Customer Rating: 
Summary: Awesome phone when tweaked.
Comment: When I first got my BJII I was dissapointed with its features. For one, there was no voice dialing, the supplied applications were sparse, no push email, non-standard plug, slightly sluggish Windows mobile software, and a glossy black finish that got dirty easily.
However, once I started "pimping" my BJII, I couldn't believe how awesome this little phone is and was able to correct nearly all deficiencies. Let's start with the voice dialing: You can get MS' voice commander 1.6 to work with the BJII and it will provide not just voice dialing, but even voice command of the phone itself. For example you can speak "What's the battery level?" or "What are my appointments tomorrow?" and have it speak back to you what it is! No training of any kind is required (those with old voice activated phones know what I'm talking about). It simply works incredibly well. MS really has something over its competitors on this one. I'm not sure why they don't further exploit this strength.
Next, the paltry supply of applications is easily remedied by looking at the vast array of windows mobile software out there. The built-in IE browser is horrible, but a download of Opera Mobile and Opera mini provide excellent results. The built-in media player is horrible too, but again, a download of the (free) TCPMP player provides excellent media playing ability. The BJII has 128mb of system memory which is about double of what a typical smartphone has. This means you do not have to worry about killing apps just because of running out of memory.
Some other applications I use are: LedAlerts -- uses the built-in LED which has many colors, to inform you of incoming emails, sms, voicemail, and missed calls, which will have a unique color blinking every second. I love this, as I can quickly assess whether I have something awaiting me without having to even touch the phone. Really, this functionality should've been included by Samsung, but the software is only $15.
Googlemaps -- doesn't need much explanation. This free application provides the same functionality as the full fledged website, just without a neat fast working application in the phone. Uses the built-in GPS. Microsoft also has a similar application but works more clunky than the google version. However, the MS version has voice activated features which is really cool. I keep both of them on my phone for now.
Vtap -- view youtube videos through this application. Works 100% well.
Push email -- through a service by a firm called SEVEN (search for it on google), you can get free pushemail right through the built-in email client. Push email means your email is delivered to your phone when it arrives, rather than the traditional way of having your phone retrieve the email at pre-determined times. The benefit is that push-email arrives nearly instantly and you don't waste battery life with needless connections.
There is a lot of storage space on the phone, but you can take advantage of the micro SDHC port which supports up to 8GB (the largest at this writing). I bought an 8GB card for about $40.
Get a screen protector, only a few bucks. A shell casing is also only a few bucks and helps protect the phone if it falls. And oh, for the proprietary connector, headphone adapters are sold at a famous auction site for less than $10.
As for the phone itself, it's sleek, lightweight, and allows for one hand use due to its smaller width over the competition. The scroll wheel, while not perfect, does allow for alternative entry rather than continually pressing the directional buttons. The keypad is decent enough for typing. it's never going to replace a real keyboard but it's good enough for the job. And, oh, I also have a bluetooth keyboard which paired right up, so I could use that external larger keyboard during trips if I needed extended typing sessions.
Windows mobile is indeed slow to boot up, this is a major deficiency on all phones running this system. The OS is slightly buggy too, but no more so than the Palm OS in my opinion. The phone runs at 260mhz, I was able to overclock it slightly to 276mhz which provided some improvement in speed, but not considerably. The phone is fast enough, with only sluggishness the first time a program loads. Otherwise, the huge 128mb system memory is able to cache all the regular running programs for quick access to them.
Overall this phone rocks! I love the customizability and its sleekness is awesome. I knock off a full point as a lot of these extra enhancements could've been implemented by Samsung as stock features. But you can add them yourself at minimal cost.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sleek phone
Comment: I owned this phone for about 7 months now and have been pretty happy with it. The screen gets scratched easily so needs to be protected. Other than that, it works great.
