Since I started using Windows Mobile on my Treo 800w (which I still love, btw!) my major complaint has been the lack of decent full screen photo caller id, and lousy contact photo dial. But thanks to my vigilance in following the Treo Central forums, I found the answer to my wishes.

For an application that is, in all honesty, purely cosmetic, I felt that $29.99 was rather steep. Fortunately, I was able to use a $10 credit I’d saved through past purchases at Handango, and get Inesoft Phone 4 for only $19.99. While I was initially looking only for either contact photo dial or full screen photo caller id, Phone 4 delivers that and a whole lot more.

Phone 4 lives quietly on your Today screen. By that, I mean it takes up virtually no room, and is as unobtrusive as anything on your Today screen can be. Two rather narrow bars with options sit on my Today screen offering quick profile options, and dialing functions.

First we will look at the full screen caller id.  As you can see from the picture below, the photo takes up the entire screen in the best resolution afforded by your device. There are a variety of skins available that determine how the photo shows up, as well as the displayed text. You might also notice the answer/ignore buttons are missing from my screen. This is probably due to the 320×320 resolution of the Treo 800w. Since I never use the onscreen buttons to answer, and always use the green or red hard keys, this is not a big issue.

Up until I discovered Phone 4, the options for contact photo dial were inadequate for a number of reasons: the photos were too small, you couldn’t arrange the photos, they didn’t dial instantly, the number of photos were limited…you get the idea. But with Phone 4, you can have many pages of contact photo dial buttons, and you can arrange them however you choose.

Four columns makes the photos large enough to see, large enough to touch, and small enough to fit your top twelve favorites on a single page. Plenty of options makes Phone 4 very simple to use just the way you want.

While I have no quarrel with the call log on my Treo 800w, there’s just something nicer about the way it shows up on Phone 4.

Phone 4 also gives you total address book control. You can sort/view/edit your contacts in a seemingly limitless combination of possibilities. Editing contacts through Phone 4 is much easier than the default contacts, and may even be more convenient than using Agendus. Setting contact ringtones and changing/adding contact photos was a snap. Being a stone solid Agendus user, I had no intention of using the contacts features of Phone 4, but it’s just too nice not to use.

The ability to add appointments straight from a contact is also pretty slick. You can go directly from a contact in your address book, or from the call log. The contact name becomes the default meeting name, but contains a dropdown menu with options including call, meet with, lunch, dinner, and birthday.

While not as feature rich as my beloved Lightwav for Palm os, it’s nice to have rudimentary profiles again. While the options are limited, and I can only choose weekdays and weekends, rather than  multiple combinations of days and times to fit a particular schedule, it’s convenient to not have to remember to mute the phone when I get to school – especially if I use it for timers and music during classes. If I could set VIP callers and a “nap” profile, I’d rate this as a perfect app.

General options offer some features that can be accessed through your phone’s System settings, but Phone 4 makes it way more convenient.. Set your ringer volume, ringer type, set vibrate for outgoing calls, and how you want each profile to act. Leaving the quick profile on your Today screen means you can instantly change the profile, or silence your calls by a simple screen tap.

While there are certainly some other features I would love to see included in Phone 4, it is by far a better application than any I’ve tried for Windows Mobile. If you’re looking for full screen caller id, photo contact dial, or even an option for your contact management, I highly recommend Inesoft Phone 4.

Share This

---

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•