This year’s FIFA World Cup means different things to different people. To many, it represents the pinnacle of four years’ preparation – and the end to a glorious season of league football. Others, not so enamoured of the beautiful game might well be trembling at the thought of four weeks’ worth of TV filled up with drunken fans, grown men crying and an endless stream of statistics.

That Resco’s World Cup Mobile 2006 actually appeals to both sides of the football divide is testament to how well the developer has designed and executed its latest offering, making it easy-to-use, free of jargon and full of useful information. Football fans will be impressed by the range of statistics and information available (going as far as the architectural styles of the German stadiums); while those who find the whole thing pretty dull – or impenetrably complicated – are assured an attractive, clean user interface which displays the most important information clearly for all to see.

The first tool which caught our eye was the automatic update option. This is the key feature which will help you stop using a wall-chart or Excel sheet to note fixtures, results and statistics. By automatically updating match results, goal-scorers and other statistics, you can be sure that World Cup Mobile 2006 has a better grip on the tournament than a Norwegian referee (well, a Swedish one anyway). Besides this, data from previous World Cups are also included in the program along with team profiles, team photos and extended team data for major national sides.

With its attractive green styling and smart photo gallery, World Cup Mobile is a joy to use. Its menu system is easy to navigate and is graphically very clean and well-designed. However, it’s let down somewhat with the fonts used in parts the program. Rather than use a typical newspaper-style font, Resco has opted for a futuristic ‘all caps’ font which was pretty difficult to read for longer than a minute or so. This is a shame but given that it only affects some sections of the user-interface and is basically the program’s only flaw, it can’t be seen as too serious. That said, an option to change the font scheme (or just the text size) would be a welcome edition in programs of this type.

World Cup Mobile 2006 is, to put it simply, a great program. We’ve looked at other World Cup applications this month, but none seems to offer the same wealth of information, attractive styling or ease of use. The font issue which bothered us is by no means confined to this application but we do feel it could be remedied easily. We reckon that you’ll be hard pressed to find a better all-round solution for staying up to date with this year’s FIFA World Cup on your Pocket PC. Whether you’re a stat-addict or a tentative fan, this program comes highly recommended.