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Samsung's BlackJack finally gets Windows Mobile 6

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

January 24, 2008, 2:40 PM

US carrier AT&T has finally given its BlackJack handsets a long-anticipated operating system upgrade, boosting it to WM6 just as 6.1 appears around the corner.

Rumors regarding the release of this upgrade to the popular handset have abounded, since both AT&T and Samsung have kept their release dates vague.

The upgrade is available as a free desktop download directly from Samsung. Also included with the upgrade is Video Share calling software, a function native to the BlackJack II. Video Share is a live one-way video feed that requires a 3G connection and two phones that mutually support streaming video.

Windows Mobile 6 debuted at 3GSM 2007 just under one year ago as a handheld complement to Windows Vista, and the release of Windows Mobile 6.1 is expected to come this year. While it is not expected to receive a major overhaul, the upgraded operating system will come with threaded SMS -- surely a welcome feature -- and the cut-and-paste function that has been missing from Windows Mobile thus far.

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By justinatwood

edited Jan 25, 2008 - 2:19 PM

Works great! It ran fine on my XP machine, I just had to download the driver from the weblink. They provide you with everything you need and a fine set of instructions.

P.S. TeleNav is awesome.

Score: 0

By GordieT

posted Jan 25, 2008 - 8:50 AM

Wow, great news. A little late though. This phone with WM6 was announced in October. Thanks for being on top of things.

Score: 0

By TIM

posted Jan 25, 2008 - 6:48 PM

I think you're confusing it with the blackjack II, which was released in the fall.

We're talking about the i607 aka "Blackjack One"

http://www.blackjackusers.com/viewtopic.php?t=4233

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

edited Jan 25, 2008 - 2:43 AM

I'm downloading as I am typing, my new Blackjack just came in the mail and i have to send the other one back. Since I havent done a single thing with it yet, I thought it would be a good time to put 6.0 on it.

I'll let you know how bad it sucks or if it's any better than 5.0

Update: Don't even try this with Vista as it requires ActiveSync, to make things worse, XP computers without certain service packs won't allow the update.

Windows is a f'ing joke, I am starting to hate Microsoft as much as I do Apple. Unfortunately my life revolves and depends on my computer so I am stuck with Gates shoddy products.

This is actually my first problem with Vista so far, and it's not Vista's fault. They were too lazy to write a sync program for this O/S. Samsung is a bunch of lazy Koreans.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jan 25, 2008 - 8:39 AM

What's your problem? I run a WM6 device just fine on Vista (and XP)

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Jan 25, 2008 - 11:12 AM

I bet it doesn't use ActiveSync.

After resurrecting an old XP notebook I had in the back room, reformating it with the restore discs that I miraculously still had, updating it with service pack 2, I was able to get the Windows mobile 5 disc that came with the phone to install, just so could communicate with it with ActiveSync.

I was able to run the update file that gives the Blackjack WM6, but I had to jump through hoops of fire to just find out how to boot the phone in reflash mode as the instructions don't tell you how.

The two things I noticed right away are the addition of TeleNav and Office Mobile. I won't use TeleNav because I have a Garmin Nuvi that I only use when I have to travel. The Nuvi required a $70 v8.0 map update a couple of months ago and is way quicker to use. I almost always store my hotel and airport destinations before I leave home so I can bring them up in favorites and select them quickly.

Office Mobile has Excel (dont use it), PowerPoint (dont use it) and Word, which I dont use very often.

All of the new icons are Vista like with smooth edges and the "busy" icon is the trademark animated aqua blue ring.

I think the RSS reader and MobiTV are new, I don't remember seeing those before. My dumb a** forgot to write down the Exchange Server domain and other settings before I put the old one back in the return box and sent it out, so I had to wing it from memory. That took a good half hour of trial and error.

The wakeup is slower than WM5 and the new splash screen let's you know right away that something is different.

That's about it, I will spend the next week finding out all the bugs and quirks.