From corporate business users to Joe average, the one thing most pocket pc users come to realise is that the default Windows Mobile PIM (Personal Information Management) is nothing more then the bare basics of information management.  In past incarnations of Windows Mobile, users have feared installing 3rd party PIM software due to slowing down the OS, or creating a slew of bugs and issues; as was frequently the case with 3rd party photo id applications on Windows Mobile 2003.  With more sophisticated programming and the advent of Windows Mobile 5 many users have found the problems of old to be a burden no more and when these 3rd party applications are contrasted against the default windows software, users discover a plethora of advantages from quicker more efficient access, improved customisations, easier inputs, improved indexing, and just better aesthetics. 

Inesoft Address Book is one such 3rd party application which offers a rich content package capable of bridging the deficits in the Windows Mobile contact and incoming call system.  The capacity for unlimited data fields, customisable fields, faster scrolling and multiple contact views alone makes this software worthy, however as we will discover throughout this review, the address book package features so much more.

Quick Features

• Unlimited and customisable data fields
  

• Multiple contact views
  

• Customisable views, fonts, sizes
  

• Efficient T9 Search pad
  

• Today screen plugin
  

• Customisable photo contacts
  

• Category ringtones
  

• Personal ringtones
  

• Incomming Caller ID
  

• Profiles
  

• Call Blocking that works
   

Customisable Contact Data:

Installing the software, creating and editing a contact is the stock standard voyage users should, or will, quickly be familiar with, so without delay let's begin exploring the real features of this exciting contact software  As aforementioned, the default Windows Mobile contact system is static; from its views, fields, to even its fonts (which are determined from the overall system) are virtually un-customisable.  On the other hand Inesoft Address Book offers a near unlimited capacity for all your contacts information, all in a highly dynamic environment. .  The best way to illustrate the lack of custom fields and inputs is to consider a series of situations where a user is left high and dry by the Windows Mobile contact system.  Consider for example if a contact has a simple thing like a work mobile phone number.  Where does this fit into Windows Mobiles defaults?  Nowhere.  What if the contact has more then 1 Instant Messaging address, what if your employees or colleagues, or friends have emergency contact information, where can this be stored besides under notes? Nowhere. 

By now the intermediate windows user is wondering why someone wouldn't just put that work mobile under 'work 2' or 'fax' or put that spouses mobile number under 'home 2' or 'assistants tel', and whilst this might be applicable for some contacts ultimately how long before you go to look up a contact and wonder what number you have under 'fax' and more importantly where is the fax number now?  Better yet what if you want to call one of your contacts, you call 'home 2', his second mobile number, but forget that home 2 is his spouses mobile number and before you know it your in a conversation you didn't want to be in and left thinking; Where for art thou customisations windows mobile? where?

For users with only a few contacts, issues like that mentioned above probably aren't too frequent.  However in this age of communications for business users or users with many contacts, the inability to add even a simple field like 'work mobile' becomes tiresome and unconventionally out-dated.  The ability to manage your contacts the way you need too, and as circumstances demand is crucial, and Inesoft Address Book allows such customisations and inputs to be readily made. 

As can be seen from the pictures above, customisable fields as simple as 'Work Mobile', and 'Spouse Mobile' and any other sort of field you need can be created at the ready.  Users will be happy to learn that one of the pre-defined fields is 'File As'; that's right no more having to go into outlook or use hacks to get the name the way you want it displayed, address book gives you the option straight up.  Inesoft Address Book also allows for more information to be displayed on the users screen (depending on the font size you choose of course).  Much like the default windows contact system, notes can be added to any specific contact with the added difference being you get font editing and formatting, as well as inking on the go.  As users would expect contacts are easily navigated via the directional keypad and the action button.  Catering to almost every user option of getting at their contact, Inesoft offers the extended dial mode so that If users don't wish to view all the notes and details of a contact they can simply press their hardware call button and this brings up the extended dial mode (pictured below) which like the default Microsoft address book allows all the contacts numbers to be largely displayed on screen and rapidly dialled.

