SOTI Pocket Controller Pro 5.5 build 833 released – the fastest & best tool to control your PDA from your desktop Windows; n

http://www.soti.net/default.asp?Cmd=Products&SubCmd=PCPro

I've long been following the development of SOTI Pocket Controller Pro (SOTI for short), the fastest and most powerful "use your Pocket PC from your desktop" application. Its price may not be the lowest ($30.95 USD) and a lot of people complain about their upgrade policy (see for example this thread), but its speed and capabilities really outweigh these minor annoyances. I won't elaborate on the capabilities of the application and its comparison to the alternatives because this blog entry is only a comparison to earlier versions/bug report, not a fully-fledged overview. To see what it's capable of, please read this (Pocket PC Thoughts frontpaged) article (alternatives:iPAQ HQ, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox, BrightHand) and this blog entry. I've always had some (in general, minor) problems with earlier SOTI versions – they either didn't support VGA devices at all, or, if they did, they had problems with the Landscape mode. For example, it's only a beta version of 5.03 that did work with my Pocket Loox 720 in Landscape mode (it, unlike other versions, didn't tile the Landscape screen with the Portrait representation of the contents of the PPC screen but displayed everything OK); no earlier/later versions did the same. Their Turbo mode (which did deliver enhanced speed on all the Pocket PC's I've tested – see my above-linked article for quantitive speed difference benchmarks) was similar: there were versions where it worked/builds and there were versions/builds it didn't. Now, with Pocket Controller Pro 5.5 build 833 released about a week ago, I can say I'm utterly pleased: everything is working, including WM2003SE VGA/WM5 support, Landscape and the turbo mode on all my Pocket PC's. Note that older builds of version 5.5 may have severe problems with the turbo mode (while they do work flawlessly with WM5/Landscape without enabling the turbo mode). I've been, for example, sent build 768 and 819 by a reader to test (couldn't find it on SOTI's homepage any more) and found out that it's only on my old, Pocket PC 2002 iPAQ 3660 that I could enable turbo mode; enabling turbo mode on my other, newer Pocket PC's (the WM2003 iPAQ 2210, the WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720 and, using build 768 - 819 already supports the turbo mode of the x51v by default - tthe WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v/A06) resulted in the need for hard resetting the device on all of them. Furthermore, older builds (for example, 768 - 819 does support it) don't support the HTC Wizard at all either. That is, if you still have an old build (or, even, an older version) and you'd like to enable the turbo mode or want to access your HTC Wizard (and probably other devices too), it's really worth upgrading. (Hope turbo mode will work on your device too.) If you don't have a WM5 and/or a WM2003SE VGA device and would end up paying a lot of money for the upgrade, however, the worth of upgrading is quite questionable. For WM5 and/or WM2003SE VGA users, however, it's really worth considering.