Reviews

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a Cool Hand Luke kind of character when it comes to gambling, then Texas Hold’Em No Limit poker is a great way to practice your skills when you’re on the move.

Available for the Palm OS, Blackberry, Pocket PC, Microsoft Smartphones and Java enabled mobiles, the game lets you take on up to 22 computerised opponents.

It’s played to the same rules as poker, except each player only gets two cards each, with five cards shared between all the players.

The artificial intelligence of the computer players is said to one of the best available on mobile gaming platforms, and we certainly came across some tough opponents (although we expect that our miserable poker skills wouldn’t challenge a BBC Micro version of the game, if such a thing existed).

Interface
We tested the game on a Palm Treo 650, and it was easy to play the game one-handed, with all options available via the 5-way controller.

The animated, well polished interface showed three opponents at a time, scrolling left to right to show other players (there’s full support for all Palm screen sizes, from 160×160 up to 480×320 with horizontal display options).

Other players are represented by faces and names, and it’s simple to get stuck in with the betting action, with the interface making it easy to call, raise, fold or go ‘all in.’

Customising options
There’s plenty of customisation options on offer too, letting you set your cash levels and fine-tune your opponents’ names, faces, and skill levels, from ‘Dead Money’ through to ‘Hold ‘Em Pro.’

Fact fans will enjoy the Statistics screen showing details of hands played, hands won, folds, raises, tournament wins or, in our case, how many times we’d left the table without the shirt on our back.

For the asking price of $20, this a great little game for passing away spare hours on the train (or perhaps wasting time at the office) and for poker fans it could prove a nifty way to hone your bluffing skills.

Despite our lamentable skills, we found it to be an entertaining, addictive and fun game and – dare we say it – we actually seemed to be getting better after a few hours play.

But perhaps we won’t be booking that plane to Las Vegas quite yet.

Features: 85%
Interface: 80%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 80%
Overall: 85%

Concrete Software

Handmark have released the latest version of their consumer survey-based dining, travel and leisure information program, Zagat To Go v5.0.

Included in the new version are hotel, resort and spa guide listings as well as a guide to America’s top golf courses, along with updated restaurant listings for smartphones.

Offering automated wireless content and rating updates, Zagat comes with detailed street-level maps, and can provide turn-by-turn driving directions on the user’s handheld.

Clearly going for the caddy-dragging, business travelling set, Zagat are making a big ho-hah about their Top Golf Course guide, which is based on the opinions of nearly 6,000 ditchwater-dull golf bores keen sportsmen..

The program now carries survey rankings for over 25,000 restaurants and nightspots in 70+ cities, with automatic free content updates.

“Zagat To Go v5.0 will help travellers find hotels, restaurants, golf courses and other entertainment destinations – along with qualified recommendations – while on the move,” enthused Tim Zagat, co-founder of Zagat Survey.

“Today’s consumers rely more than ever on their mobile phones for restaurant and hotel information. Handmark is proud to continue our long-standing relationship with Zagat to provide the latest survey findings on the Treo, BlackBerry, motorola Q and other Windows Mobile handhelds,” bubbled Douglas Edwards, Handmark co-founder and executive vice president.

Zagat To Go v5.0 is available for the Palm OS, BlackBerry, motorola Q and other Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphone platforms and comes as free upgrade for existing customers forking out the $29.95 yearly subscription fee.

mobile.zagat.com.

Users of Palm Treo smartphones will already appreciate the pop up that appears onscreen after a call from a new caller, making it easy to add fresh contacts to the address book.

Iambic’s new YourCall application turbo-charges this functionality, adding a handy post-call dialogue offering a variety of useful follow-up actions after taking a call.

The program (which must be installed into the Treo’s built in memory) pops up after every call, with a simplified interface offering four chunky buttons for the most popular actions.

Depending on whether the contact is a new one or not, these buttons let you view the contact’s full profile, create a new contact from the received phone number, add the number to a current contact or add the contact/phone number to the Palm’s daily journal application.

There’s also the option to call the number back straight back or fire off a SMS, with a drop down menu providing the ability to create a memo, task or meeting and send an email to the contact.

Whatever action is selected, YourCall automatically adds relevant info to the entry, including telephone number, contact, length of the conversation and the time/date of the call.

Conveniently, you can also set up specified numbers to bypass the dialog, or disable the entire application during specific hours of the day.

Using YourCall
With its bright and breezy interface, YourCall is a pleasure to use, although to gain the full functionality of the application you’ll need Iambic’s excellent Agendus PIM software installed.

If you haven’t got Agendus on your Palm, actions will be limited to the default Palm OS applications, with no means to specify any third party applications, which is a tad frustrating.

During our test, we found the program worked as advertised, although it could seem tad sluggish at times when we asked to add meetings into Agendus.

The program was easy to set up and use, we liked the friendly interface and integration with other Palm apps, and for power users who rely on their phone for their working life, we could see that YourCall could prove an invalble addition.

YourCall retails for $9.95 and a free trial download of the software is available

Features: 80%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 85%
Overall: 80%

Memory requirements: 130 KB of free space.
Operating System: Palm OS 5.2 or higher.
Models Supported: Palm Treo 650, Palm Treo 700p.

