Spb Pocket Plus 3.0 Review Round-Up

[Darius Wey]

<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050720-SpbPocketPlus3.gif" /><br /><br />A couple of sites have just published reviews of Spb Pocket Plus 3.0. They include <a href="http://www.clintonfitch.com/reviews/spb/pocketplus-3-0/default.asp">ClintonFitch.com</a> and <a href="http://www.mozongoware.com/featureddetails.asp?article=707">Mozongoware</a>. If you're still undecided as to whether Pocket Plus is the right application for you, then be sure to give these two reviews a read.

[szamot]

I just got mine upgraded to 3.0 from 2.5 and while I don't see much use for the button mapping options I do like Pocket Plus. In fact SPB rules my Today Screen with Pocket Weather, Pocket Diary, GPRS Monitor and Pocket Plus to make is all complete. Way to go.

[caubeck]

I have tried Pocket Plus but I don't see the need for so many functions and I don't like to have a cluttered Today.

I prefer to use cLaunch, a freeware programme. It creates the same kind of tabs on the screen, with plenty of dislay options..

What I do, though, is to choose not to display the tab bar itself (ie, it becomes invisible, you tap on any clear area of screen to switch tabs). I have one tab full of applications, and the next tab totally clear, and I disable the other tabs.

Why?

I love having a free Today screen, with just an image and an icbar at the top, showing the date and time. When I need to use an application, I press the Today screen once and they all appear (you can alter the size of the icons, etc, and there are no limitations about which you choose, including folders). Click again, all the applications are gone, leaving a clean screen. You could add other tabs for different icons (ebooks, for example, as the titles can be displayed and resized). So you could have a clear screen, then tap for a screenful of applications, then tap again to see your ebook library on the Today screen. While I was studying history and geography for an exam, I had three tabs set up to turn my Today into two catalogues of labelled articles and books.

cLaunch can be found at PocketPCFreewares and pdagold, I believe.

[NunoFernandes]

There is also a review in Portuguese at POCKETPT.NET (http://www.pocketpt.net/forum/index.php?act=ST&amp;f=36&amp;t=4624&amp;s=5a2626b0659729bf63a6660e3750fd21). The review talks about other products and how they interact with each other. The other products are:

SPB GPRS Monitor 2.3 ; SPB Diary 1.5.1 ; SPB Weather 1.1.1

Feel free to visit us :)

Regards

[ctmagnus]

I :ppclove: Spb Pocket Plus! However, I have one suggestion that I'm sure they've already considered: Integrate Spb Diary as a whole into Pocket Plus. That way, I can have one tab in Pocket Plus for Diary, and that tab contains the usual Diary plugin, tabs and all.

[drowe]

I :ppclove: Spb Pocket Plus! However, I have one suggestion that I'm sure they've already considered: Integrate Spb Diary as a whole into Pocket Plus. That way, I can have one tab in Pocket Plus for Diary, and that tab contains the usual Diary plugin, tabs and all.

They already have, but in a cooler fashion. Each of the tabs in diary can be a tab in PP. I currently have contacts, todo, appts. tabs inside of PP. Don't have any notes so I chose not to add that one. Really cool!!

[ctmagnus]

But what I want is the whole plugin on one tab. Look at Spb Diary on its own then envision that as one tab in Pocket Plus. That's what I mean, one tab in Pocket Plus that provides access to all the tabs in Diary.

[drowe]

But what I want is the whole plugin on one tab. Look at Spb Diary on its own then envision that as one tab in Pocket Plus. That's what I mean, one tab in Pocket Plus that provides access to all the tabs in Diary.

I see..... Doesn't look like you can do that now, but I know that when I was beta testing this they were real responsive and integrated some of my suggestions, send them the suggestion and you might get it in the next update.

[mv]

Naah... still no better than using wis bar advanced, pocket breeze, contact breeze, SBH Weather, and iLauncher... I had version 1.0 and didn´t care to upgrade since then. :roll:

[ctmagnus]

But what I want is the whole plugin on one tab. Look at Spb Diary on its own then envision that as one tab in Pocket Plus. That's what I mean, one tab in Pocket Plus that provides access to all the tabs in Diary.

I see..... Doesn't look like you can do that now, but I know that when I was beta testing this they were real responsive and integrated some of my suggestions, send them the suggestion and you might get it in the next update.

