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Reviewed by: Bryan Eley (breley), Aximsite Reviewer

Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine, Thaddeus Publishing

“…imagine an angel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before [a poor wayfarer] a mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering from the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms…could words describe the gratitude of this exile?”

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

In 1880 author Mark Twain wrote this culinary description of a magnificent dish and accompaniments served before a hungry fellow unfamiliar with such bounty. While the context of the quote description here is specifically food-oriented, when I received my review package of Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine’s 2007 Best of Everything, I felt very much like Twain’s wayfarer with a veritable cornucopia of information and software.

Thaddeus Publishing’s The 2007 Best of Everything Software Package included:

• A free issue of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine
• The 2006 Best of Everything Demo CD (contains software/game demos and some free applications, videos, e-books and themes)
• Back issues of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine in MS Reader format going back to 2000.
• Instructions for getting the full versions of the software and games included in the CD
• A stylus/pen/laser pointer from www.UsedHandhelds.com
• A $25 gift certificate for www.UsedHandhelds.com
• Free VIP privileges on the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine website

For a mobile device user, this seemed an incredible feast indeed.

How it works

The enclosed documentation points the user to http://www.pocketpcmag.com/SuperCD/CLogin.aspx, where this screen appears.

At the login page, enter your username and password and you will then be sent to the main page of software.

Here all software is divided into two main categories, Games and Productivity, with ten subcategories total that you can drill down to immediately. After clicking on a category, you will see a list of all the software in that category. Generally you will need only to select a given item, and click on the download link for that item. Typically the item will be a trial version, and once installed on your mobile device, you have the option of registering the product. The method allows you to decide if you want to keep the software. If you do, simply go back to the product screen where you downloaded the item, and click the Register button to get the registration key (keyed to your Owner Name in the Customer Details page of My Account on the Best of Everything site).

Time to receive the registration key varies considerably with the vendor. Some will be instantly created in the My Account folder, and others will be emailed to you from the vendor. If receiving directly from the vendor, a notification will appear during the registration request telling you that the vendor will mail you a registration number in a given timeframe. Most of my choices required minutes, if not seconds, to process. Some took a few hours or a day or two to process, but your mileage may vary. Worst case is that since most of the downloadable products have trial versions that typically last several days or longer, you can at least use that version until the key arrives.

By clicking My Account, you can see your registration status for the products registered along with associated keys that were autogenerated, handy in case you need to reinstall any applications.

Some registrations are marked as tricky, and Best of Everything will mark such registrations and provide step-by-step instructions for correctly registering your application.

In one case, the guidelines weren’t quite correct as the latest release of the particular application changed way registration was done. Actually, in this case the registration was easier than before, but shows how tricky it can be keeping track of changes for 160+ applications and such.

If a problem is encountered, there is an online “Report a Problem”� form, and also an email address in the registration emails received for various application registration requests. I had encountered a registration code problem for one app and after filling out the form received a new one soon after.

Extra CD Goodies

The Demo CD 2006 contains a number of trial versions of software and a number of free goodies. However, I was supposed to have also received the Demo CD 2007, but a quick email to support has remedied the situation.

The CD contains:

• Free Today Themes (VGA & QVGA)
• Free Applications
• Free Games
• Free e-books
• Sample Movie trailers

MS Reader Back Issue CD

Another bonus feature is the inclusion of the Back Issue CD of MS Reader-formatted versions of all magazines. The CD I received contained all issues from May 2007 back to the Launch issue of the magazine from June 2000.

Here is what you can expect on the Back Issue CD:

The issues are in Microsoft Reader format (*.lit), and if you don’t have either the mobile or desktop version of the MS Reader software, links to Microsoft’s site are provided on the CD landing page. With this in hand, you’ve got practically the entire collection of magazines ever published by Smartphone & Pocket PC.

Freebies are nice too

Let me just say the stylus/pen/laser point was a nice little freebie. It was already powered and thoughtful included an extra set of batteries. My son had seen me play bits of Half-Life 2, and so thought the laser pointer came off the RPG launcher. In this shameless promotion of my son’s drawing talents, Gordon Freeman (chased by a legless Civil Protection goon) is smiling because he’s going to pick up the rocket launcher and “use the laser pointer like daddy’s got on the bad guy.” I’m still trying to decide if I should be amused, disturbed, or both. If nothing else, it’s great fun getting my deranged cats to try to climb walls to get the red dot. Don’t worry, they both love doing it.

Also included via a free special download link were the 2006 Best Software Awards and 101 Best Tips PDFs (actually 123 tips, but “Best 123 Tips” doesn’t sound as snappy, does it?).

These are both excellent resources in their own right, and the Best Software Awards 2006 PDF is a great way to see what sorts of products might suit your needs, with succinct review commentary for many of the products. Note that not all of these products are available on the Best of Everything web portal.

To buy or not to buy, that is the question

My initial impression is that this should be almost a no-brainer for a newcomer to the Windows Mobile market. However, Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine provides a pair of downloadable Excel spreadsheets (one for PPC/Smartphone with touchscreen and the other for a Smartphone without touchscreen) for doing your own cost/benefit analysis. For $297, you have at your fingertips over $4,000 worth of software for your PPC or Smartphone. About 160 applications are currently available and I had several of them already from previous purchases directly through the vendors. For a quick list of available items, click here for Pocket PC and here for Smartphone.

Some screens are also shown below for the Pocket PC quick list:

In using their downloadable spreadsheet tool for determining if the 2007 Best of Everything product would be valuable to me, I discovered that I had already spent $334.21 on software for my Axim. If I had purchased the product for $297 months ago, I would have initially saved almost $40�and that’s not including the numerous other software packages that were mine for the asking that I had considered for future purchase. In estimating the future purchases, I would easily run another $150-$200, or nearly double what the price of the Best of Everything would run.

Now, having said all that, your usage model may differ considerably from mine. Maybe you prefer a more ascetic device configuration with fewer applications to keep things lean, quick and tidy. If in such a case you tend to use only a small handful key apps to utilize your device, maybe the Best of Everything wouldn’t appeal to you. The downloadable spreadsheets (my example, below) can be used to peruse the current contents of applications online available through the product. Simply mark an (X) in the cell of each product you desire, and a summation of the product prices will appear and tally up as you add more products

If at the end of your check your tally is considerably less than the $297, then it may not be the product for you. If however your price is close to, equal to or greater than $297, then this may be the mobile software package for you. You can download the 2007 Pocket PC calculator here or the 2007 Smartphone version here and see for yourself.

Pros

• Excellent value for the money
• Provides award-winning selection of applications
• Magazine subscription is a nice feature
• Customer support and service as well as return policy are top-notch
• Web portal access is very user-friendly
• Rapid shipping
• Free gift from www.UsedHandhelds.com

Cons

• Registration for some applications are not always as timely as the user may wish
• Some of the applications or games may not always be updated immediately upon developer release of newer versions

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Bryan Eley (40 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Bryan is a software tester and network admin for a small multimedia company that deals primarily with the network/PC technology sector, despite the fact that his background is actually in the biological sciences. His first PDA was a Palm m100 back in 2001 and has been fiddling with Pocket PCs and Smartphones for several years now. In 2008 he was a Software Judge for SmartPhone and PocketPC Magazine.