Windows Phone? Yes . . . and not so much.

I bought a Windows Phone the day they became available. Mine is a Samsung Focus, and I love the design of the phone and the look and feel of the Windows operating system. But since the day I bought it I have also had variety of power-related issues with it. Sometimes the phone just spontaneously reboots. Sometimes after such reboots, it will have lost changes to the settings, start screen, etc. But if I reboot again, everything comes back as expected. When I bought the phone, I did not install the optional SD card, on which some people are blaming the power problems with the phones. Even without the card though, I still had some issues--but not the reboot problem. Mostly, sometimes it would just seem to be powered off, and pressing the power button didn't turn it back on. At first I was having to pop the battery out and reinsert it, then power the phone back on. Then I discovered that if I held the power button in for about 10 seconds, then released it, then pressed it again as if to turn the phone on, it would power back on.

So after using the phone almost constantly for about 2 weeks I bought a Sandisk Micro SD card, 32gb. I had read the docs and backed the phone up before inserting it. I installed the card and performed the system reset. Then I synced. I was surprised to find that the sync reinstalled music, but not my apps. Each app had to be manually reinstalled from the marketplace. (I did not have to pay for apps again--the store knew I had already bought them). The sync also didn't restore start menu and settings changes, or Internet favorites. But after installing the SD card, I have now begun to see the phone reboot for no apparent reason.

So, it would be a great phone if the power issues can be fixed. But the sync system needs to be changed so that syncing a phone restores it completely, including apps, settings, favorites, etc.

I'm keeping mine just as is for now. Part of being one of the first customers to get one is the adventure of unexpected "features." But I expect to see Samsung and Microsoft working hard to address these issues promptly, and I'll be dumping my Windows phone if that doesn't happen.

Clearing the address bar in mobile IE

If you're using a Samsung Blackjack 2 you've no doubt run across this. You want to type an address into the address bar of the browser to visit a specific site. So you press the right soft-key to get to "menu -> address bar" and the bar opens with the cursor there so you can type. But the address of the page you're currently on is also there. You can hold down the delete key (the arrow pointing to the left, just below the button for the letter P.) That will delete one. character. at. a. time. Tedious. Instead, hold down the "back" button (gray icon of a "u-turn" symbol, very top row of keys on the right.) That will clear the entire address, leaving only the "http://" -- so you're ready to type the new address.

Mobile Manager for Netflix

As much as I love my Blackjack II Windows Mobile phone, there are some things that you just can't do with it. Now, there's one less. I've always been disappointed with the limited capability of the Netflix mobile site. One recent night at a friend's house I tried without success to view my watch instantly queue. I just couldn't get to it from the Netflix mobile site. 

A few days ago, though, I got an email newsletter from Windows Mobile Total Access that advertised a new, free, Netflix Mobile App for Windows phones. I downloaded and installed it and now I can view both my Netflix queues, add movies to my queue, and even rearrange the movies. The interface is more graphical than the Netflix mobile website, and includes thumbnails of the movie DVD covers. It's a great addition to a growing collection of really useful apps for Windows mobile. 

I had no problems with the download or install, and it's just worked as expected since I installed it, so I don't really have any tips or tricks to add, just if you haven't tried it, go get it here: http://bit.ly/ibAy.

And of course, if what you're really looking for is a Netflix app for the Blackberry, well, there is at least one. I found this one by just doing some googles. You "all-business" Blackberry types can find your Netflix fix here: http://bit.ly/ZyQKw.

Finally fixed Internet on Blackjack 2

Ever since I bought my Samsung BlackJack II smartphone it's had a recurring problem losing its Internet connection. It started within a few days of getting it last Spring. Every couple of days I'd open the mobile browser and instead of my home page I'd see an error message that said "403 Forbidden." There would be no Internet access until the phone was powered off and back on. I did some searching and discovered that others had the same problem. I also found a quicker work-around. By going to the "wireless manager" and turning the phone service off and back on, rather than rebooting the whole phone, I was able to restore the connection much more quickly. But even better, there appears to be an actual fix now.

From the Samsung website BlackJack II owners can download an upgrade to Windows Mobile version WM6.1. In addition to fixing the lost connection "403 Forbidden" problem, there are some other nice improvements to the mobile OS. (Not the least of which is actual Java support so you can now watch youtube videos on the mobile IE browser.)

A couple of warnings. The documentation on installing the upgrade isn't as clear as it could have been. At least once I had to power the phone back on when the instructions didn't say to. And maybe more importantly, after the upgrade I continued to have the "403 Forbidden" problem occur regularly until I made an additional settings change on the phone. Open the Internet Explorer browser and then use the right soft key to open the Menu. Scroll down to tools--options--connections. On that page, I changed the "Select Network:" setting from "WAP Network" to "The Internet" and I haven't seen the "403 Forbidden" error since. Fingers are crossed, but that's been at least a week ago.

Hope this helps someone. I already loved the phone, and do so even more now.