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We at BBGeeks have much love for Yahoo! Go. It’s an easy interface, and provides us with a ton of useful information…for free! They’re not the only players in the game, though. Mobile software developer Handmark has its own portal, Pocket Express. After getting a quick demo of the software at WES, I decided to give it a whirl myself. So let’s see what Pocket Express has to offer.

While Pocket Express supports BlackBerry models dating all the way back to the 7100, it’s always best to check to make sure your device is compatible. So check out their list of supported devices. As you can see, this isn’t limited to BlackBerry, so if you like what you see you can pass it along to a BlackBerry-less friend (the fool!).

Free services

The first noticeable difference between Go and Pocket Express is that the latter has a paid tier, which gives you access to a far greater selection of news and services. We’ll start with the free ones, since you can download it from the Handmark website and get started right away.

Once you launch the application, you’re taken to the portal home. This consists of nine options: News, sports, weather, stocks, entertainment, 411 search, travel, maps, and assist. In addition, there are two tabs on the left side. PageOne is the main screen, and Extras brings you to a page of premium downloads, including ringtones, games, and applications.

If you’re the type that doesn’t like to pay for portal content, you’ll reside on the first row, which includes news, sports, and weather. Clicking on the icon will bring up a list of categories within these headings.

Click on the category you want — say, technology — and Pocket Express will bring you to a list of headlines. You can click on any one for a few paragraphs of the story. If you’re like me, many times this will be plenty of information, and you can move on. However, if you’re craving the rest of the story, you can view the full story.

Headlines and teasers are stored locally on the device, so you don’t have to take the time to load it up each time you want to view a new story. Only when you want to view a full story will you have to sit through a load screen. This is totally convenient for news browsers like me, who only reads the full story when it’s something of complete interest — or if I’m writing about it for BBGeeks.

My only gripe, and it’s a slight one, is that Pocket Epxress takes quite a while to load up news stories and check for updates. I found myself switching applications and doing something else while it was retrieving an article on the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings.

News

You can scroll through the news options to get Top Stories, U.S. News, World News, Politics, Technology, Strange News, Science, and Health and Wellness. The top five stories in each category are displayed when you click on it, with a teaser for each when you click on the headline.

For a couple of extras, they have Today in History, which is just what it says, and Red’s Blog, which is a group blog covering politics, travel, and sports. But mainly sports. And there’s nothing we at BBGeeks like more than a good sports blog. Except, of course, a good BlackBerry blog, a new BlackBerry model, that new BlackBerry app…well, you get the point.

Sports

If you’re a sports fan, you might want to download the free version of Pocket Express just for the sports content. It’s easy to tell that the people at Handmark themselves are fans, since Red’s Blog is most frequently updated with sports info. So you know you’re going to be getting top-notch coverage of your favorite professional and college sports.

The first option in the sports page is the scoreboard. This is constantly updated, and Pocket Express actually checks for updates when you load them up. Use the track wheel to scroll up and down through the various games, or scroll sideways to change sports.

Next is sports news and in-season league news. This provides content from the Associated Press. While it might not provide in-depth coverage for each team, it does cover the major happenings in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and auto racing. Find schedules and standings within these categories.

Plus, as previously mentioned, Pocket Express provides one-click access to Red’s Blog, an oft-updated blog covering, for the most part, sports. So if you’re looking for something a bit more lighthearted than the typical AP content, Red’s Blog is a quality stop.

Travel

Looking to get onto an earlier flight than scheduled? You can check out flight schedules from all the major airlines with Pocket Express. Find a flight three hours ahead of your current one? You can use the assist feature, normally premium, to book your flight. It will incur normal travel agent fees, but it’s worth the convenience, right?

Once you get to your destination, you’ll need further services in order to get your rental car, check into your hotel, find entertainment, and even book a return flight. Pocket Express provides a directory of important travel numbers, including those of major airlines, car rental outlets, and hotels. It also has a currency converter, in case your destination is overseas.

And that’s just the free content. Travel services are expanded in the Elite and Executive versions.

Weather

A few weeks ago, we looked at BlackBerry weather applications. If you’ve got Pocket Express, or another portal like Yahoo! Go, you’ve got the weather right in front of you. Pocket Express figures out your current location — whether you have GPS or not (I know this because I have the crippled Verizon GPS). You get a current weather conditions, which you can drill down to forecasts. It even provides weather news and advisories for places around the country.

Premium services

This is where Pocket Express and Yahoo! Go differ. In order to get the most out of Pocket Express, you have to subscribe to their service. This is a deterrent for many people, since free is almost always preferable. This is especially so when the premium content isn’t all that premium in the eyes of the user.

