Last year, over 90 experts judged over 650 nominations for the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine Best Software Awards 2006. Our judges had plenty to say about their favorite products. InR this issue, we are publishing their comments about the products nominated for the Utilities categories. We will publish their comments on other software categories in future issues.
The purpose of publishing the comments is to give insights into a variety of products—not to show how the judges voted. For the sake of brevity, we've included only 1-3 comments per product and edited them for clarity and conciseness. A listing of the 2006 winners and finalists can be found on our Web site (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/awards/main.asp).
Calculators
1-Calc
http://www.omegaone.com
1-Calc has a cool display, it's easy to switch between different programs, and it can update currency conversion rates online. This is one of the best calculator programs to have. (Dan Goh) (Also available for Smartphone)
CoolCalc
http://www.applianmobile.com
CoolCalc is easy to customize and supports landscape mode. It also provides both complex calculators and simple versions with large buttons for easy operation without the need to use the stylus. I would like to see support for devices with thumb keyboards. (David Shier)
EngCalc(Full) - PocketPC Calculator
http://www.3grtech.com/product.asp
This is a fantastic full-fledged engineering calculator with almost every formula required in the engineering world. However, it takes a long time to load. (Dan Goh) It runs slowly, even on my 624 MHz iPAQ. (Ben Stanley)
Math Tablet
http://www.statsnow.net
This is a scientific/graphing calculator with an amazing number of features! The documentation is outstanding as is the in-program context menu help. (Ben Stanley)
MyCalculator
http://www.spacetimemobile.com
This free calculator comes with an excellent tutorial. It could be a top notch calculator program if more features were added to it. (Ben Stanley)
Pocket Calculus
http://www.spacetimemobile.com
This is an excellent scientific calculator with a nice GUI and great product support. (Rishad Alam)
RapidCalc
http://www.developerone.com
It's a great idea for a calculator, but could use more functionality. (Scott Logsdon)
SciCalc
http://www.omega-com.pl
It was the only calculator I tested that had a built-in conversion for MPG to L/100KM. It needs an RPN mode. (David Shier)
File Management
PE Explorer Suite
http://www.vieka.com
It includes all the capabilities of PE File Explorer, PE Zip Explorer, PE Encrypt, PE Ftp Explorer, and PE Net Explorer. It's extremely slow if ROM files visualization is enabled. (Gianni Carfagno)
ALL-explorer 3.1
http://www.all-locations.com