I bought the Samsung Ace, and changed my Nextel service to Sprint. In fact, I changed the whole family's phones to Sprint phones, and am amazed at how much more advanced the Sprint phones are compared with the Nextel's. My son now has a Samsung 520, and my wife (who likes simple gadgets) has a Samsung M300.

First off, the Ace is a Windows Smartphone 6.0 (and Sprint has already said it will be upgraded to 6.1 this summer). My prior Nextel Smartphone (i930) ran a much older version of the Windows Mobile OS. The imporvements are obvious, with much more advanced versions of Outlook, email, and text messaging.

The hardware is much nicer, being a close relative to the Samsung Blackjack series (Ace, Blackjack, get it?). However, the Ace runs a much faster CPU than even the BJ. To go from the thick, heavy flip-style i930 to the thin and light Ace is amazing. The screen is larger and brighter. The Ace has a QWERTY keyboard that I am still getting used to, but it is much easier than a phone dial pad for texting. There is a D-pad and a thumbwheel, and I am still working on figuring out when to use which.

Most interesting, perhaps, to the folks here on xoutpost.com is that I easily paired the Ace via Bluetooth to my 2005 X5. My entire phonebook loaded (540 contacts in Outlook). And, I was able to use the Voice Commands to make calls through the phone. It will be nice to be able to use the hand-free Bluetooth in the car again.

Summary: I am still getting used to my new phone, but so far, I am quite pleased.

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