Original review published on Steve Litchfield's 3-Lib.

Mark Avey's telephone call logging software has been around for a couple of years now without attracting a review from me, and with the launch of the Series 5 version I thought it time to put the record straight. It's downloadable from Mark's web site, along with the 3a/3c version.

The utility's main purpose is to time telephone calls and, knowing the rate charged, give you a readout in real time of the cost of the call. The first obstacle to overcome is that Mark doesn't supply any default rates so you have to enter some of your own. In fact, the entry of your most frequently used numbers, current call rates and discounts may be quite a task and could involve some ferreting around in discarded phone company junk mail to ascertain all the finer details. In fairness to the author, this program could be used in any country in the world and also phone companies tend to change their rates frequently so supplying any country and date-specific databases would be a bit limiting.

Once set up properly, calls can be timed and costed to your heart's content. The pen interface works well, though there's not much to do in practice. Most of the time spent using this program will see you occupied chin-wagging on the phone! A nice touch is that on long calls you can leave the Psion turned off to save your batteries, just switching on at the end of the call to register the fact. CallCalc handles the interruption well and doesn't get confused.

There's a detailed logging facility, where calls and groups of calls can be totalled in time and expense, though most people will probably not ever need to start categorising phone calls to this level of detail. CallCalc is fully-working when unregistered, apart from limits on the number of log entries, discounts and so on, which is fair enough.

A well-constructed Series 5 program, with good help screens and preferences. If I had the discipline to use it and watch the rising cost every time I made a phone call, I think I'd save about ten pounds a quarter. Which just about pays for the registration fee in one go!

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