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Phonedeck an app to Send/Receive text messages & Manage Contacts Online

Posted Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 at 8:27 am by Paul Wilks 0 Comments

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Phonedeck is a slick and functional device management app for Android. Not completely unlike AirDroid, Phonedeck lets you perform a variety of functions on your phone via your computer, all you need is Internet access. Offering both features and information about your usage habits, Phonedeck is a neat way to interact with your device.

Price: Free

Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Low Maturity

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Read/write/send text messages through your computer!
• Make calls!
• Edit your contacts!
• Locate device!
• Cool UI!
• Easy to use!

Cons

• Seems to get some contact names drastically wrong.

Features:

Phonedeck is a great way to use your computer to interact with your phone. First you need to create an account; username, password, email, etc. Then log into the Phonedeck website once verified. Logging in gives you a virtual menu of options; Activities, Contacts and Insights.

Activities will list all your calls and text messages. From here you can analyse individual records; duration of call, how many times you call that contact, etc. Contacts will open your contacts list and allow you to edit. Insights will provide you with various data relating to your device usage, such as the number of times you’ve charged your device, number of calls and SMS messages sent and so on.

Further functionality includes being able to send text messages through your computer. You can also make calls with just a couple of clicks, without having to pick up your device. If you have that issue where you can’t remember where you put your phone, there is a useful locator function too that makes your phone ring.

I did find one significant issue with the service however. The contact names seem to be well and truly messed up. Some calls and texts I exchanged with my fiancee seem to come up as various other people. Jokes I received from a buddy gave his name as simply “Mister” and some I received from a family member actually came up as a different friend entirely. While the app/service is great, it might not be completely usable until these kind of issues are resolved.

Hopefully we’ll be able to report back and update this review in the near future; both to say this issue has been resolved and talk about coming functionality to the Android app interface.

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Usefulness:

Great for analysing your stats, or sending text messages via your computer (ideal if you send a lot and you find it easier to type on a full size keyboard). The Phonedeck service is let down by contact names being wrong, however, so data might be misleading. A similar app- ‘AirDroid’ provides similar features plus much more: such as accessing and playing music tracks, etc.

Ease of Use:

Because you just have to log into a website, Phonedeck is arguably easier to get on with than AirDroid- which requires you to enter a unique IP. However, AirDroid does have far more features and doesn’t suffer from the same problems as Phonedeck.

Frequently Used:

I guess if you spend a lot of time at your computer, being able send text messages must be useful enough to use on a regular basis. I think it comes down to the individual user and how they personally use the service.

Interface:

The interface is highly polished and well developed. There’s more to come from the Android UI too, so it will only improve. The web UI looks good- whereas it doesn’t attempt to replicate the computer desktop design of AirDroid, it’s very intuitive and responsive.

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