Comments on: Samsung BlackJack II vs. Motorola Q9: smartphones to the death!

By: Will Perdue

Will Perdue — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:40:47 +0000

Just got q9h. It was a beast to setup on the t-mobile network but once I got that done its great. I was having second thought about the bj2 but everything I’ve read tells me I made the best choice in the q9h. I thought it would be too big, coming from a regular cell, but it actually a nice size. The keyboard is great! I think I will really like this phone.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:33:20 +0000

I am really glad that someone has taken the time to compare these phones. My contract is almost up with Alltel, and my original Moto Q is quite worn, as it is nearly 2 years old. It has stood up well to the test of time, and I have several high capacity batteries that I will use, if I pick up the Q9. The Q9 sports a faster processor than my current Q by almost 30 Mhz. I am also looking forward to using Windows Mobile 6, as I will be able to use Pandora. Part of the reason that the Motorola Q series produces such quality audio, is the inclusion of SRS Wow technology. I found this on the SRSLabs website. I was not sure if it made much of a difference, until I disabled it in the registry. It makes quite a difference with the internal speakers, as well as headphones.

I was looking at the BlackJack II as a possible replacement, however I did not find it to be comparable in build quality. In the time that I had my phone, it has stood up to much abuse. It was dropped, thrown and crushed several times while I was in the Army. Ironically, it didn’t sustain much damage, until I accidentally flung it across the parking lot in my apartment complex. Only the did I damage the glass covering the LCD. My brother got a BJ2 from AT&T, and broke the entire LCD within 2 weeks. Granted, he does enjoy skateboarding.

Well, it’ll probably be another Motorola for me.

P.S. – This was written entirely on my original Motorola Q. The keyboard is nice, until sand and time wear it out.

By: sisko66002

sisko66002 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:37:48 +0000

BJ2 can be tricked into creating word documents. Take an already existing one, delete everything in it, save it under a new title and you have a new document.

By: drew

drew — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:54:09 +0000

The gps on my q9 work significantly better than the god damn, “real” gps that I have. I will tell you the POS info is up to date. If I am lost despite its smaller screen, and it sometimes acting acts up if using data, voice, and GPS simultaneously …

By: IT-BOB in La.

IT-BOB in La. — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:55:40 +0000

Buy the damn Samsung Epix and be done with it. Twice as fast. Looks like the BlkJk II, 400MHZ, MEGA RAM, 2-3 times as much, WI-FI, GPS, Touchscreen AND Optical Mouse, WM6.1. WHAT!!! $299 at http://www.newegg.com Go now. ok but read my discussion on this whole misleading crus Ive read here today first

FACTS: ok Im an IT consultant (15 YEARS OF IT)so I know a litle bit about THE “gUts of these phones.” Owned ONE OF the first WM 5.0 PHONES, THE PPC6700 for years. Still use it as a PDSand its hacked beyond hell. Runs slick. Just dial in with it using DUN to a 3G phone and presto EVDO to 3G and I get decent downloads. Plus wifi. Just bought the BLk Jk II 2 days ago. Awesome. Nuf said, no.

Here are some mistakes Ive read:

1. Google Maps word great on the Moto! must have a GPS! NEGATIVE!!! You can run Google APPS ON DAMN NER ANY PHONE! I ran it on my back ATT Nokia 6085 non 3G. You tell it where you are, wher you wantto go and poof! instant GPS. And now it can bounce signals off CELL TOWERS, not SATS, and get you location.

2. The BlkJk II is DUAL CORE, i.e. dual processing and multithreading (simultaneous processing of litle bits of code individually) is spread over 2 (virtually) instead of one proc. drasically inscreasing speed so think of it as 1.5 times or so. BUT! Some apps wont take advantage of them, most will.

3. Picture quaility on the BlkJk II is far superior, Not even a question.

4. BlkJak II has a TRUE GPS. hack it and run Telenav for free or some other app.

5. Load OPERA on the DAMN PHONE. IE for Mobile blows more than Paris on Saturday in LA. Opera will triple the speed of your surfing xperience. So dont compate the Moto with Opera to the BlkJk II with IT suckMob. Load Opera (the free one is fine) and watch it go!

6. Download the tweaks for 6.1 and it flys yet again, true for both phones. HowardForm is good. XMLdevelopers.com, Google it. Oh znd never forget about http://www.download.com Site has every freakin app for Mobiles you can htink of.

