Highly customisable personal data store

The virtual wallet market is popular with software developers. Nearly all PDA users make use of some sort of virtual wallet program to store their credit card numbers, email passwords or other personal data. eWallet, already regarded by most as the leader in its field has improved on its already excellent reputation with version 4, a feature packed virtual wallet application which is near perfect.

Whatever information you want to keep safe, eWallet is designed to help you entering and retrieving your data with the least hassle possible. Like most virtual wallet programs, it includes a range of categories to choose from as well as a ‘custom’ category option. However, because eWallet’s range of categories is so expansive (check out the ‘internet settings’ option with space for IP addresses, default gateways and more), you may find that you never even need to create a custom category.

When you create a new card (a card can represent an actual credit card or any other record), you’re immediately given a range of customisation options which exceed the offerings of other programs. Change the colour of your card, add a custom .ico icon file, or even a sound effect to make each entry unique and easily recognisable. Cards can be created in the main set of your data store or in unlimited levels of subcategories, offering a level of organisation which is simply unavailable in other applications.

eWallet’s level of security is also impressive. With frequent requests for your passcode, you can be sure that no one can simply pick up your PDA and gain access to your cards. eWallet offers 256-bit encryption where some of its competitors still don’t encrypt your data at all. It also offers you the option to set password hints on individual items, a handy and popular data-protection technique often employed on websites. With top level stability, eWallet can be relied on to stand up to the job, even if you use your virtual wallet application frequently.

As you may be able to tell, we were pretty happy with this version of eWallet! It has so few flaws that the biggest issue we had was with the non-alphabetic listing of icons in the card-editing screen – hardly a critical issue. Synchronisation via SyncPro is actually far better than using ActiveSync, given that it doesn’t need to upload/download the entire database each time it syncs: SyncPro is capable of only updating the latest changes you’ve made, saving you precious time.

eWallet performs its core role with simplicity and ease of use and then offers you a higher level of customisation than any of its competitors. It’s not only the best in its category but one of the few absolute ‘must have’ programs for Palm, Pocket PC and Windows Smartphones. With practically no negative points, it just can’t get a higher recommendation!