Well…. For various reasons I’ve had to replace my Blackberry 7100g cell phone. When I first got it two years ago it worked really well for about 1 week… Then it started dropping calls, turning itself off, etc… So I went back to the Cingular Store where I got it and they made me call Blackberry and … well.. they had me send it back and they sent me a refurb. Which, worked well until very recently. This phone started behaving the same as my first.
So, I went into my local Cingular store (now ATT&T) and saw this new phone. The Samusung BlackJack. And Boy is it an awesome phone!
Here’s the Good:
It is small… 4 1/4″ tall x 2 1/4″ wide and it weighs nothing. But it feels like a very sturdy phone.
It has a nice bright display.. Way more vibrant colors than my old Blackberry.
Built-in 1.3 mega pixel camera with zoom.
Very loud/clear speaker phone.
There is a microSD expansion slot on the side.. It recognizes a 2 gig card..
The Data package for this phone are WAY cheaper than the blackberry.
QWERTY Keyboard.. no more smart-type
E-mail.. Video… MP3.. Lots of good stuff.
3G internet !!! Zoom, Zoom!!!
Worked Perfectly with Windows Vista
Here’s the bad: (short list)
Email set-up can be a little complicated, If you are using a POP3 account that is not Yahoo, Hotmail, or GMail. They lead you to believe that you have to download the XpressMail client.
If you do this, it will work. But just be aware.. The Xpressmail client gives you “Un-adulterated” access to the mail folder on your POP3 server. Meaning, if you delete an e-mail on your phone, it will delete that e-mail on the server. According to the ATT/Cingular tech “That’s just how it is… You can’t change it” .
But, if you want to keep your mail where it is on the POP server and deal with it when you get back home (like I did.. Nothing worse than deleting an e-mail you need to keep and not be able to retrieve it.. Not Good.) Make sure and NOT use the Xpressmail client. There is an email client built into the phone already. (They don’t tell you that in the set-up!) If you’ve already installed the Xpress Mail… Remove it.
I won’t type the set-up directions here.. this is long enough, here is the link if you are interested: https://cingular.atgnow.com/cng/tutorials/KB73543.html
Battery Life could be better… It blows through a battery charge pretty quickly but, the Cingular tech said that should even out after a few charge cycles.
Needless to say, so far I am very pleased with this new phone. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new Smart phone. Plus, Windows Mobile 6 is supposedly going to be made available to BlackJack users around the middle of September. So, that should be a plus…
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