Samsung phone coming up
by Volker Weber
Robert found this smartphone in his MIX conference package. It looks like the Cingular Samsung Blackjack, which is very similar to the Samsung SGH-i600 sold here. It's not exactly the same, because Cingular says it is a quadband GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900) and dual band 3G (850/1900) phone. Samsung says triband (900/1800/1900) and UMTS/HSDPA. The US is notorious for using different frequencies from the rest of the world, where 1885-2025 MHz is used for the uplink and 2110-2200 MHz for the downlink.
Anyway, Robert is going to lend me his phone to look at. It won't be running on 3G in Europe, but it should be useful enough on GSM/EDGE. In contrast to Nokia, Palm and RIM, Samsung does not really know me well enough to send me smartphones, so I am using this great opportunity to look at yet another device. I have been very impressed with Samsung's progress in design and branding, but so far have only seen the SGH-D900 (and earlier) sliders. While I find them quite impressive, they are built around their very own firmware, which won't let you run any interesting software.
The BlackJack runs on Windows Mobile 5 for Smartphones, because the device does not have a touchscreen. I know it's going to work with Direct Push from my Exchange account, but I have not found a BlackBerry Connect client. If you know there is one, please point me to its whereabouts.
Comments
I ordered one of this Thursday it should arrive Monday. It will be interesting to compare your findings to mine.
I am moving from a Palm treo 650 to this (no Sametime mobile on the Palm). I will still keep my palm for my gps flying applications, but Sprint has no reception where my new house is so I need a cell phone that works, so in the process of switching to Cingular I am switching phone (to one that supports Sametime mobile).
My biggest concern is going to be battery life compared to the Treo.
