Samsung offers the following list of enhancements and additions that Windows Mobile 6.5 brings to the Jack:

• Internet Explorer Mobile 6
• Windows Market Place for Mobile
• Modified UI with updated text & icons in several areas
• Enhanced, Java platform
• Battery optimization
• Radio signal optimization
• Fixed, T9 predictive logic (able to use z character)
• Added, RNDIS bypass support (Settings>Connection>USB) for simpler desktop connectivity
• Added, AT&T WiFi and Mobile Share
• Added, Vlingo for Windows Phone for improved voice recognition

The two big things that you’re going to see after upgrading to 6.5 are an improved web browsing experience thanks to Internet Explorer Mobile 6 and the new Market Place for Mobile. I’m sure that Samsung has done some tweaks to the battery life, but it’s nothing ground breaking. I haven’t noticed an extra day or power or anything. As for the modified UI, take a look at the pictures below and you be the judge if there’s anything there that is so over the top you just have to have it, because, frankly, I don’t see it.

While the market place is a welcome addition, it has yet to receive the praise or attention that it needs from developers to make it worth while. Many developers still see developing for Windows Mobile as a costly endeavor and that hasn’t changed with 6.5.

That leaves us with an improved version of Internet Explorer Mobile. Is it really that improved? YES, and it’s long overdue. Is it faster, with better support for rendering non-mobile content from websites. The browser now supports full screen mode allowing you to view more of the webpage and less of the standard title bar and softkeys.

So the ultimate question – Is it worth the upgrade? Yes, but only if you do a lot of web browsing on your device. If that’s not your cup of tea, and you don’t really care about being able to check out applications directly on your device, then I wouldn’t waste the time in flashing your device and then restoring all of your data.

Before performing this upgrade, be sure to backup any personal information you might have on the device. The upgrade will wipe the device and restore it to factory default settings. If you don’t have a backup procedure in place, I highly recommend you install Microsoft’s My Phone service and backup all your data to the cloud for free. You can sign up here, or read more about it in my review – here.

I’m off to upgrade my Jack. If you have any problems or questions about the upgrade process, just post them in the comments here and I’ll do what I can to help. I’ll post my thoughts on the new ROM once my device is flashed and I’ve had a chance to play around with it.

Update: It looks like the update will not run on Windows 7, even if it’s run under compatibility mode as an administrator. You’ll need a machine running Vista or XP in order to do this upgrade. When I launched the installer on Vista, it failed the first time. I had to run the installer as an administrator in order for it to work.

Processor

Both the HTC Snap (also known as the T-Mobile Dash 3G) and the Samsung Jack sport a 528MHz processor which provides a wealth of power for general tasks. Despite the fast processor, I have noticed some lag on the HTC Snap. Especially on opening the start menu after a fresh reboot. It’s a good 4-5 seconds waiting for the start menu to populate. It draws the windows almost instantly, but it takes a while to show the available programs. Advantage – Jack

Battery Life

According to the T-Mobile website, the Dash 3G should get up to 5 hours of talk time and up to 9 days on standby. Comparing that to Samsung’s website for the Jack, which says you can expect up to 7 hours of talk time and up to 12 days on standby. The difference in these 2 times is pretty interesting when the Dash 3G actually has a larger 1500mAh battery compared to a 1480mAh battery on the Jack. With a smaller battery, the Jack can last up to 3 days longer on standby and talk for 2 hours more. Advantage – Jack

Memory

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed that the memory on Windows Mobile Standard devices is still so limited compared to what is available on Professional devices. The Samsung Jack has 256MB RAM and 256MB ROM, while the HTC Snap has 192MB RAM and 256MB ROM. Personally, these devices should be coming with a gig or two of memory. Both of these devices are well short of the memory they should be loaded with given today’s memory prices and availability. The difference here is only 64MB, but when you have a quarter of what you should have, every little byte counts. Advantage – Jack

