Rirath
12-27-2002, 11:00 PM
Over the holidays I tried out just about every big name program I could think of, trying to figure out which to get. For anyone interested, here's a small roundup of why I picked what, and why I didn't. Feel free to tell me why I'm horribly wrong and brain dead for not liking a particular product you adore. :wink:
CalliGrapher:
Despite many people's luck with this program, I can get nowhere. Even if I write slowly, and precisely, it's lucky to get half the letters right. I usually just end up with output like: "thiju.z af il". I even tried going in and doing the "often, sometimes, never" setup, no effect. I don't consider my handwriting great, but I certainly don't consider it anywhere near that bad. :x Pass
Cropped Out
Almost brought this... it is fun... but I'll stick with Diamond Mine. The diagonal movement adds some freedom, but it also takes away some challenge. The alien heads are rather pointless (At least in snowed in, they worked better), and the rounds just seem dull clicking until the timer runs out. I really like Snowed In, and considering this game is almost identical, I'm surprised this interests me so little. Snowed In has better graphics, better pace, and better sound. Same for Diamond Mine.
Dashboard
I used this daily on the Jornada, but once I got Pocket Informant, I stopped. Gave it another shot, but if I need this info, I'll just use PI and get the full info. I like the PPC Themes, and I'm not about to replace them with Dashboard's themes. Add to that numerous reports of slowdown, and no thanks.
Fitaly
Gave it a fair shot, but no. I'm much faster with the on-screen keyboard than I am this. I know you'll probably say "give it time!", but no thanks. My typing style just doesn't go well with this layout at all.
FlexWallet
$20 is quite the deal for both the desktop and pocket pc versions, but it just doesn't fit my needs. I mainly just wanted quick password management, and FlexWallet is just too time consuming to find the file holding the information. Tree view speeds things up a bit, but not enough.
Mighty Sync
Seriously thought about this one... almost got it... but maybe later. I've got too many things that pop up whenever I sync the way it is. No real need to sync any file, anywhere at the moment.
Nyditot Virtual Display
I picked this up to do landscape reading in IE and maybe Reader. Another nice nice trick is 800x600 sketching in Mobile Pencil. Sadly the panning seems to be seriously bugged, and I can't click on a dang thing. Hopefully I'll hear back from support soon if it'll be fixed later. :cry:
Password Juggler
I've certainly never heard of this one before, but I like it. :) The GUI is very clean, and it looks great. It's a very simple program, which makes it very quick to use. $10 for the ppc version alone is awful cheap too. There's a $20 PPC/Desktop bundle, but I don't much care for the desktop version. It's just a stretched PPC version. Instead I use Pocket Controller to enter/retrieve the info at the desktop. 8)
Pocket Artist
I really looked hard at this one, and I can say that in my opinion, without a doubt, this is one of the most overpriced useless apps on the pocket pc today. The lines don't emulate brushes well at all, it doesn't support any feature worth $50, (No, layers aren't worth $50), and it's just simply not very good at what it does. It amazes me every-time I see someone post a "But look what I made with it!" image, it's usually laughably simple. If this was even good enough to produce a photoshop quality button (about the only thing you can do at this size), I'd praise it. But it's far from that. :evil:
Perhaps some day, but for now look into Mobile Pencil. It has wonderful pencil and paper emulation, and is free. At least it's great at what it does. http://www1.mahoroba.ne.jp/cgi-bin/user-cgi/%7Enefa/ecafe.cgi
Pocket Controller
I admit I'm not sure exactly how much I'll use it, but it beats hunching over my desktop poking at the Axim with my finger. So far it's worked best for Password Juggler and Pocket Informant. I'm sure more uses will come along in time, but it's worth the cost.
Rayman Ultimate
It sure does look awesome. 8O Best graphics to date, I'd say. Gameplay seems all there too. Perhaps worth buying later, but for right now I'll pass. Don't see a thing wrong with it though, and it looks plenty long.
Rocket Elite
I'm loving this game so far. I'm trying it on Medium mode, and it's one very hard game. Probably the hardest I've played yet, even counting Snails. It's nice to see a difficult game for a change. Can't beat that it comes with the desktop version as well. There seem to be some serious bugs though. It randomly locks up, sometimes won't start correctly, and rarely something happens that causes it to slow to a crawl until restarting. As annoying as all that is, I can deal. Perhaps it'll be fixed sooner or later, but if not it's still fun.
Tomb Raider
Dang... I forgot what a work of art Lara's movements were in Tomb Raider 1. The way she back-flips, draws the guns in mid air, then without skipping a beat homes in on the nearest thing that moves and starts blasting away at it is incredible. Not on my buy list yet, but it's good to see the real Tomb Raider once again, not the junk that came afterwords.
Turjah 1/2
You've got to be kidding me. All the time I had a J525, from reports I thought Jimmy's software was the best around. Now that I've tried about all of it myself, there's nothing worth even keeping the demo of. Turjah is painfully hard to control, and just more work than it's worth to play.
There you have it. Hopefully someone will get use of this. It amazes me though how much software sounds good in theory, but works out horribly. It also amazes me what makes the top seller lists at Handango. Then again, considering the recycled junk that makes the PC game's top selling lists, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sims, anyone? :wink:
Thankfully though, the amount of truly innovative and useful apps, many of which are free or nearly so, is staggering. For a handheld device, the community has really pulled through in making some amazing apps. Hopefully many more are to come.
