Communications and GPS Software

Many on our panel of over 80 expert judges travel a lot for personal and business purposes. In their travels, they've tested a variety of communications and GPS solutions for Windows Mobile devices. In this issue, we share some of their insights into a variety of these products. For the sake of brevity, we've included only one comment per product and edited them for clarity and brevity—Rich Hall.

Phone and Fax

Pocket PhoneTools 4

http://www.bvrp.com

This is the most complete mobile communication suite available to Pocket PC users, providing fax, SMS, Internet, phone dialer, and a phonebook in one friendly shell. If that's not enough, there's also an Internet connections manager that simplifies the process of configuring connections, especially when you are away from home base. In addition, you can monitor communication traffic with the Data Session Log. All these features make PhoneTools the Rolls Royce of mobile communications managers.

PhonePlus

http://www.mesoftware.biz

This application adds functionality to Pocket PC Phone Edition devices that is missing from the built-in Phone Dialer application. For one thing, it makes it much easier to search contacts while driving. I wish I could completely replace the built-in dialer with this one.

Running Voice GSM

http://www.pocketpresence.com

This one hasn't improved much in the last year, but remains the best dialing, SMS and Internet software for people that have Pocket PCs connected to mobile phones via Bluetooth.

Truefax 2004

http://www.ksesoftware.com

The current version is a great improvement over the previous one. Truefax 2004 uses the standard TIFF multi-page fax format, which can be viewed from within Truefax itself or the desktop Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. The program accepts a variety of additional document formats and includes printing capability, making it a "must have" for any mobile professional.

IP Dashboard

http://www.hudsonmobile.com

This Today screen plug-in from Hudson Mobile tells you if your connection is active, what kind of connection it is (Wi-Fi, GSM, ActiveSync, etc.), and how long you've been connected. You can use it to track your hourly, daily, and monthly usage, and to display and ping your IP address. If you want to know everything about your connection, this is the utility for you.

Photo Contacts

http://www.pocketx.net

This program allows you to add photos to your contacts. When you receive a call the picture and contact information is displayed. You can quickly dial out on a Pocket PC Phone Edition by simply tapping on your contact sheet of pictures. You can also use the application to beam photos via IrDA. The photos are not displayed in the built-in Contacts application, but on a separate Photo Contacts page, which gets its information from the built-in Contacts database. It would be nice if the photos could be displayed in Contacts.

Smart GSM

http://www.smartsoftworks.com