External Memory

Given that these devices are so limited in regards to the amount of storage they have onboard, external memory capacity becomes very important. In this regards, the HTC device is listed as supporting up to 32GB MicroSD cards. The Samsung Jack can only handle 16GB MicroSD cards. The largest MicroSD card I have is 16GB, so I’m not able to test these claims. We’ll have to go forward based on the information provided from the manufacturer. Advantage – Snap

Size

When it comes to size, the difference between these two devices is almost nothing. The Snap is 0.19 inches longer, 0.02 inches wider, and 0.03 inches less in depth than the Jack. The Jack may be a thicker phone, but the Snap is a longer device. (Jack – 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.5 / Snap – 4.59 x 2.42 x 0.47) The differences here are minimal. Advantage – Tie – Jack / Snap

Weight

Weight is important on any mobile device. Nobody wants to feel like they’re carrying a lead weight in their pocket. In much the same fashion as size, the weight is very similar between these devices. The Snap comes in at 4.23 ounces, while the Jack comes in at 3.5 Smart. That’s a difference of 0.27 between these popular devices. It’s not something that most people would notice. In fact, because of the shape and feel of each device, many people have misjudged the weight of each unit and guessed that the Snap was a lighter device. Advantage – Tie – Jack / Snap

Camera

Samsung has been working really hard to pack a nice camera into their smartphones, and the Jack is no exception – It sports a 3.2 megapixel camera. Compare that to the 2.0 megapixel camera found on the Snap. I’m sure there’s a cost savings and space savings associated with a 2.0 megapixel camera versus a 3.2 camera, but you can’t ignore what the competition is doing. The Snap should have at least a 3 megapixel camera in my opinion. Advantage – Jack

Charge / Sync Port

Proprietary ports are nothing short of a pain. Who really wants to buy all new accessories every time they switch phones? Samsung has talked about changing their use of proprietary ports in the future, but right now, the Jack is sporting Samsung’s proprietary connector. HTC, on the other hand, is using a standard miniUSB port for charging and synchronizing the device. If you have an existing USB car charger, or a spare wall charger, you won’t have to buy anything extra if you were to switch to the Snap. Advantage – Snap

Navigation

Trackball versus a d-pad. This really comes down to personal preference and how you use the device. The thing I like about a d-pad is that you can press and hold the up direction and the device will continue to scroll up through the list of items. With a trackball it’s a lot more thumb action to keep things scrolling. The trackball is difficult to use when you are trying to make a small movement or selection. Advantage – Jack

The winner of the showdown is the Samsung Jack with a score of 7 to 4. Now, to be clear, I don’t think you can go wrong with either of these devices. It’s best to make an informed decision about which device best suits your needs.

I think that HTC has done a pretty good job on the Snap, but they really need to place the bar higher and try to do more than the competition. It’s great to see them back making messenger style devices, but they should be pushing the limits and coming up with new devices that out spec the competition. Let’s see some Windows Mobile Standard devices with 4Gig of memory, larger resolution screens, faster processors, and better cameras. You’ve proven that you can lead the market on the Windows Mobile Professional side. Now let’s see you do that on Standard.

It may not be called BlackJack, but the new Samsung Jack is the third release in the popular BlackJack series of smartphones. The original BlackJack and BlackJack II devices both reached the million plus sales mark. Can Samsung repeat that success with this new phone? If first impressions are any indication, then the new Jack should easily live up to the reputation of the BlackJack’s before it and reach that million seller mark.