CalliGrapher:
Despite many people's luck with this program, I can get nowhere. Even if I write slowly, and precisely, it's lucky to get half the letters right. I usually just end up with output like: "thiju.z af il". I even tried going in and doing the "often, sometimes, never" setup, no effect. I don't consider my handwriting great, but I certainly don't consider it anywhere near that bad. :x Pass
Cropped Out
Almost brought this... it is fun... but I'll stick with Diamond Mine. The diagonal movement adds some freedom, but it also takes away some challenge. The alien heads are rather pointless (At least in snowed in, they worked better), and the rounds just seem dull clicking until the timer runs out. I really like Snowed In, and considering this game is almost identical, I'm surprised this interests me so little. Snowed In has better graphics, better pace, and better sound. Same for Diamond Mine.
Dashboard
I used this daily on the Jornada, but once I got Pocket Informant, I stopped. Gave it another shot, but if I need this info, I'll just use PI and get the full info. I like the PPC Themes, and I'm not about to replace them with Dashboard's themes. Add to that numerous reports of slowdown, and no thanks.
Fitaly
Gave it a fair shot, but no. I'm much faster with the on-screen keyboard than I am this. I know you'll probably say "give it time!", but no thanks. My typing style just doesn't go well with this layout at all.
FlexWallet
$20 is quite the deal for both the desktop and pocket pc versions, but it just doesn't fit my needs. I mainly just wanted quick password management, and FlexWallet is just too time consuming to find the file holding the information. Tree view speeds things up a bit, but not enough.
Mighty Sync
Seriously thought about this one... almost got it... but maybe later. I've got too many things that pop up whenever I sync the way it is. No real need to sync any file, anywhere at the moment.
Nyditot Virtual Display
I picked this up to do landscape reading in IE and maybe Reader. Another nice nice trick is 800x600 sketching in Mobile Pencil. Sadly the panning seems to be seriously bugged, and I can't click on a dang thing. Hopefully I'll hear back from support soon if it'll be fixed later. :cry:
Password Juggler
I've certainly never heard of this one before, but I like it. :) The GUI is very clean, and it looks great. It's a very simple program, which makes it very quick to use. $10 for the ppc version alone is awful cheap too. There's a $20 PPC/Desktop bundle, but I don't much care for the desktop version. It's just a stretched PPC version. Instead I use Pocket Controller to enter/retrieve the info at the desktop. 8)
Pocket Artist
I really looked hard at this one, and I can say that in my opinion, without a doubt, this is one of the most overpriced useless apps on the pocket pc today. The lines don't emulate brushes well at all, it doesn't support any feature worth $50, (No, layers aren't worth $50), and it's just simply not very good at what it does. It amazes me every-time I see someone post a "But look what I made with it!" image, it's usually laughably simple. If this was even good enough to produce a photoshop quality button (about the only thing you can do at this size), I'd praise it. But it's far from that. :evil:
Perhaps some day, but for now look into Mobile Pencil. It has wonderful pencil and paper emulation, and is free. At least it's great at what it does. http://www1.mahoroba.ne.jp/cgi-bin/user-cgi/%7Enefa/ecafe.cgi
Pocket Controller
I admit I'm not sure exactly how much I'll use it, but it beats hunching over my desktop poking at the Axim with my finger. So far it's worked best for Password Juggler and Pocket Informant. I'm sure more uses will come along in time, but it's worth the cost.
Rayman Ultimate
It sure does look awesome. 8O Best graphics to date, I'd say. Gameplay seems all there too. Perhaps worth buying later, but for right now I'll pass. Don't see a thing wrong with it though, and it looks plenty long.
Rocket Elite
I'm loving this game so far. I'm trying it on Medium mode, and it's one very hard game. Probably the hardest I've played yet, even counting Snails. It's nice to see a difficult game for a change. Can't beat that it comes with the desktop version as well. There seem to be some serious bugs though. It randomly locks up, sometimes won't start correctly, and rarely something happens that causes it to slow to a crawl until restarting. As annoying as all that is, I can deal. Perhaps it'll be fixed sooner or later, but if not it's still fun.
Tomb Raider
Dang... I forgot what a work of art Lara's movements were in Tomb Raider 1. The way she back-flips, draws the guns in mid air, then without skipping a beat homes in on the nearest thing that moves and starts blasting away at it is incredible. Not on my buy list yet, but it's good to see the real Tomb Raider once again, not the junk that came afterwords.
Turjah 1/2
You've got to be kidding me. All the time I had a J525, from reports I thought Jimmy's software was the best around. Now that I've tried about all of it myself, there's nothing worth even keeping the demo of. Turjah is painfully hard to control, and just more work than it's worth to play.
There you have it. Hopefully someone will get use of this. It amazes me though how much software sounds good in theory, but works out horribly. It also amazes me what makes the top seller lists at Handango. Then again, considering the recycled junk that makes the PC game's top selling lists, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sims, anyone? :wink:
Thankfully though, the amount of truly innovative and useful apps, many of which are free or nearly so, is staggering. For a handheld device, the community has really pulled through in making some amazing apps. Hopefully many more are to come.