Done and done!

[OSUKid7]

I :ppclove: Spb Pocket Plus! However, I have one suggestion that I'm sure they've already considered: Integrate Spb Diary as a whole into Pocket Plus. That way, I can have one tab in Pocket Plus for Diary, and that tab contains the usual Diary plugin, tabs and all.
Yeah, I would like that too. :)

[huangzhinong]

After 24 hours extensive usage, I still uninstalled from my x30. TodayPlus failed, so will SPB pocket +. I really really miss the deeply loved SPB Pocket Plus v1.2, which is simple/fast/small/stable.

I believe PPC Today interface is the most elegant piece in all PDA apps. Filling today space will all those kinds of different size icons just destroy the beauty.

Although some people mentioned this version didn't slow down system, but I still feel my ppc slowed down, even I only enabled battery bar, reminder and IE plugin. Maybe I am wrong.

Good luck, SPB. I will still try ver 4.0, because of the good memory of ver 1.2.

How wonderful will it be if SPB can fix the ver 1.2 and make it work under OS2003SE.

[Duncan]

Months now I've had a perfect working setup - including PocketPlus 2.5. I install PocketPlus 3 only to find that my Loox is now running slower than a snail - plus they've broken things that worked in 'real' VGA under the old version. No problem I think - I'll just uninstall it. So I do. Then I find my Loox won't turn on anymore...!!! I fix it by removing and replacing my battery, re-install the old PocketPlus - which had been working just fine - and guess what - my Loox now gets stuck on startup.

You can imagine how I'm currently feeling towards Spb right now - as I hard reset my Loox and begin again.

Not impressed.

[gavinfabl]

I prefer the new version of i-launcher over pocketplus. Both are excellent products and its really personal preference.

However, I do agree with some comments previously that PP slows down the system . It also used 2mb of file storage.

I-Launcher doesn't slow down the system etc.. For battery level I use Kbattery which shows in the top bar perfectly. It can also be moved over the system time to show battery and time together.

Speed and Memory are very important to me. PP v3 is a lot faster than 2.5 that was terribly slow. This is also why I dont use Wisbar Advance 2. I love the look etc. but not the speed.

However, i do like PP merely for its features, but they are not needed for me. I do not need task managers to close apps etc.. For most standard MS PPC apps I use Ctrl Q and this quits the app. If the app is still running , I go to Settings , Memory etc.. or use the i-launcher shortcut on the shell tray and stop running programs.

But not everyone will want this.

I use an XDA IIs.

[Jason Lee]

I've never really noticed any slowdown from pocket plus. But i think taht was mostly with vga devices.

I also really don't under stand why people complain about the install size. If i didn't have pocket plus in stalled i would need:

*claunch or ilauncher
*a taskbar battery meter
*multi-ie (not gonna work with wm 5.0 for a while if ever)
*some kinda of repeating alarm app
*handy switcher (and maybe the other 2 handy apps )
*resco file explorer (or something better than the built in with zip and encryption support)
*button mapping software
*monocube safe mode

I know for a fact that all of these are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY bigger than pocket plus.

I can understand not wanting to use it if it still slows down vga devices. Then only way it would ever slow down qvga devices is if you get shortcut happy with the today plugin and that will happen with any today launcher plugin.
Or if you don't need half of the features then it might not really make sense to use it.

There have been many a time when i have wanted to remove pocket plus because i like playing with new software. :) But in the end i go back for the stability and the saved space.
But that's just me. ;)

[tekguru]

Not forgetting Tekguru, we havwe reviewed it here (http://www.tekguru.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6639). :)

[gavinfabl]

Interesting comments.

Just shows how different users have different needs. As my pda is also a phone that might be one reason for the speed issue.

However, there are apps that are freeware , take up minimal space that will accomplish most of what you need.

Battery - Kbattery, Merlin or Powerstatus (all tiny in size eg KBattery 18kb)

Magicbutton - 200kb

Safemode for PPC - 100kb

Totalcommander 2 - Has zip/unzip, as well as file explorer, ftp, registry

All the above are free.

i-launcher cost $8.95 compared to SPB Pocket Plus at $29.95 apprx.

I have missed out Multi-IE or similar which costs another $10.

Pocketplus as a single product that does so much is excellent and appeals to some.

That the beauty of competition. Great products and choice.

