Avanquest Ringtone Media Center review

With companies like Jamster making a fortune for mobile ringtones and screensavers, why not make your own?

6 September 2005 12:39 GMT / By Stuart Miles

With companies like Jamster making a fortune for mobile ringtones and screensavers, Avanquest is hoping to give you a helping hand in creating your own. We Give the Crazy Frog the push and see how we can spruce up our mobile.

Starting up the software you are prompted straight away for which model of phone you've got and these customises all the relevant media to suit your phone. The list is fairly impressive and the software regularly offers updates to add and include more. Depending on what model you opt for will depend on what screen size you get to crop you images at and its makes everything a whole lot easier.

The application is broken down into three areas - Image, music and video and each area address a different media need. Head over to the image studio for example and you can create backdrops specifically for your phone. If you haven't already loaded them in from your PC you can chose to do a screen capture of just the right area for your phone. The package includes basic editing functions like crop and resize as well as a series of effects like filters or emboss. Once done, you simply press a button and the package connects to your phone using either Bluetooth or Infrared and you've got a new background on your phone.

If images aren't your thing, then Ringtones Media Studio offers you the chance to create your own ringtone. Here, like the image studio section, you get the chance to select your favourite music extracts and use them as ring tones for your mobile phone. Melody Studio converts sound files, including those from audio CDs, to a format, which is compatible with your mobile phone. Using its editing functions, you can select an extract, change the tempo, and define fade in and fade out effects. Once you've made your tone you can just like the image studio have the file transferred to your phone via Bluetooth or Infrared.

Video Studio's aim is to makes it easy to create and edit videos for mobile phones. The software is fairly basic, but will allow joining a number of different clips together before it gets to work combining them into a single video that can be transferred from your PC to your mobile phone and/or saved to your hard disk.

Verdict

This is a simple creative little package that will offer you hours of entertainment in customising your phone. We especially liked the fact that once you put in your phone's model at the beginning, then everything after that was customised. If you are one of these people that likes to buy ringtones on Jamster, but baulk at the £1.50 price then this will be up your street.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Avanquest
Price as reviewed: £20
The good: Presets to your mobile phone model, basic but good
The bad: Editing options are very simple and limiting
Quick verdict: If you are one of these people that likes to buy ringtones on Jamster, but bulk at the £1.50 price then this will be up your street.
Score