Display & Audio
4
That 2.25" diagonal, 320x240 pixel display is quite easy on the eyes, even if it is a bit smaller than the ones found on Blackjack's closest competitors. While the display is limited to 65,000 colors, and not the 240k or 16 million found on state-of-the-art, it still worked very well for viewing documents (particularly via Picsel Viewer's smooth pan and zoom capabilities), reading messages, and watching movie clips.
As with the Q, Blackjack's display is not a touchscreen. As such, the handset runs WinMob Smartphone edition, and not the full PocketPC version. Navigation options are obviously more numerous on a stylus-enabled smartphone, but all of Blackjack's features are pretty easily accessible via the scroll wheel and various buttons on phone.
Windows Mobile 5 allows for customization of the display including installation of background images on the Today screen. Font styles and sizes can also be customized throughout the system.
Call quality on Blackjack was generally excellent, and voices came through loud clear through both the earpiece and speakerphone. Wired earpieces will work with via Samsung's proprietary accessory port, and a 2.5-to-3.5mm stereo adapter is available for use of standard stereo headphones with Blackjack. I find Samsung's one port-fits-all design (found on most of their handsets) needlessly frustrating, as it limits the user to connecting the handset to either an earpiece, USB cable, or AC charger, one at a time. The phone also supports stereo Bluetooth using the A2DP profile. Need to charge your phone while on a call using headphones? Those had better be Bluetooth headphones.
Windows Mobile allows for extensive customization of ringtones and system sounds on Blackjack. WAV and mp3 files can be assigned to ringtones, caller ID tones, and a plethora of system sounds. While Windows Media Player does a fine job of handling music playback, a variety of third-party audio applications are available.
As mentioned, Cingular also included their Cingular Music applications on Blackjack. Cingular Music is something of a compilation of other music services including Napster and Yahoo's streaming music offerings, and it also features MusicID, which lets you record a snippet of a song and submit it to Cingular's database of some 3 million + tracks. The service then tells you what song that snippet was from. It actually worked surprisingly well for me, and could come in handy on a road trip or other occasion when you're prone to grimace and say, "If only I knew what that song was! Then my life would be complete at last!"
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