Agendus Mail is generally very configurable. You can easily do such things as seeing your emails in an expanded or compact list, changing the sort order of emails or changing the font they're displayed in. See Figure D below for the compact view.

FIGURE D

The compact list of emails also shows some of the available options. Click picture for a larger image.

You can also get a glimpse of the expanded view by scrolling back and looking at Figure A.

Unfortunately, there are a few things that would be very nice to be able to configure which aren't options. Agendus Mail can handle having a signature file added to your email, but cannot do this automatically. When you create a new email that needs to have your signature attached, you have to go into the email's properties to select the signature. Since you can only have one signature file stored in the program at a time, it seems logical to be able to choose a setting to make that signature always appear at the end of the mail.

More aggravating is how Agendus Mail deals with deleted email. As you are reading through your emails, there are arrows at the bottom to allow you to go forwards and backwards through the emails. If you delete an email, you are returned to the list of emails. If this list is very long, you often end up having to scroll to where you were. If you then delete that email, you have to scroll back through again to find it.

Agendus Pro
A purchase of Agendus Mail currently includes a copy of Agendus Pro. This application replaces your datebook, address book, memo pad and task list with one clean and streamlined application that does it all.

Agendus Pro provides a wide variety of different views for your datebook, including a very clean "Today" view that gives a quick picture of what you need to do today. It also lets you sort your task list by date or importance/urgency, very useful for Franklin Covey devotees.

There is a lot more to this program than I can get into here. Suffice it to say that Agendus Pro on its own would be a worthwhile addition to nearly every handheld; with Agendus Mail as well, the package is unstoppable.

The conclusions
I began this article by wondering if I could replace my laptop with my Zire and Agendus Mail. The answer, for me, is not quite. If my Zire had built-in wireless connectivity, it would be a much closer contest. Without it, the annoyance factor of switching cards back and forth is too much when I have a perfectly good laptop waiting to be of service.

Agendus Mail SSL Edition will currently set you back $49.95. The non-SSL edition is ten dollars less; if you don't do wireless email with your Palm, it's more than adequate. This is really quite a high cost for email software. However, with the current offer to receive Agendus Pro for free with the purchase of Agendus Mail, the value skyrockets.

I find that Agendus Mail works almost exactly as I'd expect. The few little issues, such as the strange handling of deleted emails, take it down a notch, but this is still a top-quality and well-supported email application.

OUR RATING: 4 of 5

David Silver lives in California. He can be reached at dws90@yahoo.com.