Here’s a rundown of the technical specifications for the new Jack:

• Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard (Non-Touch)
• 528MHz Processor
• 256MB ROM / 256MB RAM
• Supports 16GB MicroSD
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE – 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
• 3G UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA – 850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
• HSDPA – 3.6 Mbps
• 320 x 240, 2.4 inch screen
• QWERTY Backlit keyboard
• 1480 mAh Battery
• 3.2 Megapixel Camera
• WiFi – 802.11b/g
• GPS
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches (H x W x D)
• Weight – 3.6 ounces

If you compare these specs to the BlackJack II, you’ll notice that the processor is a whole lot faster, and the battery is a whole lot less. The BlackJack II sported a 260MHz processor, while the new Jack has a 528MHz processor. That’s a pretty significant upgrade in speed and it’s noticeable. The battery goes from 1700mAh down to 1480mAh. That’s a drop of 220mAh! We’ve got a faster phone with a smaller battery and if you guessed that battery life dropped, then you would be right. The BlackJack II would easily make it through a day and most of the second day before it would need a charge. With the Jack, you will get 24 hours our of a charge and then need to charge it. If you have a busy day, you’ll need to charge it when you get home. Otherwise, you’ll probably need to charge it on the way to work in the morning.

The next thing you’ll notice in the comparison is the increase in memory. The BlackJack II had 155MB to play with, which isn’t much at all. The Jack has increased this to 256MB. While it’s still a long way from 512MB, or 1GB, it’s certainly better than 155MB. Thankfully, the Jack supports MicroSD cards to expand the storage memory. I have a 16GB SanDisk card inserted in my Jack and it can easily hold just about everything short of the kitchen sink.

Samsung made a big change in the keyboard on the Jack. The original BlackJack and BlackJack II had very similar keyboards. The Jack keyboard changes the oval buttons to a more square design and pushes the buttons up against each other. I’ve been a long time user of the BlackJack (both I and II) for so long that I was very concerned about how usable this new keyboard layout would actually be. The new keyboard has less snap in the keyboard when you press a button, it’s a softer click than in the past keyboards. In the end, I was able to pick up the Jack and get up to speed on the new keyboard in a pretty short amount of time. I would consider it one of the better keyboards I have used in a while. It’s significantly better than the Pantech Matrix Pro and HTC’s s740 device. While both of those devices have nice keyboards, they’re just not at the same level as the Jack.

Finally, you’re going to notice the difference in size and weight. The actually size of the Jack isn’t much different than the BlackJack II. The difference is just 0.08” Height x 0.01” Width x 0.01” Depth (the BlackJack II measures in at 4.48” x 2.39” x 0.51”). That’s not a big difference, but the Jack has more rounded and gentle edges making it feel more comfortable in your hands. Along with the comfort is a lighter weight. The Jack is 0.49 ounces lighter at 3.6 oz from 4.09 oz. This lighter weight and more comfortable grip makes it almost disappear in your pocket.

So, enough of this comparison to the BlackJack II. It’s time to go one on one with the Jack. The top and bottom of the phone are heavily rounded and clean of any buttons or connectors. Down the left side of the phone you will find the power and volume buttons. On the right side is the charge / sync / headset port. Open the battery door and you will find the SIM and the MicroSD slot. You need to remove the battery in order to remove the MicroSD card. This is a great location if you’re concerned about the content on the card. It will force authentication on the deviec when it boots back up and of course, the card would be encrypted too, further reducing the risk of documents falling into the wrong hands.

The 3.2 megapixel camera snaps some decent pictures. They aren’t as good as I would have liked to see, but most people with this phone are using it for messaging and browsing. It’s not designed to be a point and shoot camera replacement. However, it would be nice if the quality was a little better overall. The best results I had were on outdoor images where the camera was held very still.

The screen on the Jack is different than other devices. It’s not something that everyone would notice or be bothered by, but there is a significant difference between the screen on the Jack and other Windows Mobile Standard devices. It’s most noticeable to people who are switching from another Windows Mobile Standard phone like the BlackJack or HTC Rose. The screen on the Jack is more washed out than other screens. At first, I thought it was just a miss-configured backlight, but that was quickly proven to be wrong. It appears to be an inferior screen than other devices. Samsung may have swapped to a less expensive screen and the result of that is a noticeable wash-out or overly white look to the screen. It’s not bad enough that you can’t use it or anything like that, and you will become accustom to it in very short order. However, it is something that I wish was not the case.

