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Although most smartphones come with a built-in Calendar app, they are usually very basic and limited in features. Before I continue, yes, there is certainly nothing wrong with the Calendar program that comes with the Nokia E71 smartphone. It works very well, but unfortunately, for me, it is very limited in terms of personalization and much needed features. The colors are very bland and the overall look of the program screens are very boring. Thankfully, there are some third party Calendar apps available that offer more features that I am craving for. Today, I’ll be looking at one of them: Handy Calendar for Symbian S60 from Paragon Software group.

Paragon’s Handy Calendar offers much needed features for the Calendar app. First of all, it offers color customization through the color of the skin. Depending on the theme you have on your device, the color or skin of the app could change or be different compared to the skin on the default theme. Second, the screen clearly shows individual dates, using color to separate the weeks, month, and icons to clearly distinguish the all day events in the month’s view. Today’s date will always be indicated with a checkmark and underline to make it easy to locate on the month’s view screen. For those who need to keep track of the week numbers, it can be shown on certain views for easy look up. From most screens in the app, you can quickly and easily create a new appointment, reminder, all day event, reminder, anniversary, or task. You can also zoom in on the screen for easier readability, or zoom out to show more entries on the screen. Editing any entry whether it be an appointment, reminder, etc is very easy. Select the entry to view the entry. Press the center key again to bring up the Edit pop up. Press the center button again to bring up the Edit screen. Use the directional key to go up or down on the various fields. Press the center button to select the field and enter the details. Press again to exit. Press the right button to jump to the next tab (Alarm). Set or disable the alarm in this tab. Pressing the right button again will jump to the next tab (Note) where you can enter notes or personal info on this entry. You can also insert specific information such as Location (current location from GPS), Contact (from your list of contacts), Note (from your saved notes) or Message (from your text messages. One more right button press will bring up the Repeat tab where you can set the frequency of the repeating entry. As you can see, Handy Calendar makes it very easy to navigate simply with the press of a button, making it a very “handy” calendar app.

For those who want to skip over all the detailed review and just want a summary, you can jump to the Observations or jump to the review summary

Details of Handy Calendar (taken from Paragon’s Handy Shell web page):

Handy Calendar for S60 is a powerful timekeeping system to estimate your workload. Organize your business and private life with help of numerous views, reminders, busybars and other opportunities of Handy Calendar application for S60.

Handy Calendar features:

• 5 views
• Month view shows a month workload which is extremely useful for the long-term planning
• Week view shows all events for the upcoming week.
• Day view shows a detailed list of entries for the current day.
• Tasks view shows all your tasks and allows applying sort and filtering options to them.
• Timetable view gives a visible workload of every week hour, and allows quickly manage appointments and reminders.
• 5 types of entries: anniversaries, all day events, tasks, appointments and reminders
• 2 modes to open and preview entries
• Identification and highlighting contact names, phone numbers, e-mails and URLs and possibility to use them directly from Handy Calendar.
• Busy bar shows your busy hours and prevents the overcommitting of schedule.
• Synchronization with Outlook. Handy Calendar uses the same database as built-in Calendar application. This allows synchronizing Handy Calendar entries with Outlook entries and vice versa.
• Hot keys for all important operations
• Cut, copy and paste the existing events
• Zooming text size for better visibility and lager screen capacity

Rather than put up a huge batch of thumbnail screenshots and have it take up the page, I’ve decided to simply show the slideshow instead which I find to be much more entertaining.

Slideshows of Handy Calendar

Video of Handy Calendar

Video at YouTube

Here are my observations:

I Liked:

Handy Shell offers customization and personalization of the program. I can change the color of the skin. I can set the default view (month, day, timetable, week, etc) that gets loaded when I launch the application. I can set the start of the week and work week in the program which may be very useful for those working shifts. Within most screens, I can easily change the different views (month, day, timetable, etc) for personalized viewing.

The program is very nice to look at. The color variation on the screens to distinguish between the months, weeks, etc works very well to make it very pleasant to view as well as making it very functional. I like the icons that are show on the screen, especially on the month screen since I prefer to view my calendar in that view, so I can see everything at a month’s glance.

The program is easy to use and makes inputting data easy. You can easily navigate around the program with the directional keys. Inputting and editing an appointment can be done with the center/selection button. Keep pressing it and you can get right to the entry screen.

Entering a new entry (appointment, reminder, all day event, etc) can be achieved from most screens in the program. Bring up the Options and select New. You can then choose the entry you wish to create. Very simple.

The program is well integrated with Handy Shell via a plugin. You can easily launch Handy Calendar right from the Handy Shell screen simply by selecting the appointment area.

I also like the Zoom feature which can make the font bigger or smaller, depending on your preference. This makes viewing easier and more comfortable.

I Didn’t Like:

My main dislike with the program is the slight lag or a split second or two when launching it or when navigating within the program between various screens. Originally when I was first using it, I caught myself pressing the Back button a few extra times only to exit out of the program since the program takes a slight moment before it registers and performs the Back function. I would like for the program to be a little more robust so that I don’t have to keep reminding myself to wait for the action to perform. However, as I continue to use it, I am more used to this lag and so, don’t make the mistake as often as I used to.

A suggestion for a future release with Handy Calendar is hopefully that it can support individual icons for each appointment or event entry. This allows me to assign a specific icon to an event so that I can easily view appointments, and events easily when viewing the month view. This is one feature I loved being able to enjoy with Palm OS with Datebk5/6 and with Windows Mobile with Pocket Informant. Hopefully, a future release or update of Handy Calendar can also support this. I wouldn’t mind paying for a batch of icons that I can use for the program but right now, it doesn’t look like there is such an option.

Also, I would also like to be able to further customize the screens, especially the month view screen. I would like to be able to adjust and widen the size of the month component and perhaps even removing the day’s listing off on the right. Of course, for those with portrait screens, that would mean being able to lengthen the month so that the day’s entry could be removed from the bottom. By doing so, this could enable more icons to be viewed on the screen. Again, that comes with my suggestion for more individual icon support so that I can view it the way I want. Again, this is my suggestion as I’ve enjoyed this kind of feature in other Calendar apps on the Palm and Windows Mobile platform.

Review Summary

Paragon’s Handy Calendar offers much more personalization and customization of calendar entries on your smartphone. Its good looks with pleasant color coordination and skin choices allow you to customize it the way you want. Entering a new appointment, reminder, etc is as easy as pressing a few buttons. It’s very easy and straightforward to use. My main complaint with the program is the slight lag and its lack of support for individual specific icon for each calendar entry. Hopefully in new and updated releases those issues can be resolved. Regardless, Handy Calendar has become my main Calendar app on my Nokia E71 smartphone because it offers ease of use and enough customization to satify my needs.

How about you? What do you think of Paragon’s Handy Calendar application? Have you tried it? What do you think of this in comparison to other Calendar apps? What do you think can be improved on this program? Please leave your comments below!

Download and try Handy Calendar from these stores:

Handy Calendar (OnlySymbian - MobiHand)

Handy Calendar (Handango)

Handy Calendar(Clickapps)

Handy Calendar (PDATopSoft)

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