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Thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications (not necessarily in that order) by Ben Forta ...
NOTE: This is my personal blog, and the opinions and statements voiced here are my own.
November 27, 2006
Posted At : 9:03 PM
Related Categories:
Wireless
In addition to the comments I posted yesterday regarding my new Samsung BlackJack:
Pros:
- Batteries can be charged via the included charger, or by connecting the phone to your computer, it uses the same USB connection to sync the device and to charge the battery, which is very nice. No need to carry a charger and a sync cable.
- I've been using the phone actively today, and call quality is superb!
Cons:
- Battery life is appalling! I do have Bluetooth activated all of the time, and that does drain power. But still, this device has the worst battery life of any device I have used. Not good at all.
- As already noted, I like that the device charges via the sync cable. But, there is no easy way to determine when charging is complete! No light, no indicator, the battery strength indicator is not granular enough to distinguish between partially full and completely full.
- And the biggie! As noted yesterday, the Bluetooth support works well. But, there is one MAJOR implementation flaw. You can pair as many devices as you like, including multiple headsets. But only one can ever be active at any time. What does this mean? I use two headsets continuously, one is a little ear headset and the other is my car. Both are paired with the phone, and so whichever is available should be used. This is how every other Bluetooth device I have used works, including multiple Sony Ericsson phones, the Nokia E62, the Treo 650, Windows devices like the Cingular 8125 and the Treo 700w (meaning that this is not a Windows Mobile limitation), and more. But not the BlackJack. To switch from one headset to the other I have to go to Settings, Communications, Bluetooth, Headset Settings and use the menu to manually select which one to use for connections (SET will appear next to the selected one and an X next to the other). This is a ridiculous and arbitrary limitation, and could be the deal breaker for me. :-(
More to follow, I am sure.
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FYI - I got it the day Verizon released it and shipped the battery back for a new one because they said the release ones some had an inferior battery (which is why they had such a great deal on the extended battery set back then). might want to check that out.
its an amazing little phone - tiny light has everything I could ever need - i switched from a p910 and have never looked back.
I'm also having a problem connecting the USB cable. I get a message saying "USB Device is not Recognized". The funny thing is that it recognized it 2 days ago.
1. Click Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click "7 More..."
4. Click "3 Power Management"
The charge on the main battery is displayed with a blue bar. Not particularly easy to find, but very useful.
My active sync is not linked now and it seems to be charging with the USB cable. I did notice that for the first few minutes it didn't display the charging icon.
Has anyone bought the extended battery? If so, how much does it add to the back of the case?
And based on the use, would I just be better to buy another standard battery?
Does anyone else have problems with charging the phone while linked via Activesync? I've noticed that when my phone is hooked up via USB to my laptop and Activesync is running, my phone still doesn't charge. If I go into my USB controller settings, the USB port is providing power. But the phone doesn't seem to notice. The "charging" icon and the "full battery" icon will alternate now and again.
Oddly, I CAN charge the battery if I take it out of the phone and put it in the charger and hook that up to a USB port. I have no issues with charging either the slim battery or the extended-life battery. And when I use the extended-life battery, I can go a loooong time without charging. I just don't like how big it is.
I've heard that 3G service will also drain the battery faster than EDGE network, by the way.
For comparison's sake, as an experiment, this last weekend I disabled the 3G service on my phone using a registry hack, and the result was my battery lasted all weekend without being charged. In fact, my battery level didn't drop below 80%!
When I turned 3G back on last evening, after 4 hours the battery was down to 50%.
I flew to North Carolina, to a small rural area, late yesterday evening. Coverage here is only EDGE network, but my battery consumption has again dropped drastically. I had charged the phone overnight. It's 1:40pm as I type this, and my battery level has only dropped to 85%.
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I have no explanation for this. It definitely seems like a big design flaw. Every other Smartphone I've owned or used has been able to charge when plugged into the USB port.
Annoying!