7. BENCHMARK BENCHMARK BENCHMARK! Go to est Buy or grab you Blkjk Iiand a buddies Moto and go to http://www.speedtest.net (With the same version of OPERA!!! Guess who will win. WHO CARES, haha. Depends on what city your in! and where you are in that city. Test it FOR YOUR AREA ALONG WITH OTHER BENCHMARK APPS (download.com) dudes.

8. AND FINALLY!!!3G doesnt mean crap, shit squat guys. There are 10-15 versions of “3G” ok? Now Google “3G speeds.” It has 700kbps, 1.4, 3.6, 14.4 blah blah. And 4G isnt far behind. 4G is gonna break Wireless N speeds. The BlkJk IIis HSDPA or 3.5G. Yea you heard me, 3.5G. Google it. 3.5G can hit 14.4Mbps in perfect conditions. yea 14.4Mbps, not kbps, not KBps (yes theirs a difference) and it huge. 1 BYTE = 1024 bits, got me? 1024 kilo bits = 1KB, mmmmk? Alright, im keepin my $79 MF BlackJack II, so, take this review and trash it, its full of bullmalarky j/k get what you want. One may work better inone city, the other in, well, you get it. Later! happy surfing. Oh and if you like these 2 phones check out the Samsung Epix at ATT. I can bein to tell you. its lile the BlkJk II on Steroids. Its got all the same featureswith more RAM 400MHZ Proc, TOUCHSCREEN AND the optical mouse, 32GB miniSD (I think). PLus: Technical Specifications
Application Platform – Java
Platform / Operating System – Windows Mobile 6.1 Smartphone Edition With 400MHz Processor
Network Compatibility – GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900; WCDMA 850, 1900, 2100
WI-FI BABY!
Ringtone Types Supported – AAC, AAC+, eAAC, MP3, WMA, WAV, MPEG4, AMR, MIDI
Data Download Speed – HSDPA (Up to 3.6 Mbps), EDGE (Up to 144 Kbps)
Built-In Memory – 134 MB
Expandable Memory Capacity – Yes, microSD Card Format Compatible, Up To 32 GB
Dimensions – 4.6 in x 2.4 in x 0.5 in
Windows Mobile OS – Yes, Windows Mobile Pro
3G Data Speeds – Yes
Weight – 4.4 oz
Compatibility Features
Standard 3.5mm Stereo Headset Jack – Yes

Oh and in case you were born in teh 90’s and missed the greatest cheapest website for ALL ELECTRONIC STUFF http://www.newegg.com YEA THey GOT THE EPIX FOR 299!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LATER DAYS, AND BETTER LAYS! haHA

By: Erik

Erik — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:01:36 +0000

Pyro

Yes, the last name-first name on your contacts can be fixed

Homescreen>Contact>Click on contact>

Now you should see “Contact” at the top.

Click on the contacts name. Scroll down to “File as:” and click left. it should change to the way you want it.

Erik

By: Missy

Missy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:12:47 +0000

do you still like the Motorola Q9 better than the 8525?

By: Lsngl

Lsngl — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:54:29 +0000

The buzzing you hear is actually from the charger of the q9. Its nothing new with Motorola. My RAZR did the same thing.

By: pyro

pyro — Sun, 25 May 2008 05:41:37 +0000

i just had the same problem with contacts on my new BJII…last name first can that be fixed?

By: elly77

elly77 — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:15:30 +0000

I puchased the q9 a month ago and I’m in love with the phone. Fast, not bulky, great keys (considering that i am a heavy text/email user with really long nails!)Love the speakers (usually it gives me a heart attack when the alarms sounds at 7 am), camera. etc.. but there is one little thing, it doesn’t really go “full screen” on the media player. Is there an upgade of the media player or somehting I can do so it will really use the whole screen when watching videos?

By: The Sand Nigger

The Sand Nigger — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:21:30 +0000

after this review i think i will buy the moto q9 i guess it is worth it to give up some good looks from the blackjack 2 and get a much better phone with has a much better keyboard the keyboard on the blackjack 2 is hard to use becase they are so narrow and i end up hitting the wrong key since there so small thanks for the review i am going to get the moto q9h

By: Engine

Engine — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:09:51 +0000

Telenav is EXTREMELY SLOW even on full signal and 3G.

Even when youtube is watchable telenav is not usable.

