Tumble Tumble Tumble

David Crowder + iPod shuffle = Amazing

Samsung Blackjack: AWESOME PHONE

Last Sunday, 3/4 of my family switched from the awful Sprint cell phone network to the slightly more pleasant AT&T network. What does that mean? NEW PHONES.

My mom and sister went the RAZR route, but I know better. While they may look nice, I am not a fan of the RAZR’s software. It’s confusing and it’s a pain. So I got something else.

I decided to buy a smartphone for two reasons. Reason 1: I like having a keyboard. I am a really slow texter. I would like to be faster. A keyboard makes me SO MUCH faster.

Reason 2: I am a scatterbrain. I forget things ALL THE TIME. About a month ago I forgot a tennis match! More importantly, a doubles match! I don’t like when that happens. I’d like to prevent it if possible. PDAs are a good way to do that, but I don’t like carrying another device. It’s annoying, and I like to have lean pockets. If it’s on my phone, and it works well enough, then that’s one less thing I have to carry around. Also, if it’s on my phone, it means I will probably always have it around. No excuse for not writing it down.

So when my family went to HHGregg to look at phones, I looked online to see what phones they had. The only smartphone was the Samsung Blackjack. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t read a single review of this. Not a single one. It was a very blind purchase. I wasn’t sorry though.

First of all, it’s a rather small smartphone. To be honest, laying on my desk, it’s about the size of my money clip, which currently has no money in it (that is a reference to the thickness, not my poorness). It comes with two batteries: a thin, standard battery and a thicker, extended battery. I like this, especially because it comes with a charger that can charge one battery while the other is still in the phone. In fact, I have yet to plug the charger directly into the phone.

The phone runs Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition. That just means Windows Mobile without a stylus. Instead, it is much like a regular phone in that you have two soft-buttons that have functions specific to what you’re doing. To be honest, I don’t mind the lack of stylus and touchscreen. It makes the device simpler and easier to use with one hand, which is sometimes necessary. Some people might feel the loss a little more than me.

I’m a Mac user, and this phone runs Windows. What does that mean? It means there is no built-in Mac support for this phone. Instead, Mark/Space makes a product called The Missing Sync, which does a great job of synchronizing this phone with iCal, Safari, iTunes, and iPhoto. It can also do Entourage, but Entourage sucks.

Bluetooth support is nice. This is my first phone with Bluetooth, so I might be more excited about this than other people. I had an incredibly hard time setting the phone up with Bluetooth syncing, but that might have had something to do with me trying to do it without The Missing Sync at first. By some stroke of luck, I now have it working, and it is a dream. The less cables hooked up to my MacBook Pro, the better.

The camera is nice: 1.3 megapixel is pretty good. In my experience, the quality is not as good as it could be, but come on, it’s a phone, not a camera! It also takes videos at a 320x240 resolution. That’s decent, especially without a lot of space. It’s the same resolution that my digital still cameras with video support use. It’s not great, but it works alright and it is also the exact resolution of the screen.

All in all, slick phone. I like it. I honestly wish I had a microSD card. The included memory is just not enough. Then again, I already put a 20MB video on it. That won’t stay long.

What I learned from Back to the Future

Dudes should NEVER make out with their moms. Not even if you go back in time and you’re suddenly the same age. She’s still your mom.

Why Donald Miller is an amazing writer

He is the most honest author I’ve ever read. I don’t feel like I’m reading a book; I feel like I’m having a conversation with him.