Overall the contact system is quite quick even to scroll, having unlimited possibilities for fields of data and information is a godsend and the legion of ways a user can dial and access a contact is immense. The only area where this part of the software falls down and the default system gains a reprise, is the ease of sending an SMS/MMS via the contact screen.  Whilst sending an SMS/MMS in address book is reasonably easy, it requires some forethought to hold down the action key at the contact list; because it cannot be done once you are inside the actual contact.  Even the Extended dial mode (Pictured below) suffers from the need to use a stylus in order to send an SMS.  This is merely a very small observation that could be cured via a reworking of the hardware keys or enabling an SMS activation via the action key in the Extended Dial mode.

Contact List:

The default Windows Mobile contact system offers users only a one-dimensional view of their contact list (Technically under view Microsoft would claim two options, but 'Name' and 'Company' are more file sorting then views).  Continuing the trend of having it your way, Inesoft offers users a two pronged approach to their contact list: Display on 1 line or 2.  This might not sound like much of a difference, but lets compare the windows viewing and the Inesoft viewing selections side by side.

From left to right we can see the Default windows mobile contact system, followed by the standard 2 line Inesoft view, and lastly the 1 line view.  The intrepid point with the Inesoft address book is that with font customisations you can have the contact list as small or as large as you require.  If you want your contacts names and numbers to be larger you can do so without making all the fonts on the system larger, alia, windows mobile.  Whilst not considered 'views' as Microsoft would, address book also includes the sort-by: Name, Company and File-As fields. 

preview pane:  The two different views itself are a welcome breath of fresh air, and something windows users should have been blessed with by default in Windows Mobile, nevertheless, that's not the end of the features in address books contact list:  The picture on the left-hand side displays the 'preview' pane, a useful feature for users keen on the one line list view.  The preview pane is height adjustable and also scrollable so users can immediately see more of a specific contacts details whilst rapidly continuing to navigate the list.  This mode isn't particularly key friendly but its benefits and ease of use become evident when using the stylus.  

Search Engine / Bar:

The other feature available in the contact list screen offers users the choice of no search bar (they call it ABC bar but I think search is more appropriate as you will see), small search bar, or large search bar (Large search bar pictured above)  The large search pad is just the right size to allow finger or thumb navigation so users can locate that needle in a haystack contact quickly and with ease.  The T9 search in address book can even locate contacts via their details.  This ability allows users to search for the first thing that comes to their mind, for example, you may need to find an employee of Mtekk, start keying that in and everyone with mtekk in their field data will pop-up, it works for any data in your contacts details.  With the combined speed and ease of an ABC Bar yet the power of the search functionality I just don't feel 'ABC' bar does this feature justice, so I have taken the liberty of renaming this option the 'search bar'.  The ability to search for any bit of information to quickly locate a contact will be welcome news to anyone with a large contact list or with highly specific contact details, again, this is another feature with corporate users would be hard pressed to go without once they have tried it.

Today Screen Plug-in:

Keeping with the themes of greater and quicker access to contact details, Inesoft also comes with a very handy today screen plug-in.  This plug-in perhaps taking a leaf out of Contact Breezes books offers users a quicker way to access their contacts, right off the today screen and without the need to directly open the address book software.  The today plug-in is far from intrusive and appears as just a small sized search bar.  Not only does this search bar contain all the power of the previously mentioned search system, but it can also be fully navigated via your directional keypad.  This allows the user to locate contacts without the need to open a program or use the stylus, all from the today screen and all quite rapidly.  The entire contact list can also be accessed on the today screen by navigating too or pressing the directional arrow on the far right side of the plug-in.   The only issue suffered from here is the SMS/MMS observation mentioned earlier in the review, but with the exception of that the today plug-in is non-intrusive, resource efficient and makes finding contacts and any of their details a lifetime easier then any other system and best of all straight from the today screen.

Caller ID system:

Inesoft Address Book pocket phone edition also comes with a caller id system.  This caller ID system enables a series of features first and foremost of which is a full screen photo incoming call screen.  As can be seen in the picture below a large photo of the contact, their company and of course phone number are all clearly displayed with the usual answer/mute/reject call options present down the bottom of the screen.  Address Book's full screen incoming caller ID is a delight allowing users to see vibrant large sized pictures of their contacts, this is a vast improvement on the scrunched up fingernail sized incoming caller picture they would be use to with Windows Mobile.  Users should be advised that there can be a slight delay of up to two caller rings before the full screen caller ID activates.  It is possible this was a 6828 & jasjar specific issue but overall two rings before your greeted with full screen caller ID and personalised ringtone is more than acceptable, but optimisations to improve this in a future release would be well welcomed.