The fault is the servers.
The servers are sooooooooooo.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:53:30 +0000

@confrused: On the Q9h, have you gotten ICS to work with BT PAN? The stock ICS is missing the BT PAN option and I haven’t found a way to enable it yet. BT DUN works fine, but that doesn’t allow simultaneous ActiveSync & 3G access, and it doesn’t provide NAT either.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:49:20 +0000

MediaNet isn’t a software package that’s installed, it’s a service that AT&T offers. And yes, the Q9h works just fine on MediaNet plans. That includes both GPRS/EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA connections (provided you have a 3G SIM).

By: RTP

RTP — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:56:51 +0000

Does the Q9h have media net installed

By: confrused

confrused — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:21:37 +0000

i bought the bj2 and had it for a couple weeks. after a lot of registry tweaks, hacks, and 3rd party software installs (opera mobile, zatelnet, zasftp, google maps, omap clock, app unlock, etc.) and a slight overclock… it was a good phone with great reception and call quality. i REALLY liked the wheel in front and the size of the overall unit felt very comfortable in my had. i got the red one so it had the textured back that everyone liked about the bj1. i still miss my bj2 a little bit. so why did i take it back for a q9 global? the two phones are very close in terms of quality and i can’t imagine that anyone would consider it a “mistake” to purchase either.

the global is faster, period. interestingly enough, the native processor speed on the arm1710 (bj2) is 220 mhz so the 260 mhz speed was already a pretty hefty tweak/overclock. and i imgagine that it is for this reason bj2 owners found themselves unable to get a decent overclock (few stable OCs past 277). but even overclocked the bj2 felt just a bit sluggish. then there’s the matter of the proprietary jacks…

in the end, it’s not that i felt the bj2 was really INFERIOR to the global, it’s more that — FOR ME — the faster processor, nicer keyboard, louder speakers, and micro usb jacks outweighed the smaller size and spinning navigation wheel of the bj2.

and just to clarify… i don’t have 3g where i live so i have no idea how the two phones work on that front. i got good gps performance out of both phones with google maps and had no problem tethering either phone via bluetooth to the att network. and yes, i had to hack both phones to get ics running correctly. anyway… i hope this helps someone.

By: hutbug

hutbug — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:28:57 +0000

I also am test driving the BJII (red=gorgeous) and the Qh, and I wish the BJII was the winner, but the Qh is more robust, faster internet, much better speakers, automatically routes all audio including audiobooks to the bluetooth headset (no stereo set necessary) and the screen looks bigger, even tho it isn’t. Interesting how the same specs perform differently on each phone. the Qh camera seems better too. Just wish there was less silver on it, but oh well. Adios, BJIi and my old Dash!

By: Vins

Vins — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:12:15 +0000

Do the Q9 and BJ2 have a Vibrate/Silent ring tone option? Those are default feature’s even in the most basic cell phones, I wonder why it would not be present in these smart phones?

Can someone please confirm. I plan to buy one of these.

By: dave

dave — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:34:09 +0000

Does anyone know if the Blackjack keyboard is back-lit? I think the Q9 is but I have not seen if the Blackjack is or not. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is pretty important to me.

By: chad

chad — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:57:47 +0000

I would have to say that i have been through 2 motorola Qs…only because one was washed and i still worked…except for the speakers. Oh well guess i can’t complain. From personal experience, love my motorola q9!!!

By: Hoppy

Hoppy — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:03:40 +0000

I just picked up the AT&T Q9 Global and – to the person who reported that the Motorola folks said the device had no internal GPS – they are incorrect.

I have Garmin Mobile XT installed on an 8gb SDHC card and I am using non-assisted GPS just fine. In fact, I removed the SIM card, just to make sure I wasn’t getting any network support – and it’s all good. I also tested this with Google Maps and it works with the internal GPS too, but you do have to have a network connection to download maps. FWIW, I bought this to have GPS when riding my motorcycle in areas that are not within cell coverage areas. I posted more about my test over at HowardForums.

I am pleased that AT&T does not lock down the devices as much as Verizon does.

Hoppy

By: MBonanno

MBonanno — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:03:36 +0000

A few more points: I’ve had an AT&T Q9 for 30 days now after 2 or 3 years of Treo 650/600s. 3G is okay but after ATT bumped up Edge for the iPhone the Treo 650 was actually pretty decently connected. However . . . the built in Palm apps sucked, and they have since they became outdated in 1999. You needed a 3d party mail app, but those cuase it to crash all the time. Want to play music on it? Crash some more. Then it decided to loose the ability to keep track of time, being a half-hour slow by the end of the business day.

