Handmark Scrabble

I dearly love my Treo 650 --- I had a 600 before and drove it into the ground. Windows CE is fine, but my trusty old Palm OS still has the best usability and application support out there. Don't get me mooning over MobiTV, which is truly fantastic --- I'll write about that another time.

In any case, the one app I come back to again and again is Handmark Scrabble. It's the perfect phone game; easy to pick up and play for a few minutes, but engaging enough to last through a two-hour Seattle-to-Oakland flight as well. The computer opponent is okay in expert mode and still wins once in awhile. They've also done a good job with the interface when playing between two real people --- sometimes my wife and I will play on the Treo rather than bothering to set up the whole board.

The download and install process is completely painless, and Handmark is really good about keeping your purchase records around --- I've been able to install a new copy with no problem each time I've gotten a new device.

I did have some very small display problems on my 600 --- for example, a "Q" on the board looks more like an "O" and can be confusing. But these nits cleared up on my 650 and I really can't come up with much of anything to complain about. SO SO SO much better than those lame game downloads provided by Sprint.

By the way, if you're a Scrabble obsessive like me, you should also try the online version over at the Internet Scrabble Club. It's a lot of fun and you can play with folks at many different levels.