The classic PDA/Smartphone platforms are not very multimedia-centric, and thus created a need for multimedia applications. But Series 60 is a multimedia platform AND the Nokia N71 is a multimediacentric phone…is an additional photo viewer really needed? Since I never really liked the native photo viewer(looks cool, but useless), I can answer the question with yes…let’s see if Resco Photo Viewer is as good as its siblings on other platforms are!
Resco Photo Viewer supports two ‘operational modes’ - foldercentric and imagecentric. In foldercentric mode, the program presents you the folder structure like on a PDA - in imagecentric mode, the program shows a seamless list of all images available to the device:
Images can be shown in a variety of modes - big thumbnails, small thumbnails, lists,… . The program dynamically renders thumbnails in the background and uses them to replace the file format icons - well done!
Clicking an image opens it in ‘mini view’. This means that the image gets opened in a ’screen-filling’ zoom level and can’t be zoomed - however, the opening process is blazingly fast.
Hitting # opens an image in zoom mode after a short delay - the image can then be zoomed, flipped and panned freely at a truly amazing speed.
Open images can also be cropped, resized and adjusted in terms of contrast and color - this is useful for preparing files for printing or wireless transmission:
Multiple files can be selected and moved around the file system together:
Last but not least, Resco Photo Viewer also includes an excellent slideshow module. It allows you to present images with an extra twist due to its really cool transition effects - top notch and well done. This video shows a few of the available effects:
This review looked at version 4.43 on a Nokia N71. The program needs about 500k of RAM and was very stable in the whole test period.
Overall, Resco Photo Viewer definitely is worth getting, even if you just use your phone’s camera and don’t really want to look at media on it. The program is really helpful when it comes to traversing folders and finding/sorting images. The image editing and viewing possibilities are excellent - the slideshow module traditionally is excellent at Resco’s, and the other features follow suit. This is a true must have for everyone who uses his phone a lot…the price of 14.95$ at the TamsShop is almost a steal!
