true scroll wheel it gives you 90% of the functionality in a much more convenient location.
Soft Buttons (3.0)
Unlike the D-Pad none of the other controls on the Blackjack II have been significantly improved in terms of usability over the original Blackjack. The soft buttons are located just to the left and right of the D-Pad but they suffer from a slick surface that your finger easily slips off of, lack of differentiation between the surrounding buttons and only average key travel and tactile feedback.
Volume Control (5.0)
The volume control on the Blackjack II is located on the left side of the phone near the top. It's a rocker switch that juts out at the top and bottom so you can easily find up/down by feel. We would have preferred a little more key travel and tactile feedback, but otherwise it does the job well.
Power and Standby (7.0)
The power button is located on the top of the device on the right side when looking at it from the front. The power button sits flush with the surrounding plastic so it's not easy to hit by accident. A single press will bring up a quick menu to switch profiles, access the wireless manager or turn the phone off. A long press on the button will turn the phone off directly. We found it did a solid job, it's not likely to be hit by accident but is still fairly easy to find by feel and use.
Other Buttons (12.0)
In addition to the buttons discussed above the Blackjack II has several other shortcut buttons that are useful, many with secondary functions. To the left and right of the two soft keys you will find the home and back button, which are found on all Windows Mobile Standard devices. They suffer from the same lack of differentiation that all the other control keys in this area share, however. The home key has a secondary function, when you press and hold it you will be sent to the task manager so you can easily switch to running tasks or shut them down. This is a nice addition made by Samsung as the Windows Mobile Standard platform lacks this functionality by default.
There are also several other shortcut keys found around the QWERTY keyboard. On the bottom left are shortcuts for the web browser and AT&T's video service. On the other side of the QWERTY are a silent button, camera key and messaging shortcut. Several of these buttons have secondary functions; pressing and holding on the video key will bring up power management settings while pressing and holding the camera buttons will allow you to zoom into parts of the display, an accessibility feature. Pressing and holding down on the messaging button will turn the display off.
There's one final additional button feature that the Blackjack II has. While on the home screen you can assign any program to the combination of the function key + a letter. This is a great feature that allows you to create shortcuts to any application you want, as such we are awarding two bonus points for it.
Display
Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.00)
Like most Windows Mobile devices the Blackjack II has a QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) resolution screen in landscape orientation. QVGA should be sufficient for most users, but we can't help but wish for a full VGA (640 x 480 pixel) display or even a half VGA display like the iPhone.
| Cell Phone | Resolution | Score |
| Blackjack II | 320 x 240 | 8.00 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 320 x 240 | 8.00 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 320 x 240 | 8.00 |
| Palm Centro | 320 x 240 | 8.50 |
| AT&T Tilt | 320 x 240 | 8.00 |
| Apple iPhone | 480 x 320 | 9.00 |
Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (8.34)
Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measure of pixel density. Higher pixel density screens have sharper edges to the items they display and richer colors. Lower pixel density can lead to pixelation and a washed out appearance. The Blackjack II's pixel density is pretty standard 166.7 PPI. You can see below that only the Palm Centro with it's smaller and higher resolution display is better than the Blackjack II. This pixel density should be sufficient for anyone but those with the keenest eyesight.
| Cell Phone | Pixels Per Inch | Score |
| Blackjack II | 166.7 | 8.34 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 166.7 | 8.34 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 164.6 | 8.23 |
| Palm Centro | 205.7 | 10.29 |
| AT&T Tilt | 142.86 | 7.14 |
| Apple iPhone | 164.8 | 8.24 |
Screen Physical Size (6.00)
The Blackjack II's screen measures 2.4 inches diagonal, which is pretty good sized. Most phones have displays between 2 and 2.4 inches diagonal. The AT&T Tilt and iPhone are the exceptions in this case with their 2.8 and 3.5 inch displays respectively. 2.4 inches on the .d should be big enough that you can view video on the device and enjoy it.
| Cell Phone | Size Diagonal (inches) | Score |
| Blackjack II | 2.4 | 6.00 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 2.4 | 6.00 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 2.43 | 6.08 |
| Palm Centro | 2.2 | 5.50 |
| AT&T Tilt | 2.8 | 7.00 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.5 | 8.75 |
Screen Brightness (5.35)
To test screen brightness we turn the display up to maximum and point the web browser to a blank white web page. We then use a lux meter from a couple of inches away to measure how bright the screen gets. The Blackjack II's screen measured 82 lux, which is decently bright. You'll note that a few of our comparison phones were much brighter but these are actually the outliers in this case, most phones fall between 50-80 lux. The Blackjack II's brightness controls are solid. You can control how long the screen stays on, including the option to leave it always on. You can also set the screen brightness to one of five different levels. There's no light sensor to automatically adjust brightness.
| Cell Phone | Brightness (lux) | Score |
| Blackjack II | 82 | 5.35 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 75 | 5.50 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 105 | 9.50 |
| Palm Centro | 54 | 6.90 |
| AT&T Tilt | 153 | 10.06 |
| Apple iPhone | 168 | 15.40 |
Screen Bright Light Performance (2.0)
To see how well the Blackjack II's screen handles bright light situations we turn the brightness up to maximum and shine 3000 lux of light on the screen, equivalent to a bright sunny day. The Blackjack II did not do well in this test as the screen was almost unreadable. We were barely able to make out some icons, but if you need to read anything you better go find some shade.
Color Depth (6.00)
Color depth measures how many colors a screen can display. The more colors you can display the more accurate photos, videos and other graphical elements will be displayed. Like all Windows Mobile devices the Blackjack II's screen can display sixty-five thousand colors. This is sufficient for most situations, but you'll note that some phones like the Nokia N81 are able to display up to sixteen million colors. In the case of the Blackjack II the limit is actually the software, not a decision of Samsung's as Windows Mobile can only handle sixty-five thousand colors.
| Cell Phone | Colors (thousands) | Score |
| Blackjack II | 65 | 6.00 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 16000 | 10.00 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 65 | 6.00 |
| Palm Centro | 65 | 6.00 |
| AT&T Tilt | 65 | 6.00 |
| Apple iPhone | n/a - unknown | 6.00 |
Ports & Storage
Power & Data Ports (2.0)
The Blackjack II uses Samsung's proprietary port for both power and data. We don't like proprietary ports, we would have much preferred a standard Mini or Micro USB port. As such we won't be giving out many points here.
Headphone & Jack Compatibility (4.0)
The same proprietary port used for power and data on the Blackjack II is also used for headphones. If you think we don't like proprietary power and data ports we dislike proprietary headphone jacks even more. The situation is made even worse by the fact that the Blackjack II doesn't come with a headset meaning, of course, you'll be dishing out even more money for a wired headset instead of using your own 2.5mm or 3.5mm headphones. On the plus side the Blackjack II does support wireless stereo Bluetooth headphones.
Internal Storage (2.0)
The Blackjack II has 256 MB of internal storage, which is more than sufficient for storing PIM data, emails, applications and even a few photos. Anyone who wants to store a lot of multimedia files should invest in a Micro SD card.
Expansion Slot & Format (8.0)
The Blackjack II has a Micro SD slot for expandable storage. It supports SDHC (high capacity) cards up to 4GB in size, giving you enough room for quite a bit of music and other multimedia. The Micro SD slot is located on the right side of the phone, protected by a nice plastic cover that stays attached and is spring loaded so you can get cards in/out easily.
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