There are many Windows Mobile applications around. But many are buggy, have poor functionality or are generally useless. Having used windows mobile devices for quite awhile now and having been involved in the development of software for the devices there are a number of apps which I have found useful. Here are 10 of the best in no particular order:

1. Spb Backup – $USD19.95

“Spb Backup is an application for creating reserve copies of data on your Pocket PC (PPC). It creates self-extracting compressed executables, thus making backup and restore processes very simple and intuitive. Backup scheduling supported.” Spb backup allows you to backup to a storage card. In the case where a PPC 2003 device fails and you lose all the data because of the volatile memory, you can restore the data from the storage card

2. Spb Pocket Plus – $USD24.95

” The most powerful Today plug-in with tabs. Close button that really closes. ZIP support in File Explorer. And many other features missing in official OS updates in one product.”

3. smsOrganizer – Free

This is a neat program that allows you to backup and export your text messages to text files so you can view them from your PC or simply have them as a backup. The full version supports many other features.

4. Spb Imageer – $USD 14.95

Spb Imageer is a great replacement to the pictures and album tools inbuilt into the pda OS. It has the ability to view thumbnails, browse through pictures using the next and forward buttons (a feature which the “pictures” app doesn’t have), create slideshows, create albums and edit pictures.

5. Opera Mini – Free
A small but advanced browser for mobiles and PDAs. The browser is better than Pocket IE and has a cleaner and more intuitive interface.

6. AirScanner Mobile Antivirus – 30 Day Trial, $USD 29.99

There is indeed a growing threat of the possibility for mobile viruses. With increased connectivity such as bluetooth, wireless LAN, and infrared, there is certainly plenty of ways a mobile virus could replicate. AirScanner is a good and efficient antivirus solution for PDAs. It doesn’t use nearly as many resources as many other PDA Antivirus software applications do.

7. AirScanner Mobile Firewall – 30 Day trial, $USD 29.99

As most mobile devices are connected by various means, in the near future, the opportunity for a hacker to take advantage of a vulnerable device is quite possible. AirScanner Mobile Firewall can act as a means of protection. Quoted from the website: “Airscanner Mobile Firewall is a packet filtering firewall that examines all incoming and outgoing TCP/IP traffic. This personal firewall ensures that data is permitted based on access control lists that you select from a set of predefined filters, or from filters that you create yourself. The firewall parses packets as they come in (or go out) on the wire or over the air, and it matches the data against a rule set of ports and IP addresses, URLs, etc.”

8. eXPerience – Free
An interesting idea to emulate the interface of XP on your windows mobile device.

9. Sompy Media Player – Free
Windows Media Player doesn’t support many file formats such as MPEG. If you want to watch video or have a song that doesn’t play on WMP, try Sompy. Sompy supports AVI(*.avi),Matroska(*.mkv,*.mka), MP3/MP4(*.mp3,*.mp4,*.m4a), gg Media(*.ogg,*.ogm), ASF(*.asf), MPEG (*.MPEG, *.MPG)

10. Doom for Pocket PC – Free

What more can I say… the original Doom on pocket PC.