One of the things that I really like about the Jack is the external speaker. It has to be one of the loudest Windows Mobile Standard devices I have used. From Ringtones to Speaker phone, any time the phone played a sound through the external speaker, it was loud and clear. I think that part of this is how Samsung exposed the speaker on the phone – as most devices do, the speaker is on the back of the unit. But Samsung also made a small top facing speaker cut-out on the device. This seems to make all the difference in the world when the device is sitting on a table or in a belt-clip. That top facing speaker cut-out makes it much easier to hear the phone.

Inside the phone you’ll find Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard with all the typical Samsung tweaks, plus a couple new ones. If you’ve ever had a Samsung Windows Mobile Standard device, then you’ll understand what I mean by typical applications. The Organizer and Applications folder are filled with the regulars like Alarms, Calculator, StopWatch, Smart Converter, Adobe Reader, Java, MobiTV, My-Cast Weather, RSS Reader and so much more. Samsung has also included 6 trial games – Asphalt 4, Block Breaker Deluxe 2, Brain Challenge 2, Jewel Quest II, Scrabble, and Tetris.

Back on the original BlackJack, Samsung included a really cool quick launch application that was integrated with the scroll wheel. By pressing and holding the scroll wheel for a couple seconds, a quick launch list would appear. You could then scroll up / down the list to the application you wanted to run. Once you highlight the application, you would click the scroll wheel and it would launch that application and close the quick launch list. The BlackJack II removed the Quick Launch application and replaced it with a Shortcut application. You can define what applications open when you press the function key – Fn – and some other key on the keyboard. The concept here is pretty nice – Fn + B will turn on / off Bluetooth. Pressing Fn + T can be mapped to your favorite Twitter application allowing you to launch it quickly and easily. The problem here is that it’s a two-handed process and you have to remember what application you assigned to which letter. The Jack continues to use the Shortcut tool which is very disappointing. I would like to see Samsung return to the original Quick Launch application. I realize that they no longer have the scroll wheel, but there’s no reason it can’t be mapped to a press and hold on the camera button or even the function key would work. Ultimately, this is a better tool for allowing people to quickly access their applications.

New on the Jack is Samsung’s Message Ticker application for notification on new emails. There are 6 different styles to pick from. Then when you receive a new email, you’ll see a message notification appear on the home screen using the style that you selected. It’s a pretty neat application, however if you get a fair amount of email, you’ll find this tool to be a little annoying. It’s worth taking a look at, but if you find it to be too overwhelming don’t be afraid to turn it off.

I was able to install Live Search (now called Bing Mobile) and get a GPS fix without having to do any hacking. I found the GPS was very accurate and I didn’t have to wait any longer than any other GPS to get a fix on my location (at least nothing noticeable). I have heard that some people are having issues with some of the more feature rich navigation software not being able to run on it. I haven’t tested any application like that. Bing Mobile does what I need for a mobile phone.

The Good:

• Fast 528MHz processor
• Excellent keyboard
• Quad-Band radio with support for Bluetooth and WiFi
• Loud external speaker
• Feels great in your hand and light weight

The Bad:

• Washed out screen
• Reduced battery life from previous model
• Proprietary Samsung connector

The Samsung Jack is a great phone for anyone that’s looking for a powerful messaging device. It’s light weight with a powerful processor and great options for connectivity. If you’re a really heavy email user, you might want to consider getting a second battery or a second charger so that you can keep the battery topped up throughout the day. Otherwise, you should have no problem making it through a day on a full charge.

