Mar 25, 2008

MAGID ON TECH: Ace no substitute for Blackberry

By Larry Magid / Daily News Columnist

I've been carrying around the Samsung Ace for the past few weeks and for the most part I like it. Personally, I don't like it as much as the Blackberry 8830, but I do think it has some very nice features as well as access to a vast library of programs that it can run.

The Ace will look familiar to anyone who's ever used a Samsung BlackJack or BlackJack II. It's based on the same design with slightly different dimensions. The BlackJack series is available only from AT&T, while the Ace is only from Sprint.

First the specifications. Unlike most smart phones with a full QWERTY keyboard, the Ace isn't much bigger than a regular "candy bar" style cell phone, measuring 4.65" x 2.32" x 0.46" and weighing 3.9 ounces. It fits nicely in your hand and in your pocket and is easy to use thanks to a thoughtful layout with function keys that bring up menu options and control basic functions. Like most smart phones it doesn't have a dedicated telephone keypad but Samsung does use a different color to make the number keys easy to locate. Number keys dub as letter keys when used to enter text but when you're dialing the phone, they are dedicated to entering phone numbers. The phone also lets you set a speed dial to quickly dial phone numbers or run the phone's programs or issue a command.

As with most cell phones, the network makes a big difference, and based on my tests in the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., and New York, this phone does a great job. Sprint has built out a very robust and fast voice and its 3G EV-DO data network has fast e-mail downloads. Of course, no data network is ubiquitous and as with all cell phones you could easily wander into an area with weak or no coverage as I have done with this phone.

For those who travel overseas, the phone's most important feature is that it has a slot for a SIM card that makes it usable in Europe, Australia, Africa and most other places in the world. That's usually not the case with phones from Sprint or Verizon which, unlike AT&T, use a network that doesn't work outside of North America. To compensate for that, Sprint has added a slot of a GSM SIM card that will work in most other countries. You can use it through Sprint's roaming partners at a hefty per-minute fee or, because the phone is not locked, you can purchase a local SIM card in whatever country you're visiting and make local and overseas calls at much more reasonable rates. While you can use the phone overseas for data, the performance will be slower than in North America. I haven't tested the phone overseas yet but plan to do so next month.

The Ace's screen is a bit small compared to other smart phones but it's very easy to read. The keyboard is, of course, harder to use than a PC's but the clever shaping of the keys makes them pretty easy to use with a minimum of typos. One thing I love about the Ace's Windows mobile operating system is its excellent search function. If you want to call or e-mail Fred Smith you just start typing FRED or SMITH and it will quickly find that person's contact. You can't do that with an iPhone. Even finding e-mail messages is easy using this same method from within the e-mail program.

There are some downsides. For example, there is no GPS navigation option and it doesn't come with an instant messaging program though because it uses Windows Mobile, third party IM programs are available. There is a browser that enables you to access the Web, but like most smartphones other than the iPhone, Web browsing is almost never a great experience because most sites aren't optimized for small screens. The phone has a media player so it's able to play music and video files and provides access to the live Sprint TV but it has a proprietary headphone jack that makes it impossible to use your own headphone (unless you use a wireless Bluetooth headset). The headset that comes with the Ace is OK but not spectacular and if you lose it, you need to replace it with one from Samsung. If you are going to watch video or listen to music, you'll probably want an optional microSD card that adds up to 2 gigabytes of extra storage.

As I said at the start, I'm not as thrilled with this phone as I am with the Blackberry 8830, which is available from both Sprint and Verizon. Like the Ace, that model of Blackberry also has a GSM chip for overseas use and has GPS navigation. Because it's a bit wider than the Ace, has room for a more generous-sized keyboard. Also, the Blackberry operating system is must peppier than Windows mobile. I sometimes notice sluggish performance with the Ace and find myself having to go into the phone's task manager to close programs to try to improve performance. That's never been an issue with any Blackberry I've tested.
The Ace is available from Sprint stores or Sprint for $199 with the usual two-year contract requirement.


Larry Magid's technology column appears Tuesdays in the Daily News. E-mail can be sent to larry@larrymagid.com.