WHAT’S HOT

    Enter sygic .mobile
Contacts.  This program is written with one thing
always in mind:  The entire interface is built
around being able to use your finger to operate it. 
This "finger friendly" interface makes it easy to call
up a contact while walking to your next meeting,
riding the "El" to your next appointment, or otherwise
in motion.  Not only can you scroll, pick, and
open a contact with painless ease, even while in
motion, you can also easily see the contact
information.  .mobile Contacts uses nice, large
fonts to display the information.  You also have
a user-configurable preview that can show you the
information you’re most interested in without actually
opening the contact.

Seriously, would
you rather try to pick and view a contact from this…

…or
this?

SETUP

    sygic .mobile Contacts
installs using the standard ActiveSync Add/Remove
programs feature.  You can install the program in
Main Memory or on a Storage Card without any
significant speed issues.  The program puts an
icon in the Start Menu in the root as well as in the
Programs folder.

PROGRAM FEATURES

sygic .mobile Contacts
main screen

    When
you start sygic .mobile Contacts, you get a screen
like that shown above.  In the middle, you’ll see
the preview "Business Card" if you have that pane open
(more on that later) and the list of contacts
underneath.  If you tap anywhere within the list
and move your finger (Remember this is a
finger-friendly interface.) up or down the list will
scroll.  If you tap on the scroll bar to the
right of the list, it will move to that relative
position in the contacts list.

    It
may be hard for you to get a sense of how the
scrolling works.  Fortunately, sygic has an
animated picture that shows it pretty well.  Here
it is:

sygic .mobile Contacts
scrolling

   
You’ll also see a small upward arrow button between
the list and the Business Card.  Tapping in that
area will minimize the Business Card as shown below:

sygic .mobile Contacts
main screen (with Business Card minimized)

   
Now the blue arrow is at the top of the window and pointing
down.  Tapping on it again will show the Business
card again.  The contents of the "Business Card"
are user configurable.  If you tap on "Settings" in the menu bar, you’ll be able to move fields up and
down in a scrolling list to choose which will appear
on the card.

    To
the right of the contacts list is a series of buttons. 
From top to bottom, the "Open Details" button opens
the selected contact record to display the complete
information as shown below:

sygic .mobile Contacts
details screen

   
While in the details screen you can tap "Edit" on the
menu bar to modify the contact.  This calls up
the same edit screens you’re used to seeing when you
edit contacts with the built-in program.  When
sygic .mobile Contacts calls up one of the built-in
programs, it’s the only part of the process that isn’t
finger friendly.  It’s too bad sygic didn’t write
the built-in PIM software.  The "Tools" menu on
the details screen allows you to Delete the current
contact or "Beam" the current contact using your
Pocket PC’s IR port.  This uses the same "Beam" screen you’re used to seeing if you use that feature
with the built-in Contacts program.

   
The second button down on the main screen is labeled
"Jump."  Jump calls up the alphabet chooser shown
below:

sygic .mobile Contacts
main screen with Jump alphabet shown

   
Tapping on a letter in the Jump area will immediately
move the contacts list to the first contact beginning
with that letter.  Jump requires two taps to get
to any letter of the alphabet.  Compare that to
the built-in Contacts alphabet tabs which require one,
two, or three taps, depending on the letter.

   
The next button down the right side is the "E-mail"
button.  Tapping E-mail will open the built-in
Inbox program with the currently selected contact’s
e-mail address inserted into the "To:" field.

   
Next, we come to the "Delete" button.  As the
name implies, it will delete the current contact.

   
The final button on the right side calls up a "context
menu" shown below.  This is the same context menu
that you’ll get if you tap-and-hold on a contact in
the contact list.

sygic .mobile Contacts
contact context menu

   
The context menu gives you quick access to the
following functions:  "Edit details" calls up the
contact editing window in the same way as "Open
Details", "Edit" would do.  "Add reminder" allows
you to set a quick reminder with the current contact
as the subject.  Tapping "Add reminder" calls up
the pop-up menu shown below:

Reminder pop-up menu

   
The Reminder pop-up allows you to quickly set a 1
hour, 30 minute, or 15 minute reminder.  If you
click on "Details…" the reminder is created and the
appointment summary screen from the built-in Calendar
program as shown below:

Built-in Calendar
Appointment summary screen as called up by sygic
.mobile Contacts reminder function

    From this Calendar Appointment summary screen you can
edit the appointment for a different time or add other
details.

   
The next button down in the Contact Context menu is
the "Move to group" button.  We’ll talk more
about groups in a minute.  Suffice to say that
this button lets you "move" your contact into the VIP,
Family, Friends, or Work group or set it to belong to
no particular group.  The final two buttons in
the Contact Context menu let you "Send e-mail," just
like the "E-mail" button on the main screen, and
Delete the contact.

   
Going down the left side of sygic .mobile Contacts’
main screen are another series of buttons.  The
top item really isn’t a button at all, but a display
area.  It displays the picture that’s associated
with the currently selected contact or "No Image" when
none is associated.  Tapping the "Picture" button
below it, will call up the Picture chooser. 
sygic .mobile Contacts comes with a whole set of
cartoon-like pictures that were provided by Digital
Vision.  A small subset of them is shown below:

Travel Guide — City
sightseeing information

    The
included pictures are pretty amusing.  I do wish
there were a way of adding your own pictures to the
program, though.  There may well be a way, but
there isn’t any documentation for doing it.