Category Ringtones:  Address book also gives users the ability to assign personal ringtones just as the default windows mobile contact system does, but adding onto that users can also assign category ringtones, a feature long forgotten to pocket pc users.  This gives users a quicker way to assign broad but specific ringtones and use a variety of ringtones without having to sit around personalising every contacts unique call; which can get tedious and somewhat confusing.  Users should be weary of using large file sized wma, wave or mp3s for their ringtone, just like the default Microsoft incoming call system, large ringtone files will cause delays with the device responding to phone calls, and possibly sputtering with the ringtone ending.

Ring Type (Profile):  The ring-type system allows users to quickly change the way the phone receives incoming calls, the options available are: silent, just ring, Ring once, Increasing Ring, Vibrate, Vibrate the Ring, Vibrate and Ring, Increasing Ring and Vibrate.  All of these options can be readily changed in Windows Mobile itself but this requires users to navigate through several screens, menus and okay options, Inesofts way allows users to change this basic profile structure all via the directional keys and all off a small icon in the tray launcher.

Call Blocker / Filter:  The call filter is a unique feature that most mobile phone users have often wished to have at the ready; it essentially enables the user to promptly block any unwanted calls, or accept a limited number of calls as the case may be.  The filter uses categories to block or accept the phone calls, the categories are simply the users personalised categories (the same ones creatable for appoints, tasks etc).  All the categories and calls are enabled by default, to block a certain group from calling all that has to be done is use the tray launch icon's menu and deselect the group you don't want to hear boo from.  From that point onwards all calls from contacts in that category will be blocked, this means anyone in that category attempting to call you will be immediately redirected to your message bank and you won't hear even a ring from them.  Other options in the call filter include, Enabling/Disabling All calls, blocking private numbers, blocking unknown numbers, and blocking numbers without a category assignment.  This filter held up against several different category tests, and at first glance using categories to distinguish calls rather then blocking specific callers might seem tedious, but it pretty easy to quickly navigate the address book and change a contacts category to a miscellaneous one you can readily block.  The true benefits of the category filtering come through when a user might not want to take a phone call from anyone under the 'work' category and within a couple of seconds, and all from the today screen the user can peacefully go about the rest of their day without hearing from their fellow colleagues or most likely, boss.

Options, Options:

Finally the last noteworthy point of Inesoft Address Book and something which readers have probably picked up upon already is the customisations and options.  Inesoft allows the users to customise everything from the fonts, font sizes, number format, to enabling and disabling the caller ID, the tray launch icon and the today plug-in.  Below is a comparison of the default Windows Mobile contacts options (left) and Inesoft Address Books options screen (right)

Conclusions:

Inesoft Address Book offers users a vastly superior contacts system, one which is speedy, efficient, organised and offers the flexibility to store any and all of the information about a contact you require.  Further to this, the customisations and different contact list views alone make this package worth paying money for.  Additionally to such a strong starting point Address Book also offers a powerful search engine for all your data, an inconspicuous and highly effective today plug-in and an entire caller ID system which offers such long demanded features as full screen caller ID and call blocking.  Supporting this feature rich package is the knowledge that Address Book was only released this year and has already undergone a continuous process of upgrades, improvements and feature-added developments.  This sort of support and high update turn over ensures users will have support and access to the future improvements in this stellar piece of personal information management software.

Score: 9.7/10
Inesoft Address Book can be purchased from Inesoft Software for $14.95USD.

Address Book Pros:

• Vast improvement on default contact PIM

• Unlimited ability to add any data required to a contact

• More contact list views - well worth it for this feature alone

• Plethora of customisation options from fonts/font sizes to phone no. formats

• Full Screen caller ID System

• Category ringtones

• Call blocking that works

• Today screen plug-in

• Quick and highly efficient search engine for all contact data

• Regularly updated and highly compatible piece of software

Con:

• Lack of SMS ready access

• Lack of customisations for caller ID template.

• Slight lag and delay with the incoming call response when using caller ID