1FPS|by David Chartier

[Update: Thanks for the inquiries, but I have sold my BlackJack and am no longer in the market, thanks to a splendid new iPhone.]

Craigslist for some reason deleted my post from public view, but my unlocked BlackJack is still for sale and I’m reducing my asking price to $300 (or trade for NIB/good condition BlackBerry Pearl, ideally red but I’ll take the grey). I suspect Craiglist did it cuz I linked to a Flickr gallery with pics of the phone in its case; if true - that’s lame (all I have are suspicions; their customer support, as with most free services, is pretty useless). Yes, I know their ‘don’t link to commercial services’ policy, but it wasn’t a bloody offer to teach you how to make $15K/month while working from home - it was a Flickr photo gallery; gimme a break.

Anyway - the BlackJack is still for sale, now asking for $300 which includes all these goodies:

• It’s unlocked, officially from Cingular. Hop networks and roam world-wide (it’s quad-band) to your heart’s content
• All the original BlackJack accessories and retail box that are included brand new from Cingular (battery charger, manuals, software CD, etc.)
• extra battery charger
• Black leather case from Fortte.com with detachable belt clip
• Official Samsung extended battery and battery door
• 512MB MicroSD card in addition to the standard card in box (I think it was a 32 or 64MB)
• Clear ShieldZone.com protective covering for entire phone
• a few random software applications I’ve purchased, including AgendaOne ($30): http://www.developerone.com/agendaone/ and Facade for enhancing Windows Mobile

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions.

[Update: Thanks for the inquiries, but I have sold my BlackJack and am no longer in the market, thanks to a splendid new iPhone.]

I was trying to hold out until the iPhone launches this summer, but Windows Mobile just isn’t for me anymore. I’m looking to swap out my very accessorized BlackJack for a BlackBerry Pearl. If you’re interested, I’ve posted on Craigslist with full details and photos. I would prefer to trade straight up in the US for a Cingular Blackberry Pearl (I hear a Pearl from other networks has funky software that doesn’t play so well with Cingy), but I’m willing to sell for the price I listed on Craigslist (though I’m somewhat flexible). Hit me up if you have questions.

I just received the announcement email from Vaja about two new cases for the BlackJack. Above is the Balance case, which looks to be more or less a beefed up, higher quality version of the Fortte case I bought last month. The Balance starts at $65, as Vaja makes very high-quality leather cases and offers a boatload of customization options.

This one is the Classic Pouch, which looks to protect the phone a bit better while in transit, and it offers space inside to carry some extras. The Classic also starts at $65.

Both look like great cases, and Vaja has quite a reputation for quality. For the near future I’ll definitely be sticking with my Fortte case though; if it aint broke, don’t fix it, you know?

A few readers have been contacting me to ask about the $20/month unlimited data plan I said I use with my BlackJack, as some of you are having bad luck with meeting Cingular employees who actually know anything about their employer’s products. Setting aside my gripes about how poorly paid and undereducated so many of these employees can be (though I salute the exceptions to this rule; I used to be one of you, and it aint easy), here’s the details on this plan, as it is most definitely real:

• The plan is called Smartphone Connect, and this link *should* take you to Cingular’s details on it (some of these pages can be tied to user sessions, as they sometimes have to grab your zip code to offer details like this). They offer a mind-boggling 21 different data plans, but this one is towards the bottom of that list. If my links don’t get you there, go to: Cingular.com > Shop > Plans, click on the Data Plans image, and then toss in your zip code.
• There are two monthly Smartphone Connect plans that both require you to also have some sort of voice plan: $9.99 for 5 MB, and $19.99 for unlimited data. I have the latter, and I’ve been told by two Cingular customer service reps that this plan can be used for tethering. After each of those conversations, I asked that they note the account of what told me, to make sure I have some sort of backup should things magically go sour in January when I’m using this bad boy to help me get online and cover Macworld.
• Cingular *does* offer data plans without voice called Laptop Connect, but those require the purchase of a separate card for your notebook. These cards cost $349 at full price, but a 2-year contract and mail in rebate can get you down to $49. However, to get unlimited data without voice costs $80/month, and I’ve heard that it’s even more expensive if they know you’ll be using it in HSPDA areas. I’ve heard upwards of $140/month, but don’t quote me.

