The Samsung BlackJack II

The first generation Samsung BlackJack was one of the most popular Windows Mobile Smartphones on the market, and I was very interested to see how they would follow up on it. Now that the BlackJack II has been released by AT&T, let’s take a look and see if it was worth an upgrade.

Larger screen, higher capacity battery, wider keys

At first glance, the BlackJack II is just a hair larger and a tad heavier than the original, but considering that the screen is larger and the battery lasts twice as long, it is certainly an acceptable trade off. The BlackJack II comes in two versions: a glossy black, and a textured matte maroon. Personally, I prefer the matte as it is easier to grip and doesn’t show fingerprints, but by offering both, Samsung and AT&T are able to appeal to a wider group of consumers. They replaced the scroll wheel on the side edge with a D-pad that also acts as a rotary scroll wheel. I liked it a lot, but not everyone will. (As with the scroll wheel on the original BlackJack, the scroll speed is slower than I preferred.) The QWERTY thumb keyboard has been improved: the keys are slightly wider, and the keys on the number pad are grouped together, not spread apart (a feature that I found maddening on the original BlackJack).

Faster data speeds, built-in GPS, better overall performance

In addition to these slick design improvements, the BlackJack II packs a lot more punch than the original, and it feels quite peppy during use. The 3G data speeds are very fast with the 3.6-Mbps HSDPA connection. Additionally, the BlackJack II now has positioning and navigation capabilities with the built-in SiRF Star III GPS receiver. It comes with TeleNav GPS Navigator software that offers unlimited turn-by-turn directions, traffic info, and local search for $9.99 per month. Whether you want to go that route or not is up to you, and although I had some difficulty at first getting the GPS to work with Microsoft Live Search Mobile and Google Maps, I eventually figured out the right tweaks and found the service to be quite acceptable. The positioning is very accurate, although cold start times did take a minute or two.

Under the hood, the BlackJack II has a 260 MHz TI OMAP processor, versus 220 MHz in the original. It has twice the RAM and ROM, now up to 128/256 MB from 64/128 respectively. The new battery is rated at 1,700 mAh, while the original standard battery was only 1,000 mAh. It has Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE along with Tri-Band domestic UMTS/HSDPA, while the original only had Dual-Bands. The BlackJack II has a SiRF Star III GPS receiver while the original has none. The camera in the BlackJack II was upgraded to 2.0 MP from 1.3 MP in the original, and the screen was expanded slightly from 2.3 inches to 2.4. Additionally, the BlackJack II is running Windows Mobile 6 Standard, while the original ran Windows Mobile 5.