Review: Pocket Express

June 18th, 2008 | by BlackBerry News |

Pocket Express is a free program offered by Handmark which gives you access to news, sports, weather, and travel information. But to really make Pocket Express stand out, Handmark has an Executive upgrade package for $6.99 a month ($69.90 per year) that is geared towards people who are constantly on the go by offering stock tickers and market news, maps and directions, white and yellow pages, a dictionary and thesaurus, movie and entertainment search. For $3.00 more a month (or $99.99 per year) you can have 24/7 access to a personal assistant through the Elite package.

Is Pocket Express a good program? Is it worth the extra money to upgrade? This review intends to find out.

News

 

One of the free features of Pocket Express is news. Featuring top, US, and world news, you also have access to other things such as political, technological, and health news.

After you click on an interesting headline, you are given the first two paragraphs to decide whether or not you want to pursue the story further, as well as an option to view an image posted with the story if available. You are also given the option to e-mail the story.

 

I should note that all stories are from the Associated Press and are catered to the casual news reader; you won’t find anything that goes into much depth. I also feel that it is important to note that you are not able to add your favourite RSS or XML news feeds as you would be able to do with other programs such as Viigo. I found this to be quite a major drawback.

 

Sports

 

A free feature, sports gives you the ability to view MLB, NBA, NCAA basketball and football, NFL, NHL, F1, and NASCAR scores which should be enough to cater to the tastes of the most American sports fans.

One of the great features of the sports scoreboard is the fact that you are able to see player and team stats for each game. This means that hardcore baseball fans will be able to get their stats fix on a daily basis.

 

For each game or event, you also have the ability to read a recap which I found rather nice.

As with the news, you are unable to customise your feed by adding different sports (such as the English Premiership or Serie A) than what are currently being offered.

 

Weather

 

A free feature of Pocket Express, I was impressed with the level of though that went into this part of the program. Not only can you can enter add as many locations to your weather feed as you see fit, but for each location you are given weather information from every weather station in the area. This is a very nice touch, especially if you live in a suburb of a major city in which the weather is often different from that of the metropolitan center.

 

 

 

 

Stocks

 

Part of the Elite and Executive package, the first thing I noticed with the stock feed was that the latest information on Dow Jones and NASDAQ were scrolling across the top of the screen.

Pocket Express also has the ability to keep track of any stocks of your choosing. By clicking on any given stock, you are given all of the information that you would normally see in a financial newspaper.

A major drawback of the stocks feature as I saw it was that I was only able to track stocks listed on NASDAQ.

Entertainment

 

Pocket Express’ entertainment feature allows you to not only read TV, music, and film news, but it also allows you to do a lot of things when it comes to movies.

Some of the things that you can do to help find a movie to watch are: read reviews and summaries, search show times by city or theatre, and search by movie name. You can tell the program what you favourite movie theatres are which is very handy in helping narrow down all of the available screenings.

 

All of the above features are neat, but Pocket Express goes one step further by allowing you to buy tickets through their website in order to beat the long queue.

Search

 

Since Pocket Express is geared towards people on the go, it seems only logical that yellow and white pages support would be included in Pocket Express.

You can do everything that you have come to expect from search directories such as business search, people finder, reverse address, and reverse look-up. What I found very troubling with this feature was the lack of Yellow Pages support for Canada. Canadian provinces and territories are right there in the State/Province tab yet you cannot actually search them.

Anyway, once you search for a store or person, if there is an address provided you can open it up on the map and then get directions to and from that location.

 

Also of note is the inclusion of The New Oxford American Dictionary, which includes not only a dictionary but a thesaurus.

 

 

 

Travel

 

The travel feature is where Pocket Express is really in a league of its own.

You can search for flights from any major airport in the world as well as track the status of your flight to time your call for a taxi. You are also provided with a list of phone numbers for all of the major airlines, cruise lines, hotels, car rental companies, and travel agencies.

 

Travelling in a foreign country? You can check out how much that watch costs in your home currency with a currency calculator. Going to be in London for a long conference and want to duck away to Paris for a few nights? You can connect a travel specialist who will help you book tickets and make hotel reservations for you. Excellent!

There is also a really great way to search for hotels. You can narrow your results by setting up filters by price point, star level, or hotel amenities. After you enter your search, you are given a list of hotels that meet your criteria along with a write-up, several photographs, and the necessary contact information.

 

 

 

Maps

 

The maps feature of Pocket Express isn’t much to get excited about. It’s a very basic map application which marks your desired location with a red dot. You can get directions to and from the place that you have searched for.

Scrolling and zooming in the map is very frustrating as you have to reload the entire map to do so.

 

 

Assist

By subscribing to Pocket Express Elite, you have unlimited access to MobileCierge, a 24/7 personal assistance program. It provides you with access your own personal assistant who will, among other things, make airline bookings, restaurant reservations, get you concert tickets, transportation, travel assistance, and help get you emergency assistance via roadside assistance and medical help.

 

Now that I’ve covered all of the features, it’s time to start summing up my thoughts on this program.

The positive

There are a lot of good things about Pocket Express, namely it’s free travel information, weather, and sports. The programs interface is clean and easy to read, and it downloads information very quickly.

The upgrade to the Executive Package allows for stock, entertainment, and enhanced travel services which are are very good. The Elite’s MobileCierge is an absolute gem.

The negative

Pocket Express is billed as indispensable for travellers, yet a lot of features like yellow pages do not work in Canada or other foreign countries. There is also a lack of customised feeds for the news feature. Server issues appeared once in a while that lead to a minute of downtime here or there, but stopped after the first day. The maps feature could easily be improved, and I certainly hope that it is.

Conclusion

While there are some things about this program that I did not like, there are many things about it that I did like. And I cannot help but keep in mind the fact that there are not that many good stock applications for the BlackBerry, nor are there many websites that allow someone on a BlackBerry to buy a movie ticket or get flight information. And if you take into consideration the advantages of having a 24/7 assistant a phone call a way, I cannot help buy recommend the Elite package of Pocket Express. If you want maps and news, get Google Maps and Viigo. But for everything else, stick with Pocket Express.

 

Special offer for BlackBerryNews.com and BlackBerryForums.com readers!

Erica at Pocket Express has set up a promotional code that will enable you to receive 20% off of anything in the Handmark Store until September 30th, 2008. (Products by NAMCO, EA, and Pepid are exempt.)

To take advantage of this offer, enter the promotional code BBForum when you are checking out.

 

 

Special thanks to Erica at Handmark for the trial account of Pocket Express Elite.

Written by BlackBerryForums.com user MikeyPants (Previous BlackBerryNews Writer)