Samsung Blackjack II Cell Phone Review - Software
OS (8.0)
The Blackjack II runs Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard. This is the version of Windows Mobile without a touch screen. Windows Mobile Standard is a fairly powerful smart phone operating system, this latest iteration addresses many of the faults of previous version by adding things like Office documents and better support for tasks. Despite these updates it still lags a little behind the Professional version of Windows Mobile that you find on devices like the AT&T Tilt, for example notes are not included in the operating system and the calendar is missing some views and lacks support for categories. These are small issues, however, and can be easily addressed with various third party software. Samsung has thankfully included some additional software as well, including a notes application, to address some of these shortfalls. Overall Windows Mobile Standard provides users with a lot of flexibility and power.
Home Screen Score (6.0)
The Windows Mobile Standard home screen is different from that found on Windows Mobile Professional devices. The top line is taken up by icons of recently used programs. Although this certainly makes it easier to go back to programs you were just using, we would have liked the option to assign our own permanent programs as you can do on Symbian Series 60 devices like the Nokia N81. Below this launcher are a variety of plugins that give you access to different information like AT&T's Xpress Mail service, IM, calendar appointments and profiles. Unlike it's Windows Mobile Professional siblings the home screen is not easily customizable. There are a few different options built in, but if you want to add or remove custom plugins you better learn how to play around in XML. You can change the background picture for the home screen, however.
Extensibility (7.0)
Windows Mobile Standard is a very extensible platform, with thousands of native third party applications available. Although the platform doesn't support java applications natively Samsung has included a java virtual machine so you can download and use programs like Opera Mini.
Customizability (3.0)
The Blackjack II does not provide as many customization options as we would have liked. We already mentioned that you can choose from some pre-set home screens and change your home screen wallpaper. You can also set the system font to large. What you can't do is change the whole look and feel of the interface with themes, nor can you easily reorganize applications in the Start menu.
OS Responsivness (6.0)
We found the Blackjack II to be fairly responsive, but did notice some lag. It's nowhere near as bad as what we've seen on other Windows Mobile devices like the T-Mobile Wing, but it's noticeable when you try to launch a video, create a new text message and in a few other places.
Browser Features (8.0)
Internet Explorer Mobile is used for web browsing on the Blackjack II and it provides a solid set of features and supported web technologies. Both standard HTML pages and mobile WAP pages can be viewed. Javascript, frames, pictures, cookies and encryption are all supported. What is missing are some more advanced web technologies like Flash and Java and some smaller features that more modern web browsers have like support for RSS feeds and password management. For example the Series 60 Web browser supports these last two. Still, Internet Explorer Mobile compares favorably to most mobile web browsers, which tend to be fairly limited.
Browsing Interface (7.0)
Where you start noticing that Internet Explorer Mobile is a little dated is in the browsing interface. The big feature that's missing here is the ability to view web pages in full desktop mode and easily navigate and zoom into the area you want to read. This is supported on several modern mobile web browsers like Series 60 Web, Safari on the iPhone and Opera Mini. We understand that Microsoft will be addressing this issue in a future update, but until then you're going to be doing a lot of scrolling if you view pages in the "desktop" mode on the Blackjack II. We recommend you use the "one column" mode instead, which does a decent job of organizing the page's content into a single column so you don't have to scroll left or right.
The history on Internet Explorer Mobile is pretty basic, just a simple list of sites visited. Bookmarks are handled well, with the welcome ability to organize them into folders and then move them into new or different folders once they've been created. The left soft key is assigned to your bookmarks while the back function is handled by the back hardware key. The right soft key opens a menu where you can access all the browser features and settings. Internet Explorer Mobile does lack some niceties that would have been nice like tabbed web browsing, but otherwise does a decent job compared to most mobile web browsers, just not compared to the best out there.
Browser Access (6.67)
To see how easy it is to launch the browser and navigate to a page we count the number of steps it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have navigated to our own site. We use steps instead of a timed test here because we don't want network issues to interface with our score. Entering the web address is counted as a single step. The Blackjack II was able to do this test in six steps. This is about middling, you can see below that several phones did better, but the Blackjack II is significantly better than the Nokia N81 or Curve 8320. It was helped out by having a dedicated shortcut to the web browser at the bottom left of the keyboard, obviating the need to go through the menus to launch Internet Explorer Mobile.
Gaming (5.67)
Like most Windows Mobile devices the Blackjack II comes with Solitaire and Bubble Breaker for your gaming pleasure. Neither game is particularly impressive, but both can kill some time if you want. There is a large selection of third party games available for the Windows Mobile Standard platform, and you can also download java games to play in the included virtual machine. The controls on the Blackjack II are a little mixed for gaming. The D-Pad does a solid job, but we do worry how the rotating dial will be handled by games. the soft keys are not as good as they are flat, slippery and not well differentiated from surrounding buttons, which can lead to mistaken presses.
Calculator (6.0)
The calculator on the Blackjack II is pretty basic. The D-Pad is assigned to the four arithmetic functions (+, -, *, /), while the center select key is assigned to equal and the left soft key to clear. The right soft key opens a menu with a couple of advanced functions like percentage and square root, but we are missing memory functions.
Alarm (7.0)
As we've seen on other modern Windows Mobile Standard devices the alarms have been seriously upgraded over previous versions. This is much appreciated as all you could do on previous devices was set one alarm to go off at a particular time every day. Now you can set multiple alarms with some options for recurrence and even adjust the snooze for each alarm.
Document Software (5.0)
Another upgrade that came with Windows Mobile 6 for non-touchscreen devices like the Blackjack II is the inclusion of Office Mobile. This allows you to view or edit Word and Excel documents and view Powerpoint presentations. The only annoyance with the software is that in some ridiculous attempt to differentiate Standard devices from Professional ones Microsoft decided that you couldn't create new documents using Office Mobile. This is silly as all you need to do is save a blank Word and Excel document, edit them and then re-save them under a different name. Which means that all you get is an annoyance for customers. As such we are deducting two points from what the Blackjack II would have otherwise gotten in this section. Oh, and a PDF viewer is also included for viewing those documents.
Other Software (3.0)
Samsung has thoughtfully included a good selection of additional programs on the Blackjack II that you normally wouldn't find on a Windows Mobile Standard device. These include a stopwatch, smart converter and world clock, amongst others. The only ones that we consider worth additional points, however, are the file explorer, task manager and RSS reader.
