Handmark Express J2ME for Moto RAZR
Review By James McCarthy | April 21, 2006
Category: software
As more people scratch the hair off the heads asking themselves why am I carrying around both a PDA and a phone, applications such as Handmark's Pocket Express gain more respect as well as market share in the mobile space simply because of convenience. Convenience is more than once way. First it's great that I read news, sports, movies, stocks and weather information from my phone and second I can do this with only having to use one application: Pocket Express.
The newest version of Pocket Express, version 2, is an awesome update. To start the artwork has been significantly improved making Pocket Express on any supporting device a program nice to look at and easier to use. The above screenshot shows the initial "PageOne" screens. To navigate you simple use the navigation pad on your mobile phone and the action button (or you can alternatively press the corresponding number in the features square) to activate the "Page" such as Sports or Weather. Once intial setup is complete it takes mere seconds to bounce around the app and access the information you need.
Initial Setup is easy. When a user purchases an Express subscription (there is no Trial available for phone versions) through the web or from a carrier deck, a welcome message is sent to their registered e-mail address and a SMS is sent to their phone with a download URL. On a Motorola phone (I used the v3i RAZR), the easier way to install is to view the SMS message and then press the "menu" button and select "Goto URL". The phone will locate the URL in the message and fire-up the web browser. From there, just follow the phone prompts. Eventually the app will be installed and the phone will ask you to run it. The first time you will need to enter your login and password which were sent to you in an e-mail message. Using T-9, Predictive Text, or your phones irritating way of text-entry enter this information. For me it was painful. Phone touch pads are so keyboard unfriendly it's the only thing keeping a PDA in my pocket and laptop in my backpack. A tip to Handmark: a better way to do this would be to use the phone's 10-digit phone number (that is provisioned by the app on run) and a personal 5-digit PIN. The user is now only required to enter 5-digits and won't have to fight with any letters or symbols. Motorola BACKUP (http://www.hellomoto.com/backup) uses this method for both the phone's BACKUP app as well as the web login interface.
Using Pocket Express
I personally found Pocket Express for Java phones most useful in the most unpredicted times: walking through the mall, shopping in Wal-mart with the kids, just before bed, on the way out the door to work, while watching American Idol and lets not forget probably the most popular place to catch up on current events, while in the bathroom.
Before you can start reading anything you will need to query the Pocket Express service for new content. It would be nice if the "Settings" soft-key button was instead an "Update" option, but since it's not you will need to enter each "Page" and click the "update" button. The advantage to updating by "Page" is that you save bandwidth, thus saving money. The downside is that you have to click the "Update" button more than once.
Express News delivers the latest top stories, world, U.S., technology, business, politics, health & wellness, science, features and entertainment content. While viewing the topic listing selecting the "Update" button will update all the topics. To update an individual topic first highlight the topic and then select "Update". This will download a snippet of the news story, typically the first paragraph or so. If you want to read the entire article you just select "Story". The complete story will be fetched from Pocket Express and downloaded to your phone. News sources are from Reuters and Associated Press Online.
The Weather "Page" checks the current conditions, seven day forecast, detailed two-day forecast, marine forecast, Doppler radar and severe weather alerts for more than 2 million locations worldwide. You can create a favorites list and when "Update" is selected all the locations are updated. Weather data is provided by customweather.com.
Stocks can be tracked throughout the day and include information like: current price, volume, high, low, close, bid, ask, 52 week range and more. Stock data is provided by Reuters.
Express Movies deliver details and showtimes based on the zipcode you entered in the settings. The Pocket Express websites states you can also "purchase tickets online". However I couldn't figure out how this worked even after searching the "menu" options in a specific theater list as well as viewing a movie "details". Adding a new theater was simple enough if you read the screen prompts carefully and searching for a movie was also simple; input text was my challenge.
Express Sports delivers schedules, standings, and detailed game-by-game results for major professional and college sports leagues. The experience can be personalized based on your favorite teams and location. Select your favorite teams to track and view the details of last night's games. However, there once again lacked an "update all" option at the main screen which would update all of your saved favorite teams within each sport. As is, you must view each sport separately and update all your favorite teams for individual sports.
Maps is probably one of the most interesting and fun to watch "Pages" for Pocket Express. This is mostly because of the graphics. You will discover quick access to detailed street level maps. Select any two points in your built-in address book, and create turn-by-turn directions from origin to destination. The only downside I found using this "Page" on my Motorola phone was that I could not grab any addresses from my phone's address book. Maps are generated using Tele-Map data.
411 Directories is a very interesting area of Pocket Express to explore. You can look up any published personal or business phone number, perform reverse phone number and address searches, or find a person or a business without paying traditional directory assistance charges. For a test, I looked up my new home phone number, as of 3/1/06, and now know who had it before me. I also looked up my neighbors using the "Find My Neighbors" feature and am just amazed at the amount of personal information available through the Internet! Data is provided by WhitePages.Com.
Extras
Pocket Express Extras ensures your Pocket Express software is always up to date as well as providing special offers and tips. A little self-promotion isn't always that bad, now is it?
At first it was difficult to accept the pricing of Pocket Express because much of the content served is also available free on the Internet, however what you are essentially paying for is the deliverance of the same content in an optimized format for mobile phones. Ultimately, the $69 breaks down to around $5.75/month which, if used just ten times to check the local weather and daily to read news in a format designed to be read on small screen devices, the price proves its value quickly. You can also purchase Pocket Express for $6.99/month. All pricing includes unlimted access to all 8 PageOne features.
Price: $69 or $6.99/month
Requirements: Phone with Java capabilities.
Web: http://www.handmark.com
|
Sign In or Sign-Up Free!
