Cingular serves up its second HSDPA smartphone, this time in a slim, compact shell that puts it squarely in competition with the Motorola Q and the T-Mobile Dash. Does the BlackJack hold its own?
Review summary of the Samsung SGH-i607:
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 With HSDPA support, great streaming media options and its slim design, the Samsung BlackJack (a.k.a. the SGH-i607) vaults ahead of the smartphone pack. The lack of Wi-Fi wasn't a deal-breaker for us thanks to the BlackJack's 3.5G network support, and the excellent Picsel viewer, coupled with the tethered modem support (both of which the Dash lacks) give this phone the edge. That said, the BlackJack can't edit office documents, and we were annoyed by its smallish screen, coupled with a too-large default font. Those who really need Wi-Fi and document editing should consider the Cingular 8525, which is launching on the same day as the BlackJack, albeit for twice the price. Release: November 2006. Price: $75.
Pros: High-speed network. Cingular Video and Cingular Music support. Stereo Bluetooth support. Solid calling capabilities.
Cons: No Wi-Fi support. No Office documents editing. Easy to press wrong soft key or
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Full Samsung SGH-i607 Review:
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Competition
Find out how well the Samsung SGH-i607 competes with similar business phones:
Samsung SGH-i607 vs. Motorola Q vs. T-Mobile Dash
Design
The Samsung BlackJack bears an undeniable resemblance to the Motorola Q, with the same button layout and slanted keys. The Blackjack is a tenth of an inch shorter and narrower than the Q, and almost exactly as thin (0.5 inches). The phone is coated in a matte finish that makes gripping easy and alleviates fingerprint anxiety. The screen is bright and clear, but the now-standard QVGA screen on Windows Mobile devices is definitely feeling dated, and we were annoyed that even the full "Today" screen cannot fit on the BlackJack's screen all at once. The jog wheel worked fine, but an accelerating scroll would have reduced the massive amount of scrolling required on the short screen. Finally, the four-way navigational button was located dangerously close to the soft keys and the "End" button; we often found ourselves backing out of applications prematurely. Luckily, Windows Mobile never really quits any program, so we rarely lost our page, but it was annoying nonetheless.
Messaging - Very good
Messaging apps on the Blackjack are similar to other Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition phones, with push e-mail and calendar/contact syncing available for Microsoft Exchange and Good Mobile Messaging users. Outlook is competent and easy on the eyes, though a little bare on outgoing messages, and we'd like a one-step download for attachments. Unfortunately, neither e-mail nor SMS messaging support while-you-type searching, though if you type a name in the "To:" field, the phone will look it up once you press "send" and offer you a list of choices. We enjoyed typing on the large, comfortable keys, and while the phone failed to register about one percent of our keystrokes, this was only during our most frantic typing. Instant messaging through AOL, MSN, and Yahoo is available, although you'll have to download an app to begin chatting.
Scheduling - Good
The calendar app on the BlackJack is as reliable as Outlook, and it's easy to synchronize using ActiveSync on the device, but the scheduling interface is beginning to show its age. Standard features such as undo, copy and pasting, and appointment dragging are all absent on the smartphone version of the Windows Mobile calendar app. The appointment menu is text only, and interacting with the calendar views requires menu digging or constant thumbwheeling. The default font size on the BlackJack is too large and intractable. Even the diminutive T-Mobile Dash can fit far more appointments and information onto the Today screen than you can on the BlackJack.
Productivity - Mediocre
We have yet to see a phone running Windows Mobile Smartphone that allows the editing of Office documents, and sadly, the BlackJack is no exception. However, the phone uses the excellent Picsel viewer by default to view Office documents and PDFs, and Picsel again proves itself a best-in-class viewing option. Documents look perfectly clean through Picsel, and you can easily zoom by pressing the four-way button. That said, we're bummed that Picsel forces you to use the four-way control for both zooming and panning, which entails switching between the two modes; we would have preferred to see the four-way used for panning and the scrollwheel, unused in the Picsel viewer, used for zooming. Also, flipping pages through PDF files required two steps into the menu. Still, with its clean look and easy zooming, Picsel is the best document viewer we've seen on a smartphone.
Calling - Very good
The dialing keys on the BlackJack have a unique layout; rather than lining up numbers in a three-by-three grid, the number keys are spread over five columns, and if you misdial and press one key to the right, you get the same result (for example, if you press "@" instead of "1", you still get "1"). We're assuming this layout was meant to give chronic misdialers more room for number typing, but in practice, we found the new layout to be more confusing than ever. Back on the plus side, call quality was very good; we only had problems on noisy, windy streets in New York City. The phone book was capable of while-you-type searching, and adding contacts is easy with the Outlook-like phonebook. Conference calling was easy enough, but live searching was not available during an active call. The phone also lacks voice dialing features, which we sorely miss.
Laptop sidekick - Very good
The BlackJack does everything a good laptop sidekick should. Though drivers were unavailable at press time, our experience using our laptop over the HSDPA network has always been good, where reception has been available. The phone charges over USB, so you can leave the clutter behind, although we would have liked a standard USB cable instead of Samsung's proprietary connector. The BlackJack lacks Wi-Fi support, but we found HSDPA to be plenty fast when the signal was available, which was nearly everywhere we tested in New York City (although Cingular's HSDPA network still lags behind the EV-DO networks of Sprint and Verizon Wireless in terms of nationwide coverage).
Multimedia - Very good
The Blackjack does a better job handling multimedia than most Windows Mobile smartphones. Cingular Video is available on the BlackJack, as is the new Cingular Music app (which lets you transfer tunes from Yahoo and Napster's respective subscription services to the phone's microSD card). Stereo Bluetooth sounds good, though our phone had trouble recognizing our wireless Samsung headset. Though streaming video looks great, it fills only a tiny portion of the screen, and leaves us craving some video that truly leverages the speed of HSDPA. Streaming audio channels, courtesy of XM, are robust and clear. Samsung includes a convenient RSS reader and a Java app for playing Java games, also a rarity on Windows Mobile devices. The Web browser, Intenet Explorer, left us craving the Picsel Web browser, which we adored on Samsung's IP-830w but is absent here. Internet Explorer did a poor job handling page layout, even on Cingular's own internal pages.
Related phones: Slim Windows Mobile smartphones
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T-Mobile Dash
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Score: 58% When: October 2006 Worth: $150 Carrier: T-Mobile
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Slim, light and a pleasure to hold, the just-announced Dash makes a play for the Moto Q's territory with its sleek design and Windows Mobile OS, while upping the ante with built-in Wi-Fi. Does it belong in your suit pocket?
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Read » Gallery » Features » Side-by-side »
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Price and availability
Available on November 16 from Cingular, the Samsung SGH-i607 BlackJack will retail for $75 with a two-year service agreement.
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