That’s about what I know for now. Note: I haven’t been using this tethering setup with my MacBook at all, so I’m going to be fairly useless with day-to-day usage questions. I learned the setup for the unlikely situations when I might need it, but I live just outside of Denver where Wi-Fi is (just barely) plentiful.

I hope this clears up confusion about unlimited data with the BlackJack, and I really wish Cingular would educate their damn employees, especially those in the corporate stores where some of you said they were still clueless. Do everyone a favor when you go back in and show them that data plan page; future customers will thank you for it.

[tags]BlackJack, Cingular, data plans[/tags]

I just received the extended battery & door for my Samsung i607 Blackjack Smartphone, and I posted a Flickr set with comparison shots to the old battery, as well as a 60GB iPod, which is the only gadget who’s size is closest for comparison.

The most surprising thing to me is the new battery door which, as you might guess, is on the right. It’s actually a pretty clever design, considering the extended 1800 mAh battery is obviously fatter than the shipping 1200 mAh model. It adds a little bit of depth to the phone, but since the BlackJack is so darn slim to begin with, I really don’t mind.

Now before you ask: no, I haven’t put the battery through any real tests to see how it performs. It literally just showed up a couple hours ago, and I ship out early Wednesday morning for the holidays, so I wanted to get this up before I took off. I’ll post in a couple days with thoughts on performance during real world usage, but until then, feel free to ask any questions you’d like. I’m even down for taking some more pictures if you’d like them. Also: I now have a standard battery to sell; I really don’t think I need three of them for this phone. Use my contact form if you’re interested.

As a side note: the two product links above are Amazon Affiliate links, and I would much appreciate it if you purchased either of these items through those links - you would be supporting 1FPS by doing so. For what it’s worth, however, Amazon seems to be out of the battery + door package as of this writing, and they list no ETA on when they’ll be in. I actually ordered from Wireless Galaxy (not an affiliate link), whose $44.99 price was the best I could find. Decent site, decent customer service, but good shipping - considering it seems to be pretty darn hard to find these in stock right now.

[tags]BlackJack, i607, extended battery, pictures[/tags]

Leather Case for Samsung BlackJack coming from fortte

I’ve never seen fortte before, but they’re the first mobile phone case company I’ve dug up to promise something for the BlackJack. Looks like nice stuff - anyone ever use their cases?

In other news, I also found a basic Invisible Shield for the BlackJack. These are the guys who make that super clear, apparently indestructible sticker-like covering for all sorts of devices. It isn’t a case, but it’s definitely a start, especially since I already have a minor scratch on the gorgeous display.

Samsung Ultra Messaging i600 - Review : Mobile Phones - CNET Asia

Man these companies are moving too quick for my blood these days. I just got this BlackJack a month ago and CNET Asia already spec’d a model with a front side camera and Wi-Fi.

It would’ve been nice to see them do a little more with the outer areas of the lower keyboard though; the left side of the shift key and the right side of the messaging button are prime real estate for another set of buttons or maybe just a wider layout to the set that’s already down there.

[tags]BlackJack, gadgets[/tags]

I’m spending more and more time reading news on my BlackJack, and I realized that while NewsBreak is a great RSS client for Windows Mobile, Newsgator has a NewsGator Go! client that ties into their network of synced RSS products (again: please, stop with the exclamation points in product names. I’m looking at you, Yahoo!). I gave it a spin over the last couple days and it’s actually given me good reason to switch back to NetNewsWire (from Google Reader), especially since my main reason for using gReader was to have some sort of online client with which I could get at my feeds with a minimum (read: nonexistent) of having to swap OPML feeds between readers every time I make an update; I like things that just work.