Has GPS so google/live maps can do a good job of navigation. Battery life is excellent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pure Garbage
Comment: We have been looking for a good pda/phone for our company for a few months and settled on trying Blackjack II. We purchased a half a dozen to give our people in the field to try. After several months, not one of test group likes or even wants these phones, myself included. In short, if you need to work with this phone on the road, you will be disappointed and very likely pissed off. The details from the trail group:
Right off the bat, the proprietary phone jack is pure stupidity. We spend a lot of time on the phone, so the bluetooth headsets usually run out of battery life. Thus, we rely on the old fashioned wired headsets. With Blackjack II, you can't use any of the headsets that you like. We tried to purchase a third party adapters (great, another item to track while traveling). But the ATT stores do not carry them, and the ones we purchased from online vendors don't fit the standard 3.5 mm jack, including the ones we purchased from Samsung sold on the ATT online store.
So if you have to use a bluetooth headset, you'll need to carry around another wall and car charger. Really stupid idea.
Battery life is too short, thus the headset adapter issue becomes even more annoying. It is sleek but very flimsy. if you drop this phone, it's done. Finally, it requires a lot of steps to get what you want to do e.g., make any setting changes. If you need to use this phone while driving, you're likely to wreck or cause a wreck. Yes, you are not supposed to use in while driving, but realistically for us this is unavoidable. Again, if you're on the road a lot, skip this phone.
There are a couple of nice features, such as charging off of the laptop and the synch function is pretty seamless. Although, the first time the phone is synched with outlook, you lose all the contacts that were on the phone.
In short, the Samsung Blackjack II is pure garbage. Skip it. If you still want one, look for one of ours on the auction block. We'll be switching to another PDA/phone combo.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blackjack II LCD problems
Comment: The Blackjack II is a cool phone but has a sensitive screen. I carried mine in my pocket and the screen went bad. Samsung claims I destroyed the screen, but I have no idea how, as I was careful with it. If you get one of these phones I encourage you to get a protective case.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Bad Experience
Comment: After two months, the button in the middle of the circle stopped working. Now, after four months that I got a replacement, the windows is totally messed up. When I push "start" it is all blanc. I can't have access to anything that the software is supposed to offer. I'm gonna return this second one and look for the third to hopefully end the contract with it.
Bottom line, don't buy this.
Summary: Awesome phone when tweaked.
Comment: When I first got my BJII I was dissapointed with its features. For one, there was no voice dialing, the supplied applications were sparse, no push email, non-standard plug, slightly sluggish Windows mobile software, and a glossy black finish that got dirty easily.
However, once I started "pimping" my BJII, I couldn't believe how awesome this little phone is and was able to correct nearly all deficiencies. Let's start with the voice dialing: You can get MS' voice commander 1.6 to work with the BJII and it will provide not just voice dialing, but even voice command of the phone itself. For example you can speak "What's the battery level?" or "What are my appointments tomorrow?" and have it speak back to you what it is! No training of any kind is required (those with old voice activated phones know what I'm talking about). It simply works incredibly well. MS really has something over its competitors on this one. I'm not sure why they don't further exploit this strength.
Next, the paltry supply of applications is easily remedied by looking at the vast array of windows mobile software out there. The built-in IE browser is horrible, but a download of Opera Mobile and Opera mini provide excellent results. The built-in media player is horrible too, but again, a download of the (free) TCPMP player provides excellent media playing ability. The BJII has 128mb of system memory which is about double of what a typical smartphone has. This means you do not have to worry about killing apps just because of running out of memory.
Some other applications I use are: LedAlerts -- uses the built-in LED which has many colors, to inform you of incoming emails, sms, voicemail, and missed calls, which will have a unique color blinking every second. I love this, as I can quickly assess whether I have something awaiting me without having to even touch the phone. Really, this functionality should've been included by Samsung, but the software is only $15.
Googlemaps -- doesn't need much explanation. This free application provides the same functionality as the full fledged website, just without a neat fast working application in the phone. Uses the built-in GPS. Microsoft also has a similar application but works more clunky than the google version. However, the MS version has voice activated features which is really cool. I keep both of them on my phone for now.
Vtap -- view youtube videos through this application. Works 100% well.