Although it was announced as part of the forthcoming Palm Treo 680 smartphone package, Google has already made its Google Maps application available for free download.

Described by Google as being, “months in the making,” the company describes the 425k download as “the fastest, slickest version yet” of their mobile-optimised Google Maps application, offering real-time traffic reports, detailed directions, integrated search results (search for cafes/bars etc and get addresses and the option to call them with one click), fast downloading detailed, draggable maps and even satellite imagery.

Installation
Installing the Google Maps was easy enough, we just pointed our Treo browser to google.com/gmm and downloaded the program over the air. Users can also download the program from to their PC from http://www.google.com/gmm/treo and then hotsync the file over to their handheld in the usual way.

We ran Google Maps from our SD card with no problems.

Looking up locations
Loading up the program, we were prompted to type in an address (or ZIP code, postal address, latitude and longitude, intersection etc) and we were astonished by the speed that the map appeared on screen – even though we were connecting via GPRS. This baby is fast!

The maps download as small, separate tiles, so only new segments need to be downloaded as you were scroll across pages using the Treo’s five-way controller, or by dragging the map across the screen.

Overlaid, opaque zoom in/out buttons let you decide the level of detail, and a ‘find nearby business’ menu gives you the option to search for local hotels, cafes, bars etc with the results appearing onscreen as numbered markers.

Clicking on an icon provides more address information and a button to phone them up, as well the ability to get turn by turn driving directions to and from any given point.

Best of all, downloaded maps are stored locally, so you can look up the area you’re visiting and have the map ready for viewing – even if you can’t connect to the web.

A minor niggle is that there’s no option to store downloaded data on to the Treo’s memory card, so stored maps burn up precious internal memory, but you can at least chose to delete all data on program exit.

Traffic updates
With Google Maps you can call up comprehensive information on traffic conditions in more than 30 U.S. major metropolitan areas (with partial information available for other states) with the driving directions offering traffic estimates to avoid congestion.

Highway traffic speeds are represented by different colour overlays (green for traffic flowing at over 50mph, Yellow for 26-50mph etc), and you can download satellite maps for onscreen maps.

You can search and view UK locations, but there’s currently no local business or traffic information available, although Google says it’s working to increase availability.

Conclusion
Google Maps is a truly remarkable product that adds near GPS-like functionality to the entire range of modern Palm OS Treos (700p, 680, 650 and even the venerable Treo 600 smartphone) – and all for nothing!

Of course, it won’t be able to tell you where you are, but so long as you can find a street sign, you’ll be able to nail your location, download local maps, locate and call up nearby shops, businesses and bars and even get traffic updates and satellite images.

It’s easily one of the best products we’ve ever reviewed for a Palm phone – any smartphone, in fact – and it’s a ‘must have’ application for map fans, travellers, amblers and business users alike. And it’s free, Goddammit!

Features: 90%
Ease of use: 90%
Value For Money: 95%
Overall: 95%

Currently sending our productivity levels downwards at a worrying rate is the hideously addictive Scrabble for the Palm OS by Handmark.

Looking – and playing – just like the classic board game, the program offers the familiar Scrabble board layout, with drag and drop tiles which are stored at the bottom of the screen.

Just like in the real world, you can shuffle the order of these around so you can plan and prepare killer words, but -sadly – you won’t be able to ‘find’ blank squares under your foot.

The game offers two player modes: Friendly or Tournament.

Friendly mode is like playing against drunken mates where you can try and insist that ‘Zyptq’ is actually a real world, and force the program to accept words that aren’t in the included Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary.

There’s also a “Suggest Move” option for those times when you can’t think of any words bigger than, err…um….”to.”

In the Tournament mode you play by the standard Scrabble rules, with challenges being automatically checked by the built-in Dictionary.

The game offers four levels of automated computer opponent: Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, or Expert.

We arrogantly waded in at Expert level, and after being totally humbled repeatedly by an onslaught of obscure words we still don’t believe exist, we slunk down to Novice level where we still only managed to win about half of the games at first.

If you get bored having your sorry ass whipped by the computer, you can also take on real life chums, either by passing the Palm PDA around (the game will hide your tile rack from opponents) or via IR beaming and Bluetooth.

Conclusion
Although this game has been around for a very long time on the Palm OS, it’s still a hugely playable classic and easily holds its own against modern games.

The interface is attractive, simple and easy to use, with the computer opponent tough enough to keep you coming back for endless humiliations.

Even in expert mode, the computer was able to come up with challenge-destroying words almost instantaneously, so the only thing slowing the game down was our own ineptitude.

Since we installed the game on our Palm Treo 650 (it works fine straight off the card, by the way), we’ve been more or less addicted to Scrabble, having quick games whenever we find ourselves in a Post Office queue, waiting for friends or, err, going to the smallest room.

The game is also available on the Pocket PC and although both versions are a tad pricey at $19.95, we reckon they’re worth every penny.

Features: 85%
Gameplay: 90%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 80%
Overall: 90%
Handmark Scrabble for Palm OS
Handmark Scrabble for PocketPC