Wishful Improvements for the Samsung Jack

More of an exercise in wishful thinking, here is a list magical improvements suggested for the now-dated Samsung Jack (Blackjack 2):

• Faster CPU – multitasking for champions

• Improved Screen Resolution – more on-screen real estate, more impaired vision

• Less Boxy Design – avoid looking like you’re talking into a calculator

• Non-Proprietary jack – hello Sony

• Smaller Dimensions – as big as the iPhone and a lot less fun (although arguably more productive)

• Light Sensor – 3 or more steps to dim the screen is a waste of 3 or steps

Anything else come to mind?

PSp

WM6.5 For the Samsung Jack…Coming Soon

I dusted off the Samsung Jack (aka Blackjack 2) the other day to just jog the phone a bit. While fiddling around, I stumbled across a bunch of articles indicating that we can soon expect a release of this upgrade for WM Standard devices in the second half of the year. I had just upgraded the HTC Touch to the Pro version of 6.5 so this was really no surprise. The major changes with the PPC version were centered around the touch-friendliness of the OS, so the expectations are that 6.5 for Standard devices wouldn’t include anything substantial to warrant an upgrade. Here’s a good review of what to be expected with this release:

Campuskoder review of WM6.5 Standard

Some key changes include:

• IE6 for mobile
• Marketplace
• Some refreshing of the UI

What I’m interested in is whether or not this will make better use of the somewhat limited processor of the Jack as well as if there will be any noticeable increase in battery life. I’ll conduct some tests once an official upgrade is avialable. In the meantime, if anyone comes across a beta release, let me know and we can have an early look…

PSp

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Battery drain on the Samsung Jack

I’ve been having trouble recently with the battery life on my Samsung Jack. I have narrowed it down to a few culprits, and the answer is likely a combination of the following:

• Exchange Server patches at corporate HQ: it now allows for “real-time” push emails. I used to have this set to sync every 10 minutes. I didn’t expect there to be this much drain given that i used to sync more frequently manually anyway.

• Overclocking: I use an application called Omapclock to increase the processor speed from 252MHz (stock) to 276MHz when I need to do some serious work. This would be my number one pick for the cause of the drain if it wasn’t for the fact that I have been doing this for a while and only now is the power leak evident.

• Flexmail and Pocket Informant running constantly in the background: my most recent reorganization kick led to the installation of these two programs, and I keep them up in the bakground for the better part of the day. They’re not actively performing any functions, but the sense is that processes are still running that could cause a slight drain to the battery, however minimal (I’m not sure how much I believe that, but I’m not eager enough to investigate further).

• Smarttoolkit: This is a small application that runs on top of the regular today theme and gives you a ‘Start’ button functioning similar to how you would expect on a desktop. I’ll write up more about the utility of this in another post, but right now it’s worth mentioning as another potential culprit as it is the latest application to be added to the arsenal.

Fortunately, I have a second OEM battery as a backup, but I don’t have any meaningful way to charge it other than through the device. That means I have to somehow charge two batteries at night by swapping out, which also resets my phone minute tracker. Dilemmas.

I will continue to monitor this and troubleshoot as the annoyance level escalates. If you have any thoughts, I’m open to hearing them…

PSp

Productivity on your smartphone in transit

I find myself in transit for 12.5% of my conscious day. That’s a lot of time spent on a train, in a bus, or in a car. Some days I can’t help but close my eyes and daydream of more pleasant things. (Not usually while driving.) Other days I make the most of my commuting time by knocking off a few tasks directly with my phone. What, besides email, do I usually do? In no particular order:

• Back fill the rest of my day in my calendar. We track time for billing purposes at work, so it helps to keep this logged so it’s a straight transfer at the end of the week.

• Create tasks from emails. A combination of Flexmail and Pocket Informant allows you to do this quite easily by copying the body of regular text-based messages into the notes portion of your task to give you context. The only gripe is how many embedded menus you have to scroll through to get there. I have a quick snapshot of how below:

Screenshot of how to create a task from an email in Flexmail

• Organize inbox. Messages can be moved and filed very easily, even with the native Outlook mobile application.

• Backup my phone. It’s good to do this once in a while, particularly on the windows mobile platform. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never had my device lock up on me to the point that a hard reset was in order. With that said, the WM Standard (non-touchscreen) variants are far more stable than the Pocket PCs.

• Create meeting agendas. I’m in meetings for more than 50% of my work day, and I end up running half of those. Word processing on your mobile devices isn’t great on a 2.4″ screen, but it’s sufficient for simple things like meeting agendas or simple notes.

• Listen to podcasts. Ok, I know this one doesn’t necessarily imply productive work, but it is if you listen to more educational casts like TedTalks or GTD virtual study group.

I can do all of these things directly from the Samsung Jack, although the podcasts are much better suited for the iPod Touch. Some of these activities take longer than others. I’m planning on commenting about the platform and processor issues (i.e. it can be slow!) in a future post.

