Nov 8, 2009 Posted by kinnikun in App Store, Featured Articles, Productivity, Time Management | Comments

G-Alarm 2.3 – Easily the best Windows Mobile alarm app to date

G-Alarm is the best alarm application ever created for Windows Mobile. Scratch that, it’s the best alarm ever. No other alarm app has as many features and performs as well as G-Alarm. In fact, we’ll let you know at the beginning of the review that it’s a five star application. Kind of a backwards way of putting together a review, sure, but that just goes to show you G-Alarm’s magnificence. It’s the app that made the Ageye brand famous and with good reason. If this introduction isn’t enough to get you to download the trial version of G-Alarm, feel free to read the rest of the review.

More and more people are starting to use their mobile devices as their regular alarm clock, so naturally there are a ton of alarm apps available to us. The alarm tool that comes with Windows Mobile by default is as basic as it gets and to be honest, I would rather keep it off. The interface is ugly, it doesn’t have advanced features, and it’s limited to only a few alarm profiles. The good news is that there are many third party alarm apps to choose from. The bad news is that most are just as basic or unattractive as the default alarm. Pleasing graphics may not matter to some people, but there are a lot of benefits that come from well thought out designs. G-Alarm puts together advanced features with fantastic graphics to create the best experience for users.

Software from Ageye is always attractive, G-Alarm included. All the menus and buttons are beautifully skinned with a classy and finger friendly design. From the settings screen to the actual alarm that is displayed when you awake, you will not have any problems navigating. If you dislike the look, you can choose from custom skins on Ageye’s website or even try skinning it yourself. G-Alarm lets you easily change wallpaper from within the settings menu, which is a bonus.

There are plenty of features and settings in G-Alarm to accommodate all types of sleepers. The first thing you will want to do when you install the app is look through the general settings. G-Alarm can use your device’s accelerometer to snooze or turn off an alarm. This can be done by either turning the device face down or by shaking it. Similarly, there’s an option you can choose to use the light sensor to do the same actions. So if the alarm goes off and you turn a light on in the bedroom, the alarm will either snooze or shut off (depending on what you select). One of my favorite features is the “Flightmode” setting. If you enable this option, the phone will go into airplane mode while you’re sleeping and will reactivate the phone radio when the alarm goes off. This ensures that you get uninterrupted sleep and excellent battery life during your off peak times without having to remember to turn your phone profile back on. These are general settings that are applied to all alarms. Next, we cover settings that you can apply when setting a new alarm.

Personalizing and setting an alarm is simple. You get the choice of making a quick one time alarm or setting an advanced alarm schedule. If you go with something quick, you set the alarm time (hour and minutes) and you’re done. It will basically use previously selected settings for the quick alarm and will delete itself after it goes off and closes. Going the advanced route, you have a variety of customizations at your disposal. After selecting a time using this method, you’re able to schedule it to go off just once, everyday, every workday, or on weekends only. Weekly patterns can be personalized to any day you wish. I used this scheduling method a lot during college since I had different sets of classes every other day. For example, I set one alarm for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and another alarm for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Weekends were for sleeping in, so I left those days alarm-free. The developers really thought it through and created an easy and automatic way for people to use the alarm all week long without having to set a separate alarm each day.

The alarm sound is important because it’s what you wake up to each day. It has to be perfect for each user, with a goal to wake them up, which is why you’re able to choose your own tone in G-Alarm. Whether you want a traditional alarm sound or music to launch the alarm, it’s up to you. Tired of the same old song every morning? No big deal as G-Alarm allows for creating playlists with an option to play sounds and music randomly. Selecting a sound file is easy thanks to the built-in file explorer.

An alarm wouldn’t be an alarm without snooze. Snooze is a great way to squeeze in a few extra minutes each day while preparing your mind to get going for the day. Ageye thought this out thoroughly, so you have several options here too. You can set a normal snooze, random snooze (with min and max times), or decreasing snooze (decreases interval by percentage with each snooze).

If you’re a heavy sleeper, G-Alarm has you covered with special options. In my opinion, these are the features that set the alarm apart the most from every other similar app in existence and I use them everyday. You’re probably wondering how a phone can help heavy sleepers. It’s possible thanks to the brilliant idea of using quizzes and mazes. For quizzes, you must do a set of math calculations (multiple choice, different difficulty levels) before you’re able to snooze or turn off an alarm, depending on how you set it up. If you pick an incorrect answer, you have to try again. Likewise, you can use accelerometer controlled mazes in the same situation. Mazes can also be completed by guiding the ball with your finger to the finish line. The amount of quizzes or mazes can be customized, so it really appeals to a wide range of heavy sleepers. These innovative methods of stopping an alarm can be used for light or heavy sleepers alike to get off on the right side of the bed.

Screenshots

The features just keep rolling as you can also enable a talking alarm, vibration, and fade-ins. For people who like automatic settings, you can set auto-snooze and repeat alarm times, as well as auto-close after a specific interval. If you have G-Weather, another great Ageye product, you can be greeted with weather conditions.

Ever since I started using G-Alarm, the alarm switch on the clock on my nightstand hasn’t moved at all. I’m a notorious heavy sleeper and with the help of G-Alarm, I haven’t had any trouble waking up in the morning thanks to the quizzes and mazes. With other alarms I often slept through them or angrily turned them off. G-Alarm has ways of gently waking and keeping me up, which is exactly what I want out of an alarm. It helps that I can see my weather, a customized background and navigate a beautiful interface in the morning. The customization capabilities of the app make it perfect for any type of sleeper. I’ve been using G-Alarm for over a year, since its inception, and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. Bottom line, this is the alarm that should be bundled with Windows Mobile out of the box. It’s highly recommended and is the recipient of our first perfectly rated app with five stars. If you’re skeptical, try the fully featured 10-day trial! The only limitation is you can’t export and import your settings in the Demo.

Supports: Every touchscreen device with Windows Mobile 5 or 6.x

Tested on: Touch Pro2

Pros:

• Fully featured 10 day trial available
• Great value for 4.99 €
• Stunning graphics
• Mazes and quizzes are great for heavy sleepers
• Works with G-Weather
• Has today plug-in
• Multiple languages supported
• Advanced and quick alarms
• Replaces system alarm, so displays on home screen, TouchFLO3D, S2U2
• Use custom alarm sounds
• Talking clock
• Accelerometer features
• Can launch programs by schedule
• Customizable and custom skins available
• Export & import your alarm settings

Cons:

• Maybe that it wasn’t created earlier?

Possible Improvements:

• We couldn’t think of any.. Maybe our readers can help

We have 3 Giveaway copies, Check 1800PocketPC for details on how to enter. Will Close on 15th Nov

Tags: Ageye, alarm for windows mobile, G-Alarm

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