INTRODUCTION

    Sometimes you may have a hard time accessing your contacts while walking down the street or generally when you’re on the move, I know I do. I tend to miss-click on contacts because the standard contact’s user interface is not the most finger friendly out there. Resco Contact Manager is touch-optimized contact manager which offers you a finger friendly interface where you can manage your contacts, calls and text messages. Read on to see how it performs!

SETUP

   Installation is simple, done either via ActiveSync or if you have the CAB file, you just copy it to your Windows Mobile device and run it.

PRODUCT FEATURES

   Once we’ve installed the program, the first thing we’ll notice is a brand new Today Screen Plug-In, which although takes up a large chunk of the interface is quite useful, because from here you can access all the communication tools of your Windows Mobile Device. You can toggle your Bluetooth, WiFi radio or even completely disable data connection and turn off your phone radio. From here you can also check your e-mail, your text messages by jumping into the program, call history or favorites. The Plug-In also shows you the date and time, gives access to your alarms and shows the current network you are using.

   Now when we launch the actual program up for the first time, we can see a neatly designed, finger-friendly interface with a navigational bar on the bottom of the screen with five buttons. The main screen is the Contacts screen. Here you can see a complete list of your contacts, each easily accessible with a simple touch. If you tap the small icon on the navigation bar which represents the Contacts tab, you have access to a pop-up menu from where you can add or delete a contact, add/delete your favorites, or sort your contacts by categories or by companies. If you have a lot of photos assigned to your contacts, you can switch from list view to face view, which lists your contacts and their thumbnail pictures without their phone numbers.

   Once you select a contact from your list you access the individual contact screen. From its main screen you can call any mobile, home or work number assigned to the contact, send them a text message or an e-mail. Using the navigational bar on the bottom of the screen you can view details about your contact and of course edit them in 5 categories: Phone (all the assigned phone numbers to the contact, e-mail address); home address; Business for work address and phone/fax number; Web for e-mail addresses web-page and messaging ID and Notes for additional Information. Going back to the main individual screen, from the navigation bar you can also view the call history, chat with the contact via SMS. Using the pop-up menu from the navigation bar you can, among other things, add the contact to your favorites, assign a ring tone or a photo to it. You can assign the picture from your own image files use the default faces or the program can actually connect to Facebook and find your contact if he or she has a profile and assign it to the contact, which I found to be very cool, although I don’t use Facebook.

The Favorites screen is a quick way to access the contacts which you assigned as favorites, making it easier for you to have access to them without going through your entire contact list.

   Besides the main Contacts screen, the History screen is another strong point of Resco Contact Manager. This may seem as a standard call history screen, however, the program can actually group the calls from the same contact together, making the call list very easy to look through. This can be done through the pop-up menu, where you can also view your call statistics.

Through the SMS screen you can easily scroll through and read your text messages (which can be also be grouped by contacts) or reply to them.

   The last screen is the Dialer Keypad. The dialing buttons are nicely textured and are quite large making it easy to dial. As you dial, the contacts are filtered to match the number you are dialing. If the number dialed is not yet in your contacts list, you can either save it as a new contact or copy it to the clipboard so you can paste it in your address book. On the right of the keypad there is a special hotkey, which can be set through the options menu to either send an SMS, call ICE (which is basically an emergency contact) or to call any friend from the contact list.

   Resco Contact Manager can also handle incoming calls, if enabled through the options menu. When receiving a call, a picture of the contact will appear (if assigned) together with the name and number of a contact. With the help of a slider you can answer a call by pulling it to the left or decline it by pulling the slider to the right. You can also decline a call by sending a text message, the preset decline SMS text can be changed through the options menu.

HELP SUPPORT

    The software does not come with any kind of help section, or description of features which is sort of a letdown. There is a forum for the app on the Resco webpage and a short overview of the main features of the product.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

    Resco Contact Manager takes up 1.8MB of storage space and uses about 4.9MB of RAM. The software will work with Touch screen Devices only and can be used with both Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6.

BUGS AND WISHES

    Although the Today Screen Plug-In offers quite nice features, it takes up a hefty part of your screen and is quite the resource hog. An option to hide the Plug-In when it is not used or to customize the numbers of features displayed would’ve been welcome.

    Another thing that in my opinion requires serious redesigning is the Incoming Calls feature because as it now, it offers more headache than value.

    Often when I receive a call it, the incoming call screen does simply not come up, either it stays at the Home screen or the screen goes blank and a soft reset is the only cure to make your phone work again. Luckily this feature can be disabled from the option menu and although it is a nice concept, hopefully it will be fixed through the next releases. 

PURCHASING

   You can purchase Resco Contact Manager from the pocketnow.com Software Store for $24.95. A 7-day trial period is also available.

PROS

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  Finger-friendly

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  Keypad hotkey

• Slick interface
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  Can connect to Facebook to share contact pictures

CONS

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  Today Screen Plug-In is too big

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  Pricey

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  Incoming Calls feature way too buggy

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  Can crash your device

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  Uses quite a lot of memory

Value
Ease of Use
Features
Overall

OVERALL IMPRESSION

       Overall, I was pleased with Resco Contact Manager and found it a quality software. It is visually pleasing, immensely finger-friendly and easy to navigate. Although it has its flaws Resco Contact Manager is an awesome software to have – if you can afford it, if not you should at least download it for the trial period.