So far, NewsGator Go! is performing darn well, even with my insane list of feeds (I have almost 400 in NetNewsWire, and probably half or 1/3 set up for the mobile client). However, I would still highly recommend NewsBreak and Google Reader for anyone interested and not in the same position as I. NewsBreak actually has a feature or two above NewsGator Go!, such as the ability to email headlines (a feature request I’ve already put in with NewsGator), and Google Reader just plain kicks ass as a sheer web-based reader (best.ever).

The one thing I’m not looking forward to is paying $30 for a Windows Mobile RSS reader, especially since that’s the price of the full-fledged Mac OS X-based NetNewsWire. Who on earth decided that charging the same price for desktop and mobile software was a good idea?

I’m really falling for this new BlackJack phone, so much so that I don’t want event and task reminders going off on my Macs anymore. I realized that even though I have a MacBook that travels quite often with me, the phone is really what’s in my possession almost all the time. I don’t take my MacBook to the grocery store, and I can’t snooze an iCal alarm while I’m waiting at a red light. Managing alarms for stuff I need to remember is just a lot easier on a tiny little pocketable device that I have with me far more than anything else I own.
So the question I pose to you, the internets, is this: does anyone know how to completely disable iCal’s alarm system? I sometimes have it open because it’s easy to add events while I’m actually working on my Macs, but iCal only natively offers an option to disable alarms when it isn’t running; if I have it open, alarms will still go off. Me no likey, so I’m looking for some sort of haxie/AppleScript/add-on or other sort of utility to more or less shut iCal up. To be clear: I still want to be able to enter alarms on either the phone or in iCal - I just don’t want said alarms going off on my Macs.

Any thoughts?

Since I have now spent almost a full week with my new Samsung BlackJack i607 Smartphone and I’ve had some good comments and questions on my initial review both here and over at my personal Vox blog, I thought I’d post a follow-up with some more observations on this most excellent of phones. As originally promised, I have more good and bad things to cover, though I still must say that I am extremely pleased with the purchase.

I’ll try to keep this follow-up short and sweet, especially since the first review really wasn’t so ‘mini,’ as I mistakenly titled it. I will also try to cover all the questions I’ve received both through personal contact and via comments on the post:

The Good

• The size and weight of this phone are a dream. Like I mentioned before, I’ve never held a Motorola Q, but this thing is slim, sexy and light as a feather.
• Samsung was clever when crafting the behavior of the keys that surround the number buttons in relation to dialing. Since the number keys are separated by verticle rows of letters, getting used to dialing on this phone can take a little time (though I am pretty comfortable with it by now). If you miss a number key and hit one of the adjacent letters while dialing, it will still register as the number it is directly next to. Smart.
• The handy ‘Wireless Manager’ (accessibly by pressing - not holding - the power button) makes it a cinch to toggle the phone and bluetooth radio activity.
• The 1.3MP camera seems to shoot pretty decent pictures, though the viewfinder is oddly slow on framerate, which makes finding the actual shot you want to take a little irksome at times.
• The UI and Home screen are pretty customizable. Again I don’t know if this is a Microsoft Smartphone ability or something Samsung baked in, but there are a lot of useful formats/themes to chose for maximizing your use of displaying vital info (meetings, new SMS, new email, etc.) front and center.
• Samsung includes a multi-protocol chat client seemingly free of charge with the phone. Even the 8125/8525 don’t get that. I need to check with Cingular to find out how they bill chatting (last I heard they counted those as SMS, though I also heard an unlimited Smartphone data plan would cover it), but it’s a very capable client with good IM/buddy list management tools and UI.
• The second battery and external charger are a great addition. I think the phone gets a good stretch out of its battery, but having a second backup for those long days or forgetful nights is darn handy.