[BUMP THAT]

Hey has anyone found a way to make the indicators (Like Battery, RAM and others) to un-Highlight after tapping them? Because I tap the Backlight to adjust it, then it does not deselect. It annoys me really bad. I hope Iam not the only one expierencing this. :cry:

[Jason Lee]

Hey has anyone found a way to make the indicators (Like Battery, RAM and others) to un-Highlight after tapping them? Because I tap the Backlight to adjust it, then it does not deselect. It annoys me really bad. I hope Iam not the only one expierencing this. :cry:

yeah, that is the way it works. :( i posted about it in the other thread. the last thing you touch will keep the highlight. even if you tap in another today plugin and move the focus to that the highlight stays. :(
if you want to get rid of it just scroll up or down with the dpad a few times to move the cursor somewhere else. i tap on a tab to move the highlight there then press up on the dpad once and the highlight goes away (well up actually but same result)
hopefully the next version will remove the highlight after 5 seconds or so as it is needed for keyboard navigation in the plugin.

[Phillip Dyson]

The only time that I can recall a slow down with Plus is when I had an Icon for my SD card size on one of the tabs. I noticed a big difference when I removed it. Now I only have icons for internal memory and flash rom.

[Jason Lee]

The only time that I can recall a slow down with Plus is when I had an Icon for my SD card size on one of the tabs. I noticed a big difference when I removed it. Now I only have icons for internal memory and flash rom.

Or try having the icon to launch textmaker or acrobat on there! LOL Or any app installed on a storage card for that mater. Go ahead, reboot. ;)

[BUMP THAT]

Hey has anyone found a way to make the indicators (Like Battery, RAM and others) to un-Highlight after tapping them? Because I tap the Backlight to adjust it, then it does not deselect. It annoys me really bad. I hope Iam not the only one expierencing this. :cry:

yeah, that is the way it works. :( i posted about it in the other thread. the last thing you touch will keep the highlight. even if you tap in another today plugin and move the focus to that the highlight stays. :(
if you want to get rid of it just scroll up or down with the dpad a few times to move the cursor somewhere else. i tap on a tab to move the highlight there then press up on the dpad once and the highlight goes away (well up actually but same result)
hopefully the next version will remove the highlight after 5 seconds or so as it is needed for keyboard navigation in the plugin.


I see. This is a really annoying thing. A 5 second Highlight is a good idea. I will use your trick until then. ;)

[Pixelnose]

No cab file download from their site... I guess for Mac and *nix users, they just can't bothered. Honestly, how hard would it be to have a cab file download? :evil:

[Ed Hansberry]

No cab file download from their site... I guess for Mac and *nix users, they just can't bothered. Honestly, how hard would it be to have a cab file download? :evil:
Last time I visited that site with my Pocket PC, I got pages for over the air installs.

[Pixelnose]

No cab file download from their site... I guess for Mac and *nix users, they just can't bothered. Honestly, how hard would it be to have a cab file download? :evil:
Last time I visited that site with my Pocket PC, I got pages for over the air installs.

Yeah, only that's not spb, that's Handango. I went to spb and got the same page as I do on my Mac. No cab file install. Luckily there was at Handango, but it's sort of the bane of us non-window users that developers can't remember to include a cab in a zip file or something.

[Jason Lee]

that's cool to know. i was in boston for a week when the big diary update came out. was rather ticked that i couldn't download and install it with out my pc. i'll remember to check handango next time. :)

[randyzon]

I finally removed the 2.5 version and did without for a long time so that I could use the 6315 without hangups. The version 3.0 seems to be much cleaner, faster, and no lockups so far.

[ipaq_wannabe]

I finally removed the 2.5 version and did without for a long time so that I could use the 6315 without hangups. The version 3.0 seems to be much cleaner, faster, and no lockups so far.

good for you...

in my x50v - PP seems to have slowed down the system, and have been experiencing some "wierdness" in some functionalities, etc.

i have no doubt that PocketPlus is a good product, we cannot rule out the presence of bugs...

i would move to suggest that a BUG LIST (for those who have) be created, and if Spb is watching - then maybe they could release a patch/fix?

i started one thread over here:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41685

cheers!!!

[BUMP THAT]

Very Good Idea!! 8)

[ipaq_wannabe]

it would be great if the MODs would make this thread (or the other noted thread) temporarily Sticky - so that people could add their issues...