Push email -- through a service by a firm called SEVEN (search for it on google), you can get free pushemail right through the built-in email client. Push email means your email is delivered to your phone when it arrives, rather than the traditional way of having your phone retrieve the email at pre-determined times. The benefit is that push-email arrives nearly instantly and you don't waste battery life with needless connections.
There is a lot of storage space on the phone, but you can take advantage of the micro SDHC port which supports up to 8GB (the largest at this writing). I bought an 8GB card for about $40.
Get a screen protector, only a few bucks. A shell casing is also only a few bucks and helps protect the phone if it falls. And oh, for the proprietary connector, headphone adapters are sold at a famous auction site for less than $10.
As for the phone itself, it's sleek, lightweight, and allows for one hand use due to its smaller width over the competition. The scroll wheel, while not perfect, does allow for alternative entry rather than continually pressing the directional buttons. The keypad is decent enough for typing. it's never going to replace a real keyboard but it's good enough for the job. And, oh, I also have a bluetooth keyboard which paired right up, so I could use that external larger keyboard during trips if I needed extended typing sessions.
Windows mobile is indeed slow to boot up, this is a major deficiency on all phones running this system. The OS is slightly buggy too, but no more so than the Palm OS in my opinion. The phone runs at 260mhz, I was able to overclock it slightly to 276mhz which provided some improvement in speed, but not considerably. The phone is fast enough, with only sluggishness the first time a program loads. Otherwise, the huge 128mb system memory is able to cache all the regular running programs for quick access to them.
Overall this phone rocks! I love the customizability and its sleekness is awesome. I knock off a full point as a lot of these extra enhancements could've been implemented by Samsung as stock features. But you can add them yourself at minimal cost.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sleek phone
Comment: I owned this phone for about 7 months now and have been pretty happy with it. The screen gets scratched easily so needs to be protected. Other than that, it works great.
Has GPS so google/live maps can do a good job of navigation. Battery life is excellent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pure Garbage
Comment: We have been looking for a good pda/phone for our company for a few months and settled on trying Blackjack II. We purchased a half a dozen to give our people in the field to try. After several months, not one of test group likes or even wants these phones, myself included. In short, if you need to work with this phone on the road, you will be disappointed and very likely pissed off. The details from the trail group:
Right off the bat, the proprietary phone jack is pure stupidity. We spend a lot of time on the phone, so the bluetooth headsets usually run out of battery life. Thus, we rely on the old fashioned wired headsets. With Blackjack II, you can't use any of the headsets that you like. We tried to purchase a third party adapters (great, another item to track while traveling). But the ATT stores do not carry them, and the ones we purchased from online vendors don't fit the standard 3.5 mm jack, including the ones we purchased from Samsung sold on the ATT online store.
So if you have to use a bluetooth headset, you'll need to carry around another wall and car charger. Really stupid idea.
Battery life is too short, thus the headset adapter issue becomes even more annoying. It is sleek but very flimsy. if you drop this phone, it's done. Finally, it requires a lot of steps to get what you want to do e.g., make any setting changes. If you need to use this phone while driving, you're likely to wreck or cause a wreck. Yes, you are not supposed to use in while driving, but realistically for us this is unavoidable. Again, if you're on the road a lot, skip this phone.
There are a couple of nice features, such as charging off of the laptop and the synch function is pretty seamless. Although, the first time the phone is synched with outlook, you lose all the contacts that were on the phone.
In short, the Samsung Blackjack II is pure garbage. Skip it. If you still want one, look for one of ours on the auction block. We'll be switching to another PDA/phone combo.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blackjack II LCD problems
Comment: The Blackjack II is a cool phone but has a sensitive screen. I carried mine in my pocket and the screen went bad. Samsung claims I destroyed the screen, but I have no idea how, as I was careful with it. If you get one of these phones I encourage you to get a protective case.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Bad Experience
Comment: After two months, the button in the middle of the circle stopped working. Now, after four months that I got a replacement, the windows is totally messed up. When I push "start" it is all blanc. I can't have access to anything that the software is supposed to offer. I'm gonna return this second one and look for the third to hopefully end the contract with it.
Bottom line, don't buy this.