The list above isn’t comprehensive, so I’ll keep adding to it as other ideas come up. And of course, contributions are welcome…

PSp

Smartphone Devices for Productivity

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So let’s start with the devices that we’re currently using to increase our productivity. Mind you, there’s a limit to how many devices you can use at the same time before you start to lose productivity. (There’s an article in that thought for the future I think.)

A brief primer

There are 6 competitive smartphone operating systems to choose from:

• Windows Mobile (Standard non-touchscreen or Professional PPC touchscreen)
• Symbian (predominantly Nokia phones)
• Blackberry OS
• iPhone OS
• Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS)
• Andriod (Google’s new OS, currently out on the HTC Dream)

There are scores of information out there on each and it would take weeks to review them at length. I will leave that to the professionals, so you can check out comparisons of the first four here.

Each OS has it’s own strengths and limitations. Personally, I’ve always been inclined to go for Windows Mobile as I like the flexibility it provides as well as the seamless integration with MS Exchange server which my company uses to host email. The platform isn’t without fault, and I’ve had moments where I was just about ready to take a sledgehammer to one or more of my WM phones. All in all though, it seems to work (with the right amount of finessing). I”m sure there are many waiting in the wings to debate this point…

The Devices

So enough jabbering – here are the devices currently in use:

Smartphone devices

From left to right, we have: HTC Touch, Samsung Jack (or Blackjack 2), Blackberry Pearl 8120, and an iPod Touch for good measure. I know, the iPod isn’t technically a smartphone, but it has all of the same capabilities minus the (non-wifi) network connectivity, camera and a mic so am including it in our discussion.

This gives us a fairly solid breadth of experience among three different platforms. I’m eager to get my hands on a Symbian phone, but am paralyzed by the often discussed slow syncing of emails. So for the time-being, I remain out of the market for a Nokia phone (although the E71-2 has subtly caught my attention).

Unfortunately, the idea of carrying around 4 different devices is absurd enough to not do it more than once or twice, so what do I keep with me day-to-day? My primary workhorse is the Samsung Jack, backed up by the uber-revolutionizing iPod. I don’t think I could live without one or the other. The Ipod is essential for ease of note-taking (app: Evernote) and list making (app: ShopShop). I use Evernote as well on my Jack, but it expectedly cannot hold a candle to the usability of the iPod version. And of course, the defacto WM email syncing keeps me forever bound to the Jack. The HTC Touch is impressive for it’s time, but is a bit dated and can frustrate you to no end with the lack of hard buttons (notice that this is NOT a drawback on the iPod).

I have opened a few different doors and will be walking through each of these in due time. For now, I will leave you with these thoughts when it comes to picking the hardware to meet your needs:

Things to look for in a smartphone

The Operating System. See above and choose the one you like. Keep in mind that more mature systems (e.g. Windows Mobile, Symbian) have more 3rd party applications to choose from. The caveat is that both RIM and Apple now have appstores to make it easy for you to download what you want. And don’t forget about email integration. This will be the last time I mention it in this post, but the most powerful integration solution comes with Windows or BB BES. Everything is else is second place.

Keyboard. The most noticeable distinction between phones outside of the actual OS is the presence of a hard keyboard. How often to you plan on typing with your device? How stubby or slim are your fingers? I don’t actually have a strong preference one way or the other as I am just as quick to type on the Touch as I am the Jack, but my general recommendation is to go with a hard keyboard. In addition to providing tactile feedback, the keys make great shortcuts to different applications that can save you time with menu-intensive operating systems.

Physical Phone Size. How do you want to carry your phone? If you have a purse/murse, problem solved. If not, deciding whether or not to wear a holster can be a tough choice. The leather blackberry holsters can seem professional, and the more people that wear them the more natural it looks, but there are still some holdouts that find the “clipped to my belt/pant pocket/waistband” look ridiculously silly, especially in more casual attire. Here’s an example:

Holstered phone. Slick.

Horsepower. If you want to be productive, you need speed (cpu speed, not the drug which also eerily fits this sentence). Phone’s tend to lag when you try to do too much, which is one of the reasons why the iPhone doesn’t allow you to multitask aside from their music player. The CPU speed isn’t always indicative of how fast the device is; the make and model as well as the OS play a big part. Read some reviews, google some performance tests or actually try the thing first if you can.

Resale value. It may not be as important to you if you’re still carrying a Palm Treo 650 or if you’re with a CDMA (Sprint, Bell etc) carrier where the phones aren’t as easily interchangeable. But if you’re on GSM, you might be inclined to upgrade more often than your contract subsidizes for, which means grey market (craigslist anyone?).

What else do you look for in a phone?

Once we get into the tools, it will be easier to make a decision as what you get out of it should be driven by how you intend to use it to enhance your productivity.

PSp