The project is not dead. In fact, there was a new update as recently as last week. You can get more info at http://userbase.kde.org/Kontact_Mobile
after adding the testing repository (be sure you have good and affordable internet access when doing so).
Note that the first start of any of these applications will take a long time, as it has to spawn some stuff that works deep in the background. Expect an initial waiting time no shorter than a minute.