REVIEW: Agile Messenger 3

Agile Messenger 3.0 is an Instant Messenger for your Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 (UIQ and PalmOS versions are unmaintaned right now). It supports ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, GoogleTalk and Jabber.

Installation on our Windows Mobile 5 cellphone was easy, either via the .exe installation file or directly via a .cab file. When the application starts it asks you which one of the protocols you want to login to. We tried all six protocols but Jabber/XMPP simply did not work (GoogleTalk did work though). It wouldn't login, saying that "jabber account does not exist" (while I have successfully used Jabber with Gaim, Adium and Psi). Looking at Agile's forums there are more people with this problem but Agile would not acknowledge the problem.

When logged in you are presented with your currently online and offline friends of all logged in protocols. You can select via the preference panel to not show up the offline contacts and you can disable the different contact groups too. When clicking on the name of a contact you have a number of options: send an image file, move the contact to another group, rename it or get his/her info from the server.

When composing a message you are presented with a traditional layout: the conversation history at the top, the input box below, a smiley pop-up window button, "send" and "send picture" buttons. When receiving a message and you happen to be in the main view or even on another application, Agile Messenger has multiple ways of notifying you of the new message: flashing a text line on its app, open a balloon information, open a notification window, play a sound and even vibrate.

In the preferences panel you will find many options, like assign a button to Push-To-Talk functionality, auto connect on startup, choose a new notification sound and more. Other options include viewing the history, adding/removing a contact and there is even a byte counter -- handy for those who pay big bucks for GPRS.

Overall, I find Agile Messenger the best mobile IM solution there is. There is no other that can come close to it, not even IM+. However, it does have its weak points: its custom multi-platform UI is slow to redraw, while there is no way to enter specific canned messages and use them as shortcuts (e.g. "Hello", "How are you?" etc). Finally, there is no option to not allow the PDA/phone go to sleep while connected on Agile Messenger. Skype has such an option and it's very handy you see. The problem is that when you are connected via WiFi to Agile and then the phone goes to sleep and then you wake it up, Agile tries to automatically reconnect using the default connection method, which for PocketPC phones is GPRS, instead of retrying WiFi again. This means that when your phone wakes up and connects to GPRS without your consent, it will cost you money! This is why an "intelligent" connection dialog should be presented by Agile Messenger to ask you exactly which connection method you want re-activated, in addition to an option to not let the device go to sleep.

Pros:

* Good compatibility

* Nice interface

* Today Plugin

* Picture sending

* PTT

Cons:

* Jabber does not work

* Slow redraws

* No way to prevent the device from going to sleep or enable GPRS

* No canned message option

Overall: 7/10