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Samsung Blackjack II Cell Phone Review - Organizer

Alfredo Padilla Published on December 31, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

Synchronization (6.67)
The Blackjack II uses ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Manager to synchronize with your Windows computer. Both pieces of software are easy to install and set up, although they each have their own particular idiosyncrancies.

Synchronization is supported via USB or Bluetooth. Contacts, including photos, tasks, calendar appointments, files and email are all synchronized. The only thing that isn't synchronized out of the box are notes, as Windows Mobile Standard like the Blackjack II don't support notes out of the box.

The Blackjack II can be synchronized with Outlook or with Vista's built in PIM applications. There's no native support for synchronizing with different PIM software or with a Mac, although you can find third party solutions to help you sync with most commonly used programs/platforms.

Alerts (8.0)
You can set an alert on the Blackjack II for calendar appointments or tasks. You can very good flexibility for alerts, with the ability to set a custom time and recurrence pattern. When an alert sounds you get a full screen message and the appropriate sound for your current profile. We especially like the snooze options, which allow you to snooze an alert for one of a variety of different time periods. It's the best implementation of snooze we've seen on any platform.

Over the Air PIM Sync (2.0)
If you have access to an Exchange Server you can synchronize your contacts, calendar appointments and tasks automatically over the air.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (8.87)
It took us only 11.28 seconds to add a contact name and phone number to the Blackjack II. This is an excellent time, you can see below that it's the best time amongst our comparison phones. We were helped out by the fact that the left soft key on the home screen was assigned to contacts and the keyboard was very easy to type on.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Blackjack II	11.28	8.87
Nokia N81 8GB	16.56	6.04
BlackBerry Curve 8320	14.1	7.09
Palm Centro	12.22	8.18
AT&T Tilt	19.74	5.07
Apple iPhone	20.86	4.79

Looking/Sorting/Search (5.5)
Like all Windows Mobile Standard devices the Blackjack II provides decent options for sorting and searching through your contacts. Contacts can be organized by last name or company, but is missing the option to sort by first name. You can filter your contacts by category and can easily search through contacts by simply typing a name.

Fields (8.4)
The Blackjack II provides you with a plethora of fields when you create a new contact, with room for forty two different pieces of information. These include advanced fields like categories and obscure ones like customer ID. We would have liked the option to create our own custom fields, which the Blackjack II lacks.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (2.33)
The Blackjack II supports speed dials but lacks any kind of voice command software, either speaker independent or using voice tags.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (23.81)
Adding a calendar item to the Blackjack II was very quick. We were able to add a lunch appointment for the following day with a reminder 15 minutes before in only 4.2 seconds. You can see below that this is the best time amongst our comparison phones. We were helped out by the fact that the Blackjack II adds a reminder by default and once again took advantage of the very good keyboard.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Blackjack II	4.2	23.81
Nokia N81 8GB	19.2	5.21
BlackBerry Curve 8320	6.04	16.56
Palm Centro	4.8	20.83
AT&T Tilt	7.46	13.40
Apple iPhone	18.92	5.29

Calendar Views (4.4)
The Blackjack II offers users with four calendar views. The standard view is the agenda view, which shows you the current day with a busy/free time bar at the top and a simple list of your upcoming appointments. The week view is just as good, it shows you a grid with days along the top and hours on the left. Appointments are blocked out during the time they are scheduled and when you have an appointment selected you see details about it in a small box at the bottom of the screen.
The month view is not as good, you only see a small indicator on days that have appointments but no way to see information about those appointments. Those who are used to Windows Mobile Professional devices will note that the Blackjack II lacks the daily and yearly views, but with two very good views and the month view available as a solid overview the Blackjack II should meet most people's needs.

Fields (10.0)
Creating a new appointment on the Blackjack II gives you access to a good selection of fields. The basics are there but we were also happy to see more advanced options like recurrence and invitations. We did find the recurrence options a little constrained as you have to choose from some presets instead of the more flexible options you get on Windows Mobile Professional devices like the AT&T Tilt. Also missing was support for categories, which is a shame.

ToDo/Tasks

Adding ToDo/Task (7.52)
It took us an average of 13.3 seconds to add a new task reminding us to get groceries to the Blackjack II. This is a pretty solid time, you can see below that it falls right around the middle of the range provided by our comparison phones but it's not too far off the leaders. The tasks program is buried in the menu system a bit so you need to do some navigating to get there, which slowed us down a bit.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Blackjack II	13.30	7.52
Nokia N81 8GB	13.20	7.58
BlackBerry Curve 8320	14.80	6.76
Palm Centro	11.52	8.68
AT&T Tilt	17.77	5.63
Apple iPhone	n/a - no tasks	0.00

ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
We were very happy to see that the tasks program on Windows Mobile 6 devices like the Blackjack II has been significantly upgraded over what we saw from Windows Mobile Standard devices with version 5 of the software. The upgrade includes support for things like prioritizing and categorizing tasks. You can filter your tasks by category and also sort them by status, priority, subject, start or due date. We are a little puzzled that tasks support categories but the calendar does not, it seems a little inconsistent to us.

Fields (8.0)
Along with the upgrade came a very good selection of fields. We've already mentioned category and priority, you can also set status, start/due date, recurrence and add a note. This solid selection makes the tasks program very usable, a sharp contrast to the task program on older Windows Mobile 5 devices that ran the Standard version like the T-Mobile Dash.

Notes

Adding Notes (4.03)
The notes program on the Blackjack II is also buried in the menu system, but despite that we were able to create a new note fairly quickly. It took us an average of 12.4 seconds to go from the home screen until we have added a new standard note. You can see below that the only comparison phone that did significantly better than the Blackjack II on this test is the Palm Centro. Pretty good considering the application requires some doing to get open.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Blackjack II	12.4	4.03
Nokia N81 8GB	14.9	3.36
BlackBerry Curve 8320	12.2	4.10
Palm Centro	8.46	5.91
AT&T Tilt	13.79	3.63
Apple iPhone	12.66	3.95

Note Interface (4.0)
Windows Mobile Standard devices like the Blackjack II don't come with a notes application by default, so we're glad to see that Samsung has added one for users. The application is pretty basic, showing you a simple list of the notes you have created. You can sort this list by title (the first line of your note), date or size, which is better than many notes programs offer. The left soft key is assigned to create a new note, which brings up a plain white canvas where you can type a note. The interface is easy to use, largely due to how basic it is, but we're glad to have a notes application at all.

Note Formatting (0.0)
The Blackjack II's notes program doesn't offer any formatting options when creating a new note. This is in sharp contrast to the excellent OneNote application that was included on the T-Mobile Dash, another Windows Mobile Standard device. OneNote is so good that we wish all Windows Mobile Standard devices were loaded with it.

Voice Memo (4.0)
The voice notes application on the Blackjack II is fairly simple. You have a list of notes with the left soft key assigned to recording a new note and the right soft key opening a menu allowing you to delete, rename or send the currently selected note. You can also set a note as a ring tone. Simple but useful.

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