Treo Ringtone Manager “Ringo Pro” Reviewed
I never understood why cheap candy bar phones have MP3 ringtone players but my profoundly more sophisticated and beloved Treo can only play rings in other formats. Thankfully, third party software developers such as Electric Pocket Ltd. have remedied this issue through applications such as Ringo Pro.
Ringo Pro is a straight forward program that can display a picture and play a ringtone (MP3, Wav or midi) when you receive an incoming text message or call. The program has three screens. On the ringtone screen (see right), you can select ringtones from a drop down list, and select an image as well. These are default options for phone calls and text messages. On the Individual Screen (see below), you can choose ringtones and images for individual callers selected from your address book.
If you have groups of people categorized together in your address book, you can set rules for them using the Groups Screen utilizing the same tone / picture options as the two screens mentioned before. On all three screens, you can set tones as silent, if you want to ignore an individual or group of people.
That is the program in a nutshell. The features work well. But the program doesn’t have a great deal of hidden depth, and there are competing applications with extraordinary advanced features. Ringo offers escalating volume for ringtones. But, in practice, tones start out so quiet that you can’t hear them. Ringo includes a ringtone maker. But it just allows you to create simple midi-style tones. (Maybe, if you have more musical talent than this reviewer, you can make something nice out of this capability.) You have the option to buy midi ringtones from an associated store. But when there are free online midi databases, like www.mididb.com, I see little point.
There is one potentially useful option. The program can announce callers if you buy an optional EPSpeak for $9.95. However, the add-on software uses an extra 2 megabytes of memory. In my view, it’s not worth that amount of memory real estate.
Ringo Pro is a good program that works well as a MP3 ringtone manager. There is a 7 day free trial available in the mytreo.net download section, and our members have given the program a neutral rating of 5 out of 10. But $29.95 is a lot of money for such a basic program, when more advanced alternatives, like CallFilter, are in the market. For the same $29.95, CallFilter is the way to go.
Related Links
Download Ringo Pro.
Download CallFilter 1.3.
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I’m sorry, but I think this program doesnt deserve a neutral rating. This application (as witnessed by the reviews from many people) really needs some work.
Ed: like what? please explain what is wrong with the software if you think it is so bad. I removed the rest of your comment because it was just a rant with no evidence to back up what you were saying.
I agree with Kaptainchump. The program is a bit simple, yet not easy to use. Plus I couldn’t get it to vibrate and ring concurrently. Vibration is how I’m alerted to most calls before I hear it. It could be my problem. I deleted it after a day. But I don’t think so. I use mRing. It works well. Easy to set up. And much cheaper.
I have had great deal of problem using Ringo Pro on my Treo 650, as I find that it will cause my system to re-boot when receiving incoming calls (neither accepting the call nor activating the voicemail). Do you have any ideas to help overcome this bug???
Responding to ed: Albeit difficult to provide ‘evidence’ for a software bug, i can assure you that i have tested ringo on many different installs on a palm and ringo found some way to reset my palm every time.
First i tried it on a clean install from the sprint download server (which was the ‘old’ version), it would reset my phone randomly and soemtimes on incoming calls. It would seem to work good at first, then it would reset my phone. Next i tried to upgrade ringo to the newer version and it seemed like i got even more resets. Mind you this was a clean install with no extra applications that could interfere with ringo. Finally i tried installing both the new and old versins of ringo on a setup that already ran stable and ringo would reset my palm.
Now i sit here with no ringo installed, but plenty of other apps installed and i get a reset once in a blue moon. I know without a doubt that ringo was the cause of resets and no matter how much information i read, nothing fixes these random/not so random problems that the author has yet to fix or create any updates for. I’m just glad that sprint pays for my downloads and i didnt leave with any money out of my pocket on this one.
Man i seriously want ringo to be a good application though. I love the simplicity ease of use the application brings, i think it just has some rough corners that make my palm unable to function correctly. sorry if i seemed a little angry in the first post…i just coulnt beleive that anyone would rpomote this software :-/
Actually, I have to disagree with the negative reviews. Ringo Pro was the only ringtone manager that was even moderately stable on my Treo 650. CF was horrible, I couldn’t get it to work at all, and the crashes from Lightwav kept wrecking my preferences. Ringo is moderately simple, but it does what it’s supposed to — it gives you MP3 ringtones. I do also like how it allows you to have personalized SMS tones (which I don’t think Lightwav supported, although CF does — if that part of the program works, which I never saw).
hi i just need to know if someone has an experience with treo 600, after instaling ringo pro phone doesnot vibrate . thnx for help
hi i just need to know if someone has an experience with treo 600, after instaling ringo pro phone doesnot vibrate . thnx for help
I downloaded the Ringo Trial…and now I can’t delete it from my 650. I’ve even tried with DeStaller and get error message “this application is protected and can only be removed in the Pro version” and FileZ says “the operation can’t be performed on a card (Internal)”. how can I get rid of Ringo?
I agree with those that have had issues. I absolutely love this programs ease of use and I have a zillion mp3s I created using versions of my favorite songs for different people; HOWEVER, like kaptainchump I too have experienced the reboot problem. And have also like Itorio had nighmares trying to uninstall. Ringo works for a little while then the random reboots and missed calls start happening. Worst part is you the call doesn’t get logged, despite my friends saying they hear me say “Awe crap” before it cancels the call. Ringo is a great idea, but becuase it renders ones phone only 50% funtional (the amount of time this program works correctly) I would have to give it about 2 stars out of 10.
I second the previous comment, I tried the trial, didn’t like it (not $30 worth), seemed like it made my 650 reset a lot more than normal, but I cannot delete it!!! I have a mail into electricpocket, but obviously I’m not the only one with this issue. I hope the “deleteproof” issue is a bug and not design intent…..
don’t wanna pour gasoline on a fire… but seriously the problems outweigh the good. i have had countless time where i’ve told clients “i have to call you back because my phone wont stop ringing” so i’d have to hang up pull the battery out reboot and call back. not worth the unprofessionalism for mp3 ringtones . sorry ringo your done!