Dmitry Dovidenko’s Blog

R.I.P SAMSUNG Blackjack II

It was eleven in the morning and I was leaving the local “24 hour fitness” after a good workout. I walked down the sweltering parking lot becoming increasingly thirsty. As I tried to open my water bottle I lost grip and the bottle went tumbling down. Being worked up from my exercise I instinctively tried to catch it before it hit the ground. As my sweaty hands fumbled with the bottle the unexpected happened. I watched my SAMSUNG Blackjack II phone from AT&T fall out of my shirt pocket and bounce off the asphalt in what felt like slow motion. The phone’s second landing was it’s final resting place an 8ft deep flood drainage grate in the middle of the parking lot. On August 15th, 2008 I was stunned to see my SAMSUNG Blackjack II succumb to a horrific death!

My good friend Sanjin tried to call the phone and amazingly it rang. A few minutes later a rain storm started after which the phone no longer rang as the well below the grate must have flooded. Sanjin graciously offered me the use of his spare Cingular 2125 smart phone. After quick trip to the local AT&T store on Westheimer at Kirkwood I had a new SIM card and Sanjin’s phone. I found the Cingular 2125 to be a phone with great features, but a horrible navigation joystick. Of course beggars can’t be choosers!

Now the problem was picking out a new phone. The obvious choice was going with the SAMSUNG Blackjack II which runs about $200-$250 on eBay without contract. It was fairly quick when going through menus and doing various tasks. I liked it’s profile controls from Windows Mobile 6. I could emulate Nintendo and Super Nintendo. I also tethered it to my PC several times when we had some network outages in order to use it as a modem over 3G!

I never found the Blackjack II to have any major problems. It’s “jogg wheel” was flimsy and felt cheap. It seemed like the “jogg wheel” was not a true hard button, but had software controlling it’s behavior. When scrolling PDF or other resource intensive documents with the “jogg wheel” it would scroll slowly and would continue scrolling after I stopped. Directional pad scrolling did not behave this way. The microphone was not great as people always told me I sounded muffled, but I could hear them just fine. The battery life was poor especially when using 3G, but expected for most smart phones. If using the phone’s GPS for navigation and going on a trip longer than 45 minutes I’d suggest remembering the directions in case you have no battery life left to navigate when going home. Overall I’d rate the Blackjack II a 7 out of 10 with points taken off for the scroll wheel, microphone and battery life.

After a lot of research and pricing I found two other choices. They were the new LG Vu from AT&T (~$310 on eBay) and an unlocked Sony Ericsson K850i (~$345 on eBay). The LG Vu comes with iPhone-like touch screen capabilities, mobile TV, GSM/UTMS/NA 3G support, 2MP Camera, internet browser, MSN/AIM/Yahoo messaging, and Bluetooth with Stereo support! The K850i is promising 9 hours of talk time, 16 days of standby, 5MP Cybershot Camera, Xenon Flash, iPhone-like accelerometer, GSM/EDGE/UTMS/HSDPA/NA 3G true wordlphone support, Bluetooth with Stereo support, 3D games, GPS, web browsers, and many cool free applications and games from Sony Ericcson. Both phones have the usual bells and whistles including organizer features and various calling features. It was pretty hard to choose between my three choices. I first decided that I did not want the Blackjack II again as the price difference between phones was not substantial enough. Also I did not love the Blackjack II although it was a solid phone. It just was not special.

I did more research and found that Mobile TV is not yet available here in Houston, TX. Mobile TV is however available in holes like Corpus Cristi! This made one of the major features of the LG Vu useless. The LG Vu is lighter and thinner, but not by much. The LG Vu also has a slightly bigger screen. The LG Vu is native to AT&T so I would get support from them when configuring the phone while the K850i is an imported unlocked phone. The Ericsson had a much higher battery life rating than the LG Vu and I also felt it had a cooler look. The K850i got points for its higher end camera which won’t replace my Nikon D40x any time soon, but would be nice to have with me at all times. The K850i was also rated lower for radiation absorption (SAR).

After a while I decided the K850i makes more sense since all of it’s major features will work in Houston. I felt that Sony Ericsson is a more trusted brand in the mobile phone market. I’ve had two or three LG’s in my life and I’ve found them generally solid, but unimpressive. LG making a candy phone like the Vu made me wonder how well it’s actually designed and how it will perform in the long run. I also thought about dropping data plans from my phone in the future and realized that it would be stupid to have the LG Vu without data while the Ericsson would be fine as a normal phone. That night I ordered the Sony Ericsson K850i from eBay with some extras (memory, bluetooth headset, etc..) I’ll post a review when I get it!