REVIEW: a brand new call recorder application, FoneWatch

[Guest Menneisyys]

I’ve reviewed several phone recorder applications (please see the links in the last LivePVR article for more information).

A company pretty new to Windows Mobile development, MobileTimes, has just released a new call recorder application, “FoneWatch”. It’s available HERE for $10. (There’s a demo with restricted playback capabilities.)

I’ve pretty thoroughly tested it and found it to be seriously lacking. For example, it seems to use WinCE databases, instead of file system files, to store its call recordings. This means it’s impossible to play them back with another application or media player – you can only play your stuff back with FoneWatch. If you don’t want to archive (for for example [tens of] years) your phone calls or don’t want to listen to them on your, say, desktop, this won’t really be an issue; if you do, however, you won’t even want to bother installing this app – the alternatives are just far better in this respect (too).

Compatibility-wise, I’ve tested it on my HTC Wizard, Universal (two Pocket PC Phone Editions [a.k.a. Windows Mobile 6 Professional]) and a touchscreen-less HTC Vox / s710 (a MS Smartphone [a.k.a. Windows Mobile 6 Standard]). It worked on the former two but didn’t notice calls taking place on the third, the MS Smartphone. It might mean it’s incompatible with not only the HTC Vox, but also ALL the other MS Smartphones – I don’t know. (Not that it’d interested me much – this app is just not worth bothering about. There are much better and considerably superior alternatives out there.)

I could continue explaining the cons I’ve found; however, if you do read my past, audio/call recording-related articles, you’ll understand them all.

Two screenshots follow. The first shows the main dialog of the app with three recorded calls (for a given day). As can be seen, FoneWatch doesn’t have access to the Contacts database; this is why it only displays the caller’s / callee’s numbers (instead of their Contacts data):

The second screenshot shows the decompression when you initiate playing back a clip:

Compared to Resco Audio Recorder, VITO AudioNotes and PMRecorder:

Pros:

Hmmm… can’t really think of any.

Cons:

- Not possible to directly convert / save recordings – they’re not even visible, let alone being in a standard format

- Low audio quality; can’t switch to a better recording format

- No goodies like auto-speakerphone to ease recording the other party on some phones

- No autostart at system bootup

- No access to names in Contacts

- Doesn’t seem to work on some? all? MS Smartphones

- It uses the built-in storage and can’t take advantage of the external one

- While it’s really simple and pretty much incapable, it costs money ($10) (unlike the free PMRecorder and the somewhat cheaper VITO AudioNotes)

Verdict

For the time being, I just don’t see any point in preferring this application to Resco Audio Recorder, VITO AudioNotes and PMRecorder, the, currently, most recommended call recorder applications for Windows Mobile.