PhoneLog provides a single application to store both incoming and outgoing calls. While PhoneLog is much better suited to tracking phone calls than either the built-in solution or Action Names, there are still a few additional features that I would like to see in PhoneLog.

PhoneLog is designed to keep a single record for calls between you and someone else about a subject, rather than a series of records for the various incoming and outgoing calls. Using PhoneLog you can enter info for a call and give it a type "Received Voicemail." Then when you return the call, change it to type "Conversation" or "Left Message" depending on the call. This works, except that each record can only maintain the most recent status -- a single date, time and type.

In other words, you can't keep a record of past incoming and outgoing calls about a specific subject without manually copying all the info to new records. PhoneLog is designed to keep a short list of current call discussions rather than journal all incoming and outgoing calls. For the same reasons that keeping important outgoing and incoming email messages is a useful procedure, I found keeping records of all outgoing and incoming calls to be useful.

One additional criticism. Calls have a check box in the list view (which you check when a call is completed), but there is no way to check them off as complete in the edit screen. PhoneLog does not include alarms for calls, and lacks several convenient features of the To Do List, such as prioritizing call entries, and hiding future calls.

PhoneLog supports exporting to the Memo Pad and Address Book, but does not export to the Date Book or To Do List.

Call Tracker
Call Tracker by Standalone, Inc. provides a robust feature set, but works only with the PalmPilot Professional and Palm III devices. The program distinguishes itself from the rest of the solutions reviewed here by providing a very logical format with individual record types for incoming calls, outgoing calls, and scheduled calls.

Creating and editing records
When creating a new record in Call Tracker, one of the first features you'll notice is its contact look up, which can search for first names, last names or companies.

A preference setting enables the Name Picker to automatically appear with matching names after a specified number of letters have been entered in the name or company field. Call Tracker's look up feature displays all search results at once in a pop-up menu, rather than requiring you to scroll through results one at a time (which is PhoneLog's matching search results display method).

There are times that I would prefer to look at the entire list of addresses before choosing a contact, but Call Tracker doesn't support the built-in Phone Lookup feature as an alternative lookup method like PhoneLog.

Call Tracker provides access to all phone numbers for a contact, but doesn't display a letter, such as "W" or "H" next to the displayed number to indicate which number is selected. As a result, I found myself often clicking on the number selector pop up menu which does display a letter next to each number. Call Tracker always displays the work number first rather than the primary number set in the Address Book.