Now that you have turned this on, you can easily dial vanity numbers without trying to remember what number M, or I, or K, or E. You can use your QWERTY keyboard to enter the full word easily and the smartphone will automatically replace the letters with the correct numbers. To use the feature, start entering the number as you normally would. When you get to the letters, press the function (Fn) key and then type the word using your keyboard. For example, if you wanted to dial 1-800-MobileJaw, you would press 1, 8, 0, 0, Fn, M, o, b, i, l, e, J, a, w (without the comma’s). That’s easy enough, right? So get out there and dial those vanity numbers!

Just to be clear, this article is talking about the AT&T Samsung Jack (SGH-i637) smartphone, also known as the Omnia Pro B7320.  If you are using a Rogers or Fido Samsung Jack, then and need to look at the hard reset instructions for the BlackJack II, which can be found here.

On the Samsung Jack, there are 2 types of reset options, Master Clear and Master Reset. The Master Reset function will reset the phone back to factory settings. The Master Clear option will reset the phone and wipe clean the user storage locations.  To access these options, you need to hit Start / Settings / Security and then select the reset method of your choice.  You will then be prompted for a reset password. Unless you have changed this value, the default is 0000 (four zero’s). Enter the reset password and you will be prompted to confirm the reset. If you picked the Master Clear, you will be prompted to select which user storage will be wiped.

If the Samsung Jack won’t boot or hangs just after booting, you can still perform a hard reset on the device.  From a powered off state, press the power button while holding down the “F” key on the keyboard. Keep holding down the “F” key until you see the format menu.  Here you will be prompted on which type of reset you are looking to do. Select 1 for Master Clear, or 2 for Master Reset and the device will be wiped accordingly.

Samsung has officially announced four new Windows Mobile devices. There was no mention of price or availability of the 3 Windows Mobile Professional and 1 Standard devices. However, it is expected that they will be available in the next couple months. The Professional devices all build off the incredibly successful Omnia product line. The first device is the Omnia II which will feature a large 3.1 inch AMOLED display with 480×800 resolution, 800 MHz processor, TouchWiz 2.0 user interface, and Samsung’s Dolfin internet browser that supports viewing of up to 5 web pages simultaneously. The Omnia II, also known as the Jet, will also sport a 5 megapixel camera, GPS, FM Radio, Bluetooth, WiFi, DNSe and SRS Sound Effect technology, as well as DivX and Xvid video support. The Omnia Pro will have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard allowing fast and easy text input. The 4 row keyboard will slide on the left side of the device. The Omnia Lite will scale things down a little with a 3 megapixel camera and aGPS.

The final phone, and the only Windows Mobile Standard based device announced, is built from the extremely popular BlackJack I/II line of devices. The new Omnia Pro B7320 phone is very much the same as the Samsung Jack that has been released on AT&T’s network. The only noticeable difference in features is that the B7320 model will add an FM Radio.

The Omnia II and Omnia Pro devices appear to be very nice units. I’m not so sure about the Lite at this time, we’ll have to wait and see how that one turns out. And the B7320 (Jack) device is a solid follow-up to the BlackJack II. Samsung is sure moving hard and fast in the mobile space. It will be interesting to see what HTC announces later this month at their big event.

This past week, AT&T announced another Samsung smartphone that will be added to their line-up. The new phone is called the Samsung Jack, not to be confused with the Samsung Jack being offered on the Canadian GSM carrier – Rogers, which is actually a BlackJack II. This new Jack runs Windows Mobile 6.1 but will be upgradable to Windows Mobile 6.5 when the time comes. The new Jack adds WiFi, a 3megapixel camera and a new keyboard design. The new keyboard is more like the one found on the Motorola Q than on previous BlackJack models. There are no more spaces between the keys on this new layout. I actually prefered the keyboard on the old BlackJack and didn’t care for the keyboard on the Q because of that space. I found it much easier to find the keys without looking at the keyboard. So it might take a little getting use to for some of us. It’s getting very hard to decide what my next device should be. I’m still lusting after the Propel Pro which was released a couple weeks back.

The Samsung Jack will be available on May 19th for $100 after a mail-in rebate and a 2 year contract.