   
The other four buttons down the left side of the main
screen are for selecting contact "Groups."  sygic
.mobile Contacts is configured for four groups called
"VIP," "Family," "Friends," and "Work," though only
three groups show on the display at one time. 
The top button is to revert back to show All contacts. 
The second button down shows only the "VIP" contacts. 
The third shows "Family" contacts.  The forth
initially shows "Friends" contacts, but, if you tap
and hold on it, you’ll get the choice to display
either a "Friends" button or a "Work" button.

   
This grouping concept is a pretty good idea.  The
only problem I have with it is that the groups are
hard-wired into the program.  There isn’t a way
to change them.  I’d rather see the program work
with the Categories that the built-in Contacts (and
all the other Pocket Outlook programs) use, still
allowing you to set quick buttons for three of them on
the main screen.

   
There is a feature sygic .mobile Contacts that isn’t
immediately obvious.  That’s a built-in search
function.  If you simply start typing a few
letters, the program will call up a filtered list of
all the contacts with that string of letters anywhere
in the contact’s information.

sygic .mobile Contacts
search function

   
When I say "anywhere in the contact’s information," I
do mean anywhere.  For instance, two of the three
contacts shown above have "bo" somewhere in their
name.  The third contact has "bo" in her
husband’s name.  You’ll likely get a few contacts
you didn’t expect with such a wide net, but a few
ringers is better than not getting what you’re looking
for.
    I do have one issue with the search function:  I
couldn’t figure out any way to get rid of the window
with the "Filter" information in it other than typing
backspace to clear it.  Unfortunately, that also
clears the search.  So, either the top entry or
preview Business card is obscured by the Filter window
or you can see the top, but not your search results.  That’s not very good.

HELP SUPPORT

   
sygic .mobile Contacts has built-in help available
right from the main screen.  Tapping "Help" on
the menu bar will give you access to the "About"
screen as well as a "Quick Guide."  You can also contact
sygic via e-mail with questions,
bug reports, and comments.  In addition, sygic
has
a special web page on their site to report bugs or
request new features.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

   
sygic .mobile Contacts requires 1.07MB of Storage
Memory for the program and 2.02MB of Program Memory to
run.  It doesn’t crash WM2003SE, but it also
doesn’t display properly in landscape orientation.  It will also run under Pocket PC 2002, and Windows
Mobile 2003 (First Edition) operating systems.

BUGS AND WISHES

The only thing that comes close to an actual
programming error is the way the search window works. 
As I noted in the text, the search window obscures
part of the contact list or part of the preview
Business card.  Either way, you can’t see the
full results of your search.  There needs to be a
way to put away the search window.
    I also ran into a few things I’d like to
see changed in later versions:  First, I like the
quick filtering on contact groups.  What I don’t
like is that you can’t edit, add to, or remove any of
the groups.  What I’d like to see is a way of
integrating the Categories that are used by the built
in Contacts (and all the other Pocket Outlook
programs) or at least I’d like to be able to set up my
own contact groups.  I’d also like to see a way
to add, modify, and otherwise work with the pictures
that you can attach to contacts.
    The second issue I have with the program isn’t really an
issue yet.  There are only two Pocket PCs that
are running Windows Mobile 2003, Second Edition at
present.  When more go on sale (this very month),
the incomplete compatibility with WM2003SE will become
more of an issue.
    The third issue I have with the program seems pretty minor,
but I think it deserves noting.  The title that
the program puts up is exactly the same as the
built-in Contacts program.  That only causes
problems when you’re running both programs and you’re
looking at the tasks which are running on your Pocket
PC and trying to figure out which is which.  That
shouldn’t happen very often.
    The final comment is simply a wish:  One of the great
things about .mobile Contacts is how easy it is to
look up a contact while I’m on the move.  It
would be great to add a "map it" function to the
program that would allow you to switch to Pocket
Streets with the address of the contact in view. 
Pocket Streets adds this function to the built in
Contacts program so I’m sure it’s doable.  It’d
be great to be able to use the mapping program of your
choice but that’s way too much to ask for.

PURCHASING

    You can purchase sygic .mobile Contacts
from the pocketnow Store for $29.95.  There
is also a
14 day trial version.  You should also be
aware of a special deal that sygic is providing for
pocketnow readers:  From now until October 4th,
2004, you can purchase sygic .mobile Contacts at a 35%
discount.  Enter the Promotion Code 612D04D
when you check out for 35% off.

PROS

• Entire
  user interface can be finger operated
• Integrates
  with built in Contacts
• User
  configurable preview "Business Card"

CONS

• Cannot
  modify or add contact groups
• Cannot
  modify or add contact pictures
• 
  Incompletely compatible with WM2003SE

OVERALL
IMPRESSION

    While I noted some
issues I had with the program, they’re all relatively
minor.  On the whole sygic .mobile Contacts is
quite a nice program.  The "finger-friendly"
features alone make it worthy of consideration.  This is
definitely a keeper.  I’ve already added it to my
"first and always installed" programs.

All screenshots in this
review are taken using
SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro