Wednesday, March 28, 2007
From the Perspective of a Pocket PC Veteran - Samsung’s Blackjack SmartPhone Reviewed
Posted by Doug Raeburn in "HARDWARE" @ 09:30 AM
Applications
The Blackjack includes versions of many of the same applications as the Pocket PC. This includes the following:
Notable by their absence are the Office Mobile applications (Word Mobile and Excel Mobile) included with the Pocket PCs. Windows Mobile 6 has just been announced and will feature versions of these mobile applications. As it stands, the only access to Office documents included with the Blackjack is the Picsel Viewer, which I found to be pretty clumsy to use. Fortunately, for those of us who would like some editing capability on our SmartPhones, DataViz has just released Documents to Go for Windows SmartPhones, a version of the popular Palm application which allows you to create, view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Best of all, it leaves the formatting of desktop documents intact when you edit.
Fortunately, since the Blackjack is a Windows Mobile device, there’s a pretty good collection of third party software applications available. But you have to be careful when shopping. Over the years there have been several different screen setups supported for SmartPhones (the original 220 x 176 portrait, QVGA, square screen and QVGA landscape). You must make sure that any software you buy supports QVGA landscape, or specifically mentions the Blackjack as supported. Be aware that even though the Motorola Q has the same resolution and screen orientation as the Blackjack, some applications written for the Q do NOT work on the Blackjack. Take advantage of trial versions whenever possible to confirm compatibility.
Since QVGA landscape is the newest screen format for SmartPhones, many software publishers have yet to provide versions of their applications that will work on a Blackjack. So the selection of software is more limited than for other SmartPhone designs and Pocket PCs. But a number of the big guns in Pocket PCs have embraced the SmartPhone market, so the choices are expanding every day. Here are some examples of available software:
