WHAT’S
HOT

   A graphical representation of all your contacts
in a nice intuitive interface. Photo Caller-ID feature, either full
screen or small picture mode, which is really nice, the incoming phone
call pops up in a dialog box similar to how MSN Messenger does when
someone types an IM. Easily dial contacts with a simple double-tap.

SETUP

   Setup is as effortless as any other application,
no problems there. There are no activesync plugins or desktop programs
to install, everything you need to go is installed on the Pocket PC.

PROGRAM
FEATURES

    Photo Contacts contains many options to
organize contacts to your liking. As you can see from the first set
of images there’s three choices for arranging your contacts, 3×3 Tile
View, 5×1 List View and 5×4 Icon View. All views are presented nicely
on a fully skinnable interface, six skins are included and additional
themes are promised. The main feature of Photo Contacts is the ability
to add photos to your contacts, frankly the usfullness of this feature
depends largely on how you use your PDA. For my purposes it’s not really
a ‘Killer App’ for me. Maybe I just have ugly friends, I have no need
of seeing them while looking their info! Photo Contacts also makes it
very easy to find all those contacts, you have the option of grouping
them by category and searching or using search strings. Sorting is very
fast, I noticed to delays while searching my contacts. As I stated in
the intro, a Phone Edition PDA is really needed to get the most out
of this application. I can imagine it being very slick to snap a picture
with the soon to be released XDA II and associate it with the contact
on the spot.

   Adding
a photo to a contact is quite a bit different from how I imagined it
would be. I’m always one for diving in and figuring it out without reading
to see how far I can get. Depending on how you look at things I have
to say adding photo’s is a bit unintuitive. I was thinking you would
choose any photo on your device and associate a contact with, not so.
PocketX calls it feature, ‘Smart-Naming Photos’. The idea is that you
to name the photo the same name as the contact to make the association.
I find nothing smart about this feature, it would be much easier to
open a dialog and assign a photo to a contact. Having to mess with renaming
photos could be a headache when initially setting up Pocket Contacts.
It could also slow you down after you snap a photo, as you will have
to rename the photo afer taking it to make the association.

   There’s
also a nice feature that let’s you associate a Task or an Appointment
with a contact, which is very smart.

HELP
SUPPORT

    PocketX has an excellent pdf manual on the
website that should have you up and going in no time. The program is
pretty straight forward and most users should have no problem getting
the basics.

SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS

    Photo Contacts is compatible with any Pocket
PC device, 2002, Phone Edition and Windows Media 2003. There’s a comprehensive
list of devices available on the PocketX site here.
Photo contacts can be installed anywhere and is 388k in size.

BUGS
AND WISHES

    After a solid week of use I didn’t notice
any bugs, then again I was using an Ipaq 2210, not a Pocket PC Phone
Edition device. Although I don’t suspect anything would be wrong then,
the program is very solid and responsive speed wise. I do wish there
was a way to exit the program directly, once I started Photo Contacts
I couldn’t get it to shut down, except through the ‘Running Programs
List’, I don’t believe this isn’t a bug, just an oddity. I use Wisbar
V.1.0.0.15 and Photo Contacts didn’t show up in the task manager so
that I could shut it down. It did show up under Memory/Running programs
though. It would also be nice if PocketX could have an option to replace
the default contacts application with Photo Contacts. I know there’s
an option to have it start automatically and I can assign a button to
it, but clicking on contacts and having Photo Contacts launch would
be nice.

PURCHASING

    Photo Contacts can be purchased from either
Handango
or Pocketgear
the price reasonable at $24.99. It’s probably not as attractive a price
for Pocket PC’s without phone capabilities.

PROS

• 
  

  Photo
  Caller-ID

• 
  

  Associate
  Photo’s with Contacts

• Plenty
  of sorting opitons
• Contacts
  are easy to find

CONS

• 
  

  Method
  of associating photo’s is unintuitive

• 
  

  More
  Skinning options (changing orientation of buttons, etc…)

OVERALL
IMPRESSION

   The program is nice and does exactly what it advertises.
I know the reason I’m less than thrilled with it, is because I don’t
own a Phone Edition device. From the time I spent with it I know if
I had the proper device I would probably have had an epiphany and wonder,
"How did I live without this!" But as it is, it’s a program
that would probably be better suited as an add-on module for Pocket
Informant or Agenda Fusion, instead of a stand-alone product. It’s not
full featured enough to replace your contacts if you use Pocket Informant
or Agenda Fusion. If you don’t own one of those and would like a beefier
contacts manager Photo Contacts will do nicely.