OfficeSuite 5 – Symbian Mobile Office With Microsoft Office 2007 Support

Review of OfficeSuite 5 For Symbian Smartphones
by sategroup (10,321 pts ) , published Nov 2, 2009
4

OfficeSuite 5 is the newest version of the Office software from MobiSystems and it supports Microsoft Office 2007 formats. You run this application and begin working on whatever task you are required to do by simply navigating throughout the application or using shortcut keys. Read more...

I installed OfficeSuite 5 on my Nokia E71, S30 3rd generation device.

Installation
Rating Excellent

To install OfficeSuite all you need to do is use PC Suite installer; this will streamline the installation for you.

Review
Rating Excellent

For the focus of getting to know the application, we will use the Word Editor for our example.

OfficeSuite’s word editor is quite rich in features and has much of the same functionally as a PC word processor.

To make using this application tolerable you should likely have some features like word completion and spell check on. This will make it a lot easier to use when typing up documents.

The word complete feature is quite polished and selects the correct words more often than from the dictionary. The dictionary used is very large and contains pretty much all commonly used words. An interesting note is that it learns words outside the OfficeSuite application and then suggests using them at the appropriate time. However, sometimes it does suggest a word too soon which can be a nuisance. To get around this, use the spell check options to set when auto complete should begin kicking in.

By pressing the up arrow on the D-pad you will be able to select from some suggested words for the string of characters you have begun typing.

Unfortunately I was only able to move up and down one line at a time, which is absolutely counterproductive when you are dealing with large files, but you can go from the top of one page to the bottom of the same page or create bookmarks to try and make up for the lack of scrolling.

There are also many keyboard shortcuts supported by OfficeSuite which helps you save time and perform specific tasks quicker. For example, you can find text that you are looking for within the document and also search and replace by using Ctrl-F. These options are very easy to use.

Minimal formatting is required when you send it to your desktop; this is a bonus as you then will have little or no extra formatting to perform.

Handling
Rating Excellent

Using OfficeSuite is quite easy, and it’s easy to select various options and tabs within.

Weaknesses
Rating Average

Some shortcut keys should be added to allow you to perform common tasks such as a word count. Furthermore, being able to jump a word in either direction is missed quite a bit sometimes, as moving one character at a time can be time consuming.

Scrolling is the biggest weakness of this application and is something they absolutely must include for this to be an easy to use and effective application.Also, you are neither able to create nor view PowerPoint slides.

Conclusion
Rating Good

This application has more to it than just a Word Processor, but in reality, that’s the only one that could be useful on a mobile device now. In order to use OfficeSuite’s word editor effectively you will need to become quite accustomed to the shortcuts that are available for you to use. Mobile word editors are not going to replace PC word editors anytime soon. However, this is a useful piece of software that allows you to have an option like this if it’s necessary. And if you have a QWERTY mobile device you should give it a try. I rate it 4 out of 5.

Images

Images Credit

OfficeSuite 5 screenshots by MobiSystems