Microsoft Smartphone Tips and Tricks
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System Utilities

If you constantly install applications and move files into and out of your smartphone, then you need an effective way to view the various resources on your smartphone. I've found Resco SystemToys for Smartphone to be a good choice.

Resco SystemToys allows you to check on your battery status, as well as the amount of memory remaining (see Figure 6). So the next time you want to install that favorite MP3 on your smartphone, check out the amount of available memory first.

Figure 6. Use Resco SystemToys to check the battery and memory status

Pocket TV

If you spend a significant amount of time on the road, then you will be glad that PocketTV allows you to play MPEG movies on your smartphone (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. Watching movies using PocketTV

You can download some free video clips from pocketmovies.net. I downloaded snippets of The Return of the King and played them on the MPx200. The playback was smooth and the sound of acceptable quality. So the next time you hit the road, be sure that you load your smartphone with the latest movie hits.

Media Player on Your Smartphone

Envy those people who have an iPod or a digital video player? Fret not; with a little investment, you can turn your smartphone into a music player. In fact, your smartphone already comes with the required software to play your music and video files (MP3s and WMA are supported). The only constraint that you probably face is storage. While the iPod supports storage of 4GB and above, your smartphone comes with a paltry storage space of about 10MB (this depends on your phone model). So you can literally forget about storing your music files on your smartphone.

Fortunately, this problem can be solved by buying an external storage card. For music- and video-playing purposes, I suggest you invest in at least a 128MB SD card. If budget allows, go for the largest in capacity -- 1GB (see Figure 8).

Figure 8. Invest in a large-capacity SD memory card

To copy CD music or videos onto your smartphone, you can use Media Player 9 (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. Using Windows Media Player 9 to copy your music or video onto your smartphone

Playing music on the smartphone is cool -- the sound quality is good and crisp. However, video playback using the smartphone Windows Media player is not fantastic -- screens tend to be jerky. The sound track of the video is good, but the video does not synchronize well with the sound. Even so, watching videos while you are on the train is still a good way to spend your time (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. Watching a video on my smartphone

Final Thoughts

One of the success factors for a platform is the amount of applications available for it. In my upcoming articles, I am going to dive more deeply into how to get more out of your smartphone. In the meantime, do share with us on your favorite applications on the smartphone.

Wei-Meng Lee (Microsoft MVP) http://weimenglee.blogspot.com is a technologist and founder of Developer Learning Solutions http://www.developerlearningsolutions.com, a technology company specializing in hands-on training on the latest Microsoft technologies.

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