So I got the Q9. I’ve got a nice 4gb micro sd card, but win media player sucks. I wish there was Pocket Tures for win mobile . . . what do you do for internet radio on win mobile?.

PROBLEMS:
Q9 has what can only be described as the most suck*ss video camera, 2mp still images but 128×96 or 176×144? What kind of resolution is that? Apparently you get higher res on the Q9 for verizon, but only 1.3 still on verizon. This is unconscionable. Not even 320 x 240?

GPS instructions – stop car. Stand outside, hold hand in air, make sure no trees are around . . . . turn off gps . . . turn it on again repeat, now you have a connection and google maps will work great, just hope you don’t have to reinitiallize the GPS connection on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in January.

No Silent Button – this sucks if you happen to work,go to school, or eat, with other humans

Voice Dialing was actually kind of okay for me with the $20 AAA jabra earpiece from Frys, I haven’t tried it with my jabra 620 stereo headset yet. CALL . . . BILL . . . HOME “what the **ck are you looking at people haven’t you ever seen someone walking down the sidewalk screaming inane comments?

I see a lot of the spinning color wheel. In the mac world we called it the SPOD “spining pizza of death” glad to see micro is still being original. My initial BJII test in the stores made the BJII seem faster. 20 seconds to open Opera? Is that what you call “snappy” 22 seconds to load my banks home page under 3g? And that’s not even the online banking part? And then the Q9 it reverts to home if it’s not touched in like 4 seconds. How do actually READ a web site on it?

By: ABLASHEK

ABLASHEK — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:51:51 +0000

I’M SORRY, BUT I THINK THE BLACKJACK HAS WIFI INTEGRATED. I MAY NEED TO DOUBLE CHECK, BUT I JUST SAW ONE TODAY, AND THE DETAILS MENTIONED THAT IT COMES WITH WIFI.

THAT MAY BE A DEALBREAKER FOR SOME PEOPLE.

By: BJ Lover

BJ Lover — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:13:28 +0000

I am torn between the Q and the BJ2 still. I seem to read mixed reviews about the battery life in terms of which one really is better. Does this version of the Q automatically switch to local time based on the time zone? The original one didn’t? Actually, I hate the original Q so much it’s hard for me to even consider the Q9 over the BJ2….but there seems to be a lot of users saying the Q9 is better.

Pros for BJ2…seems to be size, more applications….POSSIBLY battery life…and you don’t have to have that stupid extended battery pack sticking out.

Pros for Q9…seems to be performance (but how much better is unclear)…more or less the actual call features…

Also, I read something on here about European travel being an advantage for the BJ2. Can someone explain? Thanks for your help.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:57:27 +0000

I was leaning toward getting the BJII because of its sleeker design. However after trying out both the Q9 and BJII at a local AT&T store today, the Q9 won me over hands done. Great keyboard, but most importantly, the Q9 just feels faster! Opening up applications, browsing the internet, etc all seems faster. No lag at all – which I found on the BJII. I’m getting the Q9!

By: karel

karel — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:56:03 +0000

Hmmm… It looks, that the agps should be able to work, but evil ATT locked it so you must use telenav. google earth works fine, but that not 100% navigation, like tomtom for example.
btw it looks, that there is no gps in the european version at all.

By: karel

karel — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:18:00 +0000

I have to say, that I dont understand it. AGPS should be something like GPS + triangulation of bts data (via some server).
So I dont understand, why its used just for the emergency locations. Or maybe it works in this way just in the q9 phone?
I have do idea. Can anybody help?

By: TrueDis

TrueDis — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:43:51 +0000

@karel

Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t know AGPS could work without a GPS receiver. I guess that explains why GPS performance is so bad. Does this mean it’s just using triangulation data and not satellite signals to get coordinates?

By: karel

karel — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:40:56 +0000

If you check the manual of Q9, you see, that there is only AGPS, not true GPS. There can be some way how google maps can work with it, but not too effectivelly.

I called Motorola support directly and they confirmed that there is no GPS in Q Global. They recommended me to use standalone GPS unit.

BTW the same information in the Motorola helpline forums.

By: Aaron J. Walker

Aaron J. Walker — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:45:37 +0000

I haven’t noticed a buzzing sound from the keyboard.

I use a bluetooth headset 98.9% of the time though so maybe I’m never close enough to hear a buzzing sound.

The call quality seems to be pretty good to me as well. People I talk to never complain or say they hear anything weird, not counting the sound of my own voice