Earlier this year I upgraded to a refurbished Samsung Blackjack (from a Sony-Erricson W800i). After trading it in for another (refurbished) Blackjack that would take a charge, I was fairly happy with the phone. It had a full QWERTY keyboard, nice screen, and handled text messaging, web browsing, and email pretty well.
Over the last six months it has become a very frustrating phone. Calls are dropped, “no service” situations where there is clearly a cell signal, and apparently random shutdowns of the phone.
The dropped calls are apparently due to a faulty antenna that is the subject of a product advisory. If your Blackjack was built between November 2006 and February 2007 (mine was), you can get it fixed.
Terrible speaker phone
The speaker phone feature is great until there is any ambient noise, such as while driving. The Blackjack “helpfully” increases the volume automatically, and unfortunately beyond the meager ability of the built-in speaker. So what should be a hands-free situation becomes a chore of manually compensating for the fluctuating volume, ambient noise, and a weak speaker.
Granted, it is entirely possible that this refurbished Blackjack is suffering from a damaged speaker. But in this case, the changing volume makes a bad problem worse.
Blackjack annoying design
It does not help that there are physical design issues with the Blackjack — for me, at least.
First, the phone feels nothing like a phone; it is wide and flat. Maybe that works for some people, but to me it feels weird.
Second, the number keys are positioned on the QWERTY keyboard so that a column of keys is between each number column. On top of that, if you need to dial a number with letters in it or have to enter letters into an automated answering system, you are out of luck unless you remember which letters correspond to which numbers on a normal phone keypad. The first part of this appears to be fixed with the Blackjack II, but as far as I can tell you will still be guessing which number matches which letter.
Finally, the cable connection design is poor. The covers are flimsy and prone to falling out. The USB cable shares the charging connection, so if you are connected via USB you are limited to a USB trickle charge. Yes this is common with cell phones. Yes I know these companies love their proprietary connectors. It is still, however, very annoying. I have too many special cables and chargers and whatnot already.
Nitpicky problems abound.
Did I say finally? Actually, there are a lot of little problems with this phone. The camera is crappy and annoying to use. Common menu choices are nested too deep for normal use. Accidental button presses are too easy. SpecTec promises aside, there is still no wi-fi option available for the Blackjack. Yes, Blackjack users are still stuck with Windows Mobile 5 Standard. No WM6 upgrade, though it has been available for nearly half a year.
The Blackjack Is Still Pretty Nifty
All that said, I still want to like the Blackjack. For the fifty bucks I paid it is not terrible when it works. The Sony W600i felt more polished and more like a phone, but it had its problems too. None come to mind right now, but I am sure there must have been problems (besides the Vitamin Water I spilled on it).
Blackjack II?
The Blackjack II is available now and seems to correct some of the problems. Better antenna, number keys now in a more sensible layout (but no letter-dialing equivalents), Window Mobile 6, GPS, slightly better camera, improved battery life, stereo Bluetooth, a jog wheel, and other minor tweaks.
On the downside, the camera is only slightly improved and there is still no wi-fi. And it is a bit bigger and heavier.
I am torn. It seems to fix a lot of the problems, but part of me just wants a normal cell phone that acts and feels like a normal cell phone.