An upgrade to Express Executive costs $6.99 per month, or $69.90 per year. It includes access to stock information, maps, 411 directories, entertainment news, and enhances the travel features. Express Elite adds Mobilecierge, Handmark’s mobile virtual assistant, and costs $9.99 per month or $99.90 for the year.

Stocks

While there is at least one free stock tracking application for BlackBerry, some people just want more. It’s all about ease, really, and reliability.

Pocket Express allows you to track your portfolio of stocks, as well as a listing of hot stocks. With one click, you can be in charge of your financial destiny. And keep on top of the finance beat with columns from MSN Money analyst Scott Burns.

Entertainment

Here’s a category not included in Pocket Express’s news menu. If you’re looking for news on the TV, music, and film industries, Pocket Express has it, plus more. you can browse those categories, or you can check your daily horoscope, listen to advice form Dear Abby, or check out the truly weird new

As any good portal will do, Pocket Express has a movie listings feature. These also include reviews for select movies. Because the portal knows where you are, it takes just a few clicks to find listings near you. You can also buy tickets right from the portal for select theaters. The theater selection isn’t great; it gave me just two theaters in my area, where other portals, like Tellme, give me eight or nine at least. But it did find the theater within walking distance of my house, so it gets major props for that.

Reference services

I don’t know about you, but I have been looking forever for a free dictionary program for BlackBerry. To date, I haven’t found one, or at least one that works. While Pocket Express’s premium services aren’t free, they do include a ton of services, so the cost for this Oxford Reference dictionary/thesaurus is negligible. It’s the standard of the English language, so you can be sure you’re getting the best possible reference information.

If you’re sick of paying your carrier $1.50 every time you use directory assistance, Pocket Express can cut that cost, too. They have white and yellow page listings, so you can search out numbers just as easily as directory assistance can find them.

Maps

We’ve looked at BlackBerry map applications before, so this is just one more to add to the list. Pocket Express’s map program has the same basic features as most other map apps: turn-by-turn directions, and detailed maps of your current location. Yes, it uses LBS, though it seems that is limited to GPS, rather than cell tower location.

Extras

Money burning a hole in your pocket? If so, you can check out Pocket Express’s selection of extras, which include games, ringtones, and applications of all ilk. They do run a bit expensive — Tetris is $15. So, as I said, this is for someone with a ton of disposable income and way too much time on their hands. Either that, or someone who is completely and totally sick of Brick Breaker, and can’t find anything useful on our free BlackBerry games list.

Applications include productivity tools, including the top names in document viewers and editors. You can also get services like AAA roadside assistance, though as you’ll see in the next section, you can also get this with MobileCierge.

What great about Pocket Express’s extra downloads is that you can keep them, even if you have to delete them for space. Hey, our BlackBerry devices can only hold so many apps. I find myself deleting about an app a week so I can keep enough memory clear for new stuff. So if I have to delete Tetris from my BlackBerry, I don’t have to pay $15 to download it the next time I want to play it.

MobileCierge service

The coolest and most useful aspect of Pocket Express is MobileCierge, available through their Express Elite package. Basically, this is your 24/7 personal assistant. Once you click the MobileCierge icon, you’re directed to an assistant who can do a number of things for you, including booking hotel and restaurant reservations, getting tickets to sporting and entertainment events, booking travel accommodations, and providing emergency assistance, including roadside help.

I’m moving at the end of the month, so this provided a great opportunity to test out MobileCierge. What I needed was simple: A U-Haul truck from my current place to my new one, and a list of public storage facilities in my new area. And MobileCierge came through, just like a real assistant.

Steve McGuigan, VP of Pocket Express, related a story to us at WES. He was on his way to give a presentation, when he realized that he didn’t have the power adapter for the projector. So he rang up MobileCierge, who called a Best Buy in the area. They called him back and let him know that the adapter was waiting at the front of the store for him.

Final thoughts

As far as portals go, Pocket Express is right up there with the best. It’s method of loading only partial stories keeps the application running quickly, only taking the time to load full content when you want that specific item. You also have the option of viewing more or fewer items in each news section — five is default, though you can switch that to three or 10. Plus, you can take out the sections you don’t read, which will make the program run a little bit faster.

There are only two downsides I can see to the service. First is the price. Free is always preferable, but clearly not always reasonable. Pocket Express contains many programs and services which warrant the monthly fee. For some, it will be worth it. For others, it’s a luxury that can be replicated with other free applications. The second is the load time when Pocket Express checks for new updates. But, once again, you can minimize that time by selecting only the categories you want to read.

Still, Handmark has a quality portal on its hands. You can check it out for yourself at express.handmark.com.

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