BIOS: Technology Means Business

If you're a frequent traveller, the ability to have flight details to hand may be a blessing. However, FlightCheck Palm 1.1 is nothing but functional and comes with few extra features, including the lack of any appealing graphics, travel information, or wireless connectivity options.

Pros: low-cost; quick and easy-to-use; small footprint
Cons: few additional extras; no wireless connectivity support

FlightCheck for Palm devices (OS 3.1 or later) is a very straightforward utility for checking the timetable of scheduled flights to and from airports around the world. The software is available as a European version (£12.99) and a Global version (£14.99). We were sent the European version to test, which covers 64,000 schedules per month. The Global version boasts more than 350,000 schedules. Both versions, however, allow you to download free monthly schedule updates for a year. After that, you have to re-subscribe to the service for the same cost as the initial purchase price.

Designed primarily for frequent business flyers, FlightCheck aims to help you manage your air travel by providing flight schedules. Once the 990KB software has been installed on your Palm device (4.5MB for Global version), schedules are updated once a month when you synchronise the device with your Internet-connected PC. Unfortunately, the software can't be used to update flight details on-the-fly, such as with an Internet-ready PDA, as flight details can only be updated using the PC the software is installed on.

FlightCheck's search facility allows you to find flights by departure or arrival airport. If you want to find the details of a flight coming into London Heathrow for example, you first choose UK and then London Heathrow using the software's alphabetical search tool. You then have to select the day of travel using the built-in calendar. Once this key information has been entered, you can then choose to view departures or arrivals. Whichever option you choose, you then have to enter either the destination country or the country a flight is arriving from.

As well as flight details, such as the date, time and operator, FlightCheck provides a little extra information such as the aircraft model, the availability of catering services (like whether food is served) and the operator's phone number and Web address. It's a shame there's no nice eye candy, such as graphics of the different aeroplanes, seating arrangements or flight paths. What is handy though, is that the software will only let you search for flight details of 'real' flights. For example, when searching for departures from Newcastle, you can only select countries that the airport actually serves.

Links:
FlightCheck Palm 1.1 Web site
FlightCheck Palm 1.1 trial (300KB)