Office Mobile for a Smartphone?

Reader Meg asks: I am thinking of buying a HTC Dash but would like to be able to edit word & excel docs on the road. Is there a free software you would recommend? Even one I have to pay for?

Although there are Word and Excel viewers for Windows Mobile Smartphones and one third party spreadsheet for Smartphones…
Westtek ClearVue Office

Repligo for Microsoft Smartphone

Z4Soft PTab

…I don’t know of any actual Office Mobile alternative for the Smartphone that provides editing features. The real question here is whether or not a Smartphone is the appropriate tool for your requirements.

If editing Word and Excel documents on the road is a key requirement, you should really looking at a Pocket PC Phone Edition instead of a Smartphone. T-Mobile has a single PPCPE available: The T-Mobile MDA.

There is one other alternative. However, it requires buying two or three separate devices. You could purchase a T-Mobile Dash Smartphone and a Pocket PC with integrated thumb keyboard or a Pocket PC and a Bluetooth keyboard. This combination would allow you the convenience of a Smartphone with the application richness of a Pocket PC.

Finally, be aware that Office Mobile components are subsets of the full Microsoft Office components. You will not be able to do everything you can do on the desktop. And, formatting can be lost in a roundtrip from your desktop to the Windows Mobile device and then back to the desktop.

Comments

3 responses to “Office Mobile for a Smartphone?”

  1. CreditSwam Avatar
    CreditSwam

    Pocket PC Phonse are so convenient and are a great help for your business. But they would be just priceless if they could be used as credit cards (I mean contactless credit transactions). Does any of them offer suchlike option or is it going to be introduced in the future?

  2. Jason Avatar

    In regards to the question about editing on smartphones, DataViz recently released a preview of Documents To Go for WM5 Smartphones. This adds the ability to edit your Office documents. It also includes a PDF viewer and decompression utility. The official release is scheduled for Q1 of this year. You can download the preview for free and try it out here: http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/winmobile/index.html

  3. […] The Pocket PC/Phone Edition and Smartphone should be clearly differentiated so that people like Marcos and the vast majority of customers don’t need to become Windows Mobile experts to figure out which device they should buy and use. This lack of product differentiation is biting a lot of disappointed consumers. Look at my response to Meg’s question just a few blog items ago: Office Mobile for a Smartphone? […]