Xobni for BlackBerry

CNET Editors' review

by: Jessica Dolcourt on March 17, 2010

The premium Xobni for BlackBerry is a must-have tool for heavy business users who rely on their BlackBerry smartphones for communicating with contacts. Xobni scours incoming and outgoing messages, building contact profiles for everyone it can, even if you never add them to your native address book.

From there, you can search Xobni while composing an e-mail (flick upwards to access its secondary address book) or from a standalone app. In addition to sending messages, you can shoot off a call or SMS if the numbers are available, or find out more information from an integrated LinkedIn or Facebook profile. You can also view snippets from recent e-mail, calls, texts, and meetings. We personally prefer accessing Xobni from the BlackBerry address book over the standalone app, though your tastes may differ.

Xobni could have used a performance boost during our testing, and we'd like to one day see it integrated with the dialer, calendar, and anywhere else you might want to access a contact list. We'd also like to review entire mail messages, not just the headers, and although the BlackBerry e-mail client does a good job searching for mail, we'd like the option to find specific messages with Xobni, too. We'd also like to be able to manage the Xobni One super address book from Xobni.com if not from the BlackBerry.

Power e-mailers and existing Xobni users who subscribe to the Xobni One service will find far more functionality than those who use the BlackBerry version alone. Xobni One starts by indexing your Windows PC Outlook contacts when you have Xobni installed for Outlook. It can then transfer contact data from its servers to your BlackBerry, and keep tabs on ongoing profiles built in both. If you just use the BlackBerry version without Xobni One, building your profile will be an organic process tied to how often you e-mail.

At the time of review, Xobni for BlackBerry costs $9.99 as a one-time fee, $6.99 if you get a $3.99 monthly subscription of the Xobni One service, and is free with a $39.99 one-year commitment to Xobni One.