Samsung Blackjack - Five Months Later

Occasionally, one has a change of heart. It could be ten minutes later or ten years later, but it can happen. So is the case with my Samsung Blackjack. What was initially a very good phone has had it's shortcomings amplified over time. Where I recommended it in June, now I'm forced to tell you to stay away.

When I bought my phone in June, I was initially torn between it and the HTC/AT&T 8525. Really, I suppose it came down to price. There were several features with the 8525 that I deemed unnecessary at the time, and I was wrong. The choice I should have made was the 8525, and now I find myself looking to buy one to replace the Blackjack.

The main shortcoming of the Blackjack is the lack of the Windows Mobile 6 upgrade. We've been hearing for four months now that the release was imminent, and it's still MIA. It's not to say that it could be out before this article is published, but I'm not going to hold my breath. AT&T/Samsung has purposely delayed the release so that they could sell more Blackjack IIs, just as they did with the 8525 and it's replacement, the Tilt (8925). If the same pattern holds, the upgrade should be out before the first of the year. But, alas, no one knows for sure. There have been several leaked or cooked ROMs out there to upgrade early, but these don't come without problems. All the information you could ever want is in the first link. Just do a search when you get there.

Related to that is the crippled Bluetooth stack. One great thing I loved with my Razr was the ability to voice dial via my BT headset. You would think that a more capable and newer phone would be able to do it too, but you'd be wrong. It's such a great feature that I take along my Razr as well on long trips and switch to that just for the BT voice feature. The leaked and cooked ROMs still haven't been able to fix this either, leading me to believe the official WM6 upgrade won't be able to either.