I may have mentioned before that the Samsung SGH-i600 Blackjack has two nice features lacking on some other Windows Mobile powered devices. In this case, I'm referring to the built-in RSS Reader and Podcast application.

I'm going to be focusing on the RSS reader for now. As some internet users will know by now, RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and a web feed format that contains either a summary or the full text of an associated website. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favourite web sites in an automated manner.

If you're still confused, head over to a very simple and very fun explanation of RSS in plain english from the Common Craft show.

The application on the i600 doesn't disappoint and there seems to be enough on-board memory to allow for easy checks of news feeds on the go. You can create an infinite number of RSS-channels, provided you have enough storage space on your phone of course.

For those who couldn't be bothered to read the manual, here are the simple steps to get your first RSS feed on your Samsung i600

• Open the RSS reader
• Press menu, select Edit
• Select New feed
• At the prompt, enter the RSS feed URL, e.g. http://feeds.feedburner.com/SamsungBlog
• Scroll down and select the folder you want to add the new feed into e.g. News
• Select OK

That's pretty much it. If it doesn't do so automatically, you can just select to Update the feeds manually.

Importing your feeds from your existing feed reader is very simple. Just export your feeds to an OPML file and import it to the phone. Exporting from the phone to your PC/Mac is just as simple.

Now that you have your feeds updated you probably want to start reading the posts. By selecting a feed, you're presented with the list of current posts, with the display divided into two horizontal panes. Feed headlines are placed on the top and the feed contents at the bottom.

Moving the navigational key to the right, jumps you from the top headlines pane into the bottom reading pane, from where you can scroll up and down to read the article.

Should you be presented with a website link, or if you want to read the full article (if truncated) the program will automatically open the link in your web-browser.

So there you have it, RSS for the Samsung SGH-i600 Blackjack. It's quite simple really.