Jun 6

Written by: Mike Temporale
Friday, June 6, 2008 10:34pm

The original BlackJack from Samsung sported a really cool quick launch application that was launched when you did a press and hold on the scroll wheel. The list of applications was fully customizable and you could scroll through the list rather easily. Overall it was a great application that I used daily.

Enter the BlackJack II, Samsungs newer revision of the original hit device. The BlackJack II adds GPS, more memory, 3G, and Windows Mobile 6.0 pre-loaded. What it lacks is the very popular scroll wheel. This was replaced by a d-pad that supports scrolling by twisting the outside of the d-pad around. The downside of this new integrated d-pad/scroll wheel combo is that it takes almost a full rotation to increment 1 row in the application you are looking to scroll through. The other downside to this new control is that there is no longer a quick launch application on the device. I guess Samsung decided that there was nothing to press and hold so let’s get rid of the application all together.

Well, they didn’t completely remove this quick launch application. Instead, they created a Fn-Key shortcut system. From the Today screen, you can press and hold the Function key followed by a key on the keyboard to launch a given application. The list of application is customizable - somewhat. There are some values that are pre-populated and can’t be changed. As the image indicates, Fn+C will launch AT&T Mall. That’s all well and good, but I would much rather have Fn+C launch the calculator. You can add any un-used letter and browse to any application on your device that you want to launch. But you can’t change the default applications. At least not without hacking the device (more on that in a future post).

Samsung did a great job with the BlackJack II. All the extra features really help to take what was a good device and make it great. It’s too bad they decided to remove the scroll wheel, and equally bad that they didn’t use the same Quick Launch app from the original device. These two features would take a great device and make it amazing.

 

Add A Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.