This is a review of Best Profiles v1.02 from SmartphoneWare.
Review Conditions
Best Profiles was installed on a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device.
Installation
Installation of the .sis file is simple, using the Nokia Application Installer in the Nokia PC Suite.
First View
How would you like your S60 to automatically switch to the desired profile at different times of the day according to various pre-configured settings? Read on.
Main Review
Best Profiles can automatically switch the phone’s profile at various times of the day. There are several ways in which the application lets a user to switch profiles. The simplest way is to manually activate it with several options – activate at a specified time, for a specific duration or activate after a specific duration. You can also lock a profile, for a specified time, thus bypassing automatic profile switch.
But this method is not for the power user. A power user needs much more flexibility from a profile scheduler. Consider the scenario: There are several meetings in a day and you obviously don’t want to be disturbed are those times. But after the meeting is over, you would like to start receiving calls. You can set a new schedule rule that switch to a profile and back at specific times in a day.
But this gets a little onerous if have several meetings a day. So Best Profiles integrates with the S60 calendar and allows you to create rules for events in the calendar. Calendar rules can be created to switch profiles for calendar events that have specific key words in them. For e.g., “Meeting”, “Conference”, “Call” etc., are the keywords I use.
Once such rules are configured, in the Scheduler tab, you can “View today rules” to see all the rules configured for each day.
Consider this scenario: When you get to The office, you want a specific customized profile to be switched on. This is different from the Meeting profile and the home profile. At work, you use a business-like ring tone, with low volume, etc. And when you get out of the office, you want the Outdoor profile to be switched on. Best Profiles achieves this by detecting the GSM location you are presently in and switching to the desired profile defined for the cell(s). The office building and the neighboring areas could be covered by a few GSM cells. Best Profiles lets you configure the profile-switch upon entering or exiting the cell(s).
Finally you’d want to switch to a Silent profile when the mobile is being charged. While is already available in most Nokia phones its good to access this from within Best Profiles.
There are a bunch of advanced settings that lets you choose a theme, background run a new application, activate Bluetooth, select a backlight option, change the tone volume or play a sound on activating a profile. These lend to further customization of each profile’s behavior. Every rule can be assigned a priority. If rules clash, the rule with a lower priority will be overridden by the rule with a higher priority.
Handling
With very intuitive screens and options, getting around Best Profiles is no trouble at all. One the application is setup, it runs in the background unobtrusively and you can forget about it. Only the tone that goes off when a profile-switch happens, lets you know its working 
Weaknesses
I didn’t find any weakness that hampered the use of application. The cells are identified by their cell id and area code. This could have been more user friendly by using their name. I am sure the cell’s name is available as a software API.
Conclusion
Best Profiles is absolutely an useful application and its need is appreciated only when its not available in your mobile! A sorely missed feature in the native S60, its a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, cool post. I have been wondering about this topic,so thanks for blogging. I’ll certainly be subscribing to your blog. Keep up the good work
thanks
thank’s