INTRODUCTION

    I spend all day indoors behind a computer…therefore, whenever I get the chance, I love to get outside: walking the dog, riding my bike, rollerblading, you name it. Unfortunately, thanks to the weather, the experience is not always pleasant. Being a Type Zero civilization, humankind has yet to learn how to control the weather…well if you can’t control it, you need to know what Mother Nature is up to. Enter Fizz Weather. This handy little application claims to give you up-to-the-minute status on a number of weather variables, including satellite imagery and even status from your local airport. How does this app stack up? Does it work? Is it accurate? Read on as Fizz Software’s "Fizz Weather" is put to the test.

WHAT’S HOT

    There’s a lot to like about Fizz Weather. Here are some of high points:

• Animated Satellite imagery: short, medium, long range
• Simple, intuitive menu system, easily operated with one hand
• Nice color themes, customizable
• Autoupdate
  

  or

  Activesync refresh – so you always know what’s going on out there

SETUP

of storage space on the device.

Here’s the desktop installer. Note how Fizz Weather supports a number of languages.

PRODUCT FEATURES

not to be confused with Fizz Traveler) is basically split into seven views:
Today, 7 Day, 2 Day, Current, Maps, Airport, and Snow. To navigate between each section, the left hardkey is used to bring up a selection menu. Users of Agenda One will appreciate this pop-up menu style. Here are some of the main features as found on the Fizz Software site:

• Localized : English, French, German, Spanish, Italian & Dutch
• Windows Mobile 5 Compatible, Square Screen Support, Landscape/Portrait Support
• Global Coverage – Over 58,000 cities worldwide
• 7 day full forecasts, 2 day forecasts, hourly intervals, Current location conditions.
• Weather maps with zoom & pan support
• Ski Reports from popular global resorts & Airport delays
• Weather warnings and alerts for the US
• Customizable interface with amazing new graphics and skins
• Full VGA support for compatible devices including support for TrueVGA
• Active Sync Synchronization
• Download forecasts on the move
• Graphical display to allow you to track your downloads
• Customizable home-screen support

Localized : English, French, German, Spanish, Italian & Dutch
Windows Mobile 5 Compatible, Square Screen Support, Landscape/Portrait Support
Global Coverage – Over 58,000 cities worldwide
7 day full forecasts, 2 day forecasts, hourly intervals, Current location conditions.
Weather maps with zoom & pan support
Ski Reports from popular global resorts & Airport delays
Weather warnings and alerts for the US
Customizable interface with amazing new graphics and skins
Full VGA support for compatible devices including support for TrueVGA
Active Sync Synchronization
Download forecasts on the move
Graphical display to allow you to track your downloads
Customizable home-screen support

    As mentioned, there are effectively seven different areas, each with its own respective view(s). To select a desired view, the menu must be launched. Left softkey is the default for this action.

Here’s a look at the menu system, invoked via a left softkey press. Either can be Default View (left) or, Icon View (right).

Here are the first two views: "Today" (high and low temp) plus 7 Day forecast.

Next, we have the 2 Day forecast, which is slightly more detailed than 7 Day, and the "current conditions" report.

Carrying on, we have the maps. I wasn’t overly impressed with the raster graphics, but the satellite imagery makes up for this shortcoming.

Here’s the satellite image. Another beautiful day in the Nation’s capital.

The last two views are the Airport Delays page and Snow Report. Here’s the A/P delays, being March I was unable to get my hands on any Snow Reports…

Fizz weather is configurable. Here’s a look at the root options menu. Weather data can be collected from a large pool of cities; unfortunately, "smart typing" (i.e. first few key presses) should bring up a city, but it doesn’t.

Download options: frequency and data can be configured. Very useful for those on fixed data tariffs. Stats can be pulled on how much data is downloaded too.

Miscellaneous

    Here I’ll take a look at a few of the other not so overt features.

Homescreen configuration: Here you can select your today screen image (current conditions or 2/5 day forecast, etc). On the right is what you can expect to see with it loaded.

Manual update: this can be done at any time. All checked cities or a single city, plus all or just a single report –

Works with the TMobileWeb Proxy.

Note: I’m pretty sure the weather source is weather.com.

Color themes

    Depending on your device (or mood) you can change the background and font colors. There are seven choices: Plainwhite, Sky, Sunset, Bluewave, Vista, Golden, Midnight (default). Here they are:

Fizz Weather Theme Collection

HELP
SUPPORT

    Online support is available in the form of an support pages and a Forum.

SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS

    This application uses about 1.9mb of memory and is compatible with the following operating systems: Window Mobile 2003SE, Windows Mobile 5.0 (Pocket PC, Smartphone).

BUGS AND WISHES

face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">    This application is a great at what it does. The only bugs are mainly cosmetic gripes, I would have liked to have seen more icons, the developer is working on these (with Juni’s help), but as yet new iconsets have yet to materialize. Note: I did find one set on Juni’s site, which I now use, however, I’m not sure if these are the "official" release. Another gripe, the map images are not as pretty as they could be (i.e. Worldmate). Trial period is also short: 3 days may not be long enough for folks to evaluate the product completely. Lastly, within the City List view, it would be nice to be able to type the first few letters of a city name to bring it up. It can take a while to scroll through the entire list to find what you need.

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PURCHASING

face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">    size=2>The product comes with a 3 day trial, after which a registration key must be purchased for USD$16.95.

PROS

• Accurate, always up to date weather forecasting
• 
  

  Beautiful interface, nice coloring

• 
  

  Customizable homescreen layout

CONS

• 
  

  Limited 3rd party icons available

• Map images not the greatest
• Trial period is only three days long

size=2>Value
Ease of Use
size=2>Features
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OVERALL
IMPRESSION

    I tried a few weather apps before settling on Fizz Weather. I am glad I made the choice. It’s a great little (reliable) application that accurately predicts the weather; add in the fact that it is relatively inexpensive and you have a home-run. There are a few minor quirks, however, Fizz Software seem to be proactive folk and I am sure that this is one product they will continue to upgrade and support. If you are looking for a weather solution, I would certainly download the (albeit short) trial and give it a look. Highly recommended.