REVIEW: Pocket Express hits the right marks

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Yay or Nay. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
Application: Pocket Express by Handmark
Running on: Samsung BlackJack on Sprint Nextel’s EV-DO network
Yay: We love an idle screen that displays more info than just the time and date, and Pocket Express’s user interface was a snap to negotiate. The banner ads that support the app were noticeable and topical without being obtrusive. And using a solid free offering to seamlessly introduce users to premium content is a brilliant stroke – if users can clearly differentiate between the two.
Nay: Unlike some other mobile apps that deliver news feeds, Pocket Express offers no way (that we found) to personalize most of the content feeds (so no automatic updates about the Rockies’ latest loss). And while the search offerings were passable, they paled in comparison to some mobile search apps.
We say: Hardcore mobile users may find Pocket Express too broad to offer deep content in any specific channel, but we found the app a great way to keep up with the news access other info on the go.
Review: We’re big fans of free. From sports scores to news to search services to music (yes, the legal kind), we’ve grown accustomed to getting all sorts of stuff on the Net without paying for it, and tolerating all sorts of silly ads to do it. But we also don’t mind shelling out a few dollars for something we really value. Which is why Pocket Express is so appealing.
Like most fully-baked applications, downloading Pocket Express is a snap. While the offering is available on Spint Nextel’s deck, we opted to go to Handmark’s Web site and enter our phone number to receive a text link. The 1.38 MB file took about 30 seconds to download and another 30 to install, and we were up and running inside two minutes.
Opening Pocket Express for the first time prompts a welcome screen and asks for a ZIP code – a bit of a letdown, considering we were using a GPS-enabled device and the application supports the technology on other handsets. We were then asked if we’d like to add the content to our home screen and whether we wanted it to automatically update every four hours.
Upon launching, the application automatically goes into update mode, taking another 30 seconds to access fresh content, then displays a host of options in a busy but clean layout. The main menu includes mainstay channels such breaking news and photos, sports, weather, stocks, entertainment and search, as well as a few more sophisticated offerings such as travel, maps and “assist,” which access Handmark’s premium (but unfortunately-named) MobileCierge, an on-call personal assistant in the form of a human being at the other end of the line.
Dipping in and out of content from most of the channels is easy. A single click on the news icon gets several categories such as U.S. news, world news and politics, another click accesses headlines for each piece and a third click calls up a couple of paragraphs. Options at the bottom of that page allow a user to click through for the full story – a move that took only a few seconds to complete – or to e-mail the story to a friend. And the banner ads that appeared at the top of most channels were noticeably well-placed: The sports listings fell under a spot for Golden Tee, the finance icon prompted a message from AIG and the search sub-application was sponsored by ServiceMagic. After we exited the application for the first time, we noticed that our idle screen had been filled with running news and finance tickers as well as local weather and calendar information. Cool.
And Pocket Express offered two tabs on the left that separated much of the premium content from the free stuff. PageOne served as the main menu, while Extras called up a host of content offerings including ringtones, games, and horoscope and diet applications. Consumers can stroll the “deck” and purchase downloads if they’d like, or simply stay with the gratis offerings.
But discerning the free content from premium stuff was occasionally difficult with tiered services such as the travel application. A 24-hour-a-day voice service connects users to a live “travel expert,” but it was unclear whether – or how much – we would pay. (We opted not to place the call.) Clicking the MobileCierge offering also initiated a call without information on how much the service would cost.
We don’t think for a minute that Handmark was trying to hide charges for some of the services, but the lack of pricing information was disconcerting. A little digging on the company’s site revealed Pocket Express Executive – which includes MobileCierge – costs $7 a month or $70 a year, and Pocket Express Elite appears to be an all-you-can-use service for $10 a month or $100 a year. It would have been nice to have some more clarity about pricing and features directly on the handset.
Those quibbles are minor, though, in the face of all that Pocket Express offers. Yes, day traders will probably need a more complex mobile application, and road warriors will be far better off with a dedicated navigation service like those offered by Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. For most of us, though, Pocket Express delivers the basics in a package that’s easy to understand and fairly pain-free to navigate. And it does it at the right price.