Review: FunContact by Vito Technology

Since the launch of the iPhone a couple of months ago, the handheld community has endeavored itself to emulate Apple's interface and port it to Windows Mobile platform. Vito technology is the latest to come up with an iPhone-like interface application and went even further by developing a website with icons similar to the iPhone. Six applications are listed there, but only two are available for download; FunContact and AstroNavigator II. The first named is the subject of this short review.

All in all, FunContact is an application that replaces the default Contacts interface on your device with some nice features. I've installed it on my Eten M500 Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 5. After a successful install, Vito took over the Contacts soft key. I lost my stylus a long time ago and never felt the need to purchase a replacement. So I'm quite an expert at using my thumb to find my way on the device. I tapped Contacts and FunContact took 9 seconds to load, which is a bit long. Once it's opened, the application is very responsive though.

At the bottom of the screen are four buttons. The first one, with the A, is your contacts list. Not much to say about the button itself except that it's big enough to manipulate with the thumb. The font's size makes it easy to differentiate contacts at a glance. You do not need to pull out your stylus to search your contacts. Use your finger, most likely your thumb, to scroll through the list. It required that I pressed a little bit on the screen to move up or down the list. If you have a lot of Contacts, you might find finger scrolling somehow inefficient, especially if you're in a hurry. There is a better way of doing it.

On the right side of the screen is the alphabet column. Touch it with your finger and a box appears with the selected letter in bold. Drag your finger along the column and it changes to the next alphabet in the list. This is a quick and easy way to flip through your contacts while on the go.

Tap to view a contact details. The way a contact card opens is quite cool. Actually the screen revolves on itself to display the card. The latter shows the contacts photo, the different phone numbers and email addresses of the selected contacts. It displays each number on its own line with a SMS button at the end. Tap the SMS button will open the new SMS screen and of course sending a sms to your Home/Work/Mobile phone number. Obviously, your Home/Work phone device must support SMSs for this to work. Tapping directly on the phone number initiates a call. Another useful feature on the screen is the star next to the contacts name at the top of the screen. Tap on it and its color changes to gold. Go back to the main screen and notice that the second button has a gold
star on it. Each contact that has the star highlighted is added to a favorites list for quick access.

The third button displays most recently dialed numbers and incoming calls. Tap to start a new call. The forth button is a menu list. The first choice lets you create a new contact. The second one lets you sort your contacts by First name, Last Name and Company. FunContact is available in five languages: English, Italian, Spanish, German and French. You can set the language you want using the Language option in the menu list. The other two options are Minimize and Exit.

Conclusion

FunContact does make it easier to navigate through the contacts list and the overall design is cool. I did not find it as flashy as announced by Vito though. The ability to scroll using the fingers is nice but does not necessarily warrant spending $19.95 for it. I hope the good folks
over at Vito Technology will review that. The contact card can be improved to include more details, like IM addresses. It can be re-designed to use the free space between the phone numbers and the SMS buttons. An idea would be to have adjacent squares that are big enough for the finger.