Neutrio DeClock v1.25

John Ottini | Handheld PC Reviews
September 25, 2006

If you’ve ever been interested in using your Handheld PC as a fabulous travel clock or timepiece, then you will be very pleased with DeClock by Neutrio (aka Fong Chee Keat). This software packs an extensive list of user controllable features, probably more than you will ever need or use, but I commend the developer for all wonderful options this software offers.

Features Galore!

Quite honestly, I don’t think there is a single feature on the DeClock interface that cannot be changed to suit the user’s personal preference. All of the elements displayed on the Handheld PC screen can be configured in terms of color selection and font type. The hourly format can be set to show 12 or 24 hour increments and the second hand unit can be toggled on or off. The Time information displayed, includes hours and seconds, day of the week, date and monthly calendar, all of which (except hour) can be shown or removed from the screen. If you are dealing with different time zones on your travels or are just curious about what time it is elsewhere on the globe, then you can set and track up to three different time zone locations. For those of you interested in moon phases, that can also be displayed on the face of your clock.

Setting Alarms

What good would a clock be without the ability to set a reminder alarm? Interestingly DeClock only allows you to set one alarm, but the options available for that ‘one alarm’ are pretty amazing.

You can configure the alarm duration and snooze time, and also select the alarm sound and volume settings. You can configure what time and day (or days) the alarm will go off and duration that the alarm will sound. You can set snooze time increments so if the snooze is set to 10 minutes and you hit the snooze alarm twice; it will give you 20 minutes of extra sleep.

If your Handheld PC is running on battery power, DeClock will wake your Handheld PC 15 seconds before the alarm is due to go off, thereby conserving battery power on your unit. Alarm date and time are shown next to a mini alarm clock icon which is displayed in the bottom left-hand corner of your Handheld PC screen. The icon image changes to reflect the state of the alarm setting, thereby notifying the user as to whether it’s off, on, ringing or in snooze mode.

Note: The DeClock program does not have to be running for it to launch the application.

Chime-in anytime!

The Chime Settings can be set to off or configured to ring hourly, half-hourly or quarter-hourly. The chime volume can be controlled by the user to reflect his/her personal comfort level. The software also allows you to add your own sound wav file or just use one of the default sound wav files that come with Windows CE Operating system. In any event, Chime Setting is one of those features you will either love or hate!

Wallpaper your Clock

You can create some interesting backgrounds for your clock by using bitmap images as background wallpaper, but it’s important to keep two things in perspective. First, when using large bitmap images as your background, DeClock program takes noticeably longer to startup and to refresh. Secondly, I found it rather difficult to read the clock information when using busy, colorful bitmap backgrounds, so you will have to experiment with a combination of text styles, colors and bitmap images in order to achieve an acceptable compromise.

In Conclusion

It’s difficult not to recommend this software because it’s very well conceived, easy to operate and provides the user maximum flexibility when it comes to setting options. The footprint for this software is very small, only 45.0 KB and it’s hard to argue with the list price because it’s being offered as freeware!

In the end, I would imagine that it comes down to whether you have a necessity for this type of program? If your answer is yes, then I believe that you will be very pleased with everything this program has to offer.

System Requirements

Handheld PC 2.0 or higher
SH3, MIPS, StrongARM

More information on Neutrio DeClock v1.25 can be found at
http://www.neutrio.com/

Ratings

Cost: Usability: Built-in Help: Customer Service: Overall:	Pros: Easy to use, colorful interface, plenty of user definable options and best of all – it’s free! Cons: Only one alarm can be set at any one time, screen refresh is very slow when using complex background images, no built-in help files

Further Discussion