Pocket PC synching with a Sonyericsson Phone???

[zimbo1980]

I have an iPaq H2210 and am thinking of getting the Sonyericsson K700i and what I'd really like to be able to do is synchronise them easily without the use of a PC.

Anyone out there know of any software for this or could it be a bluetooth profile in the phone some how?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Sven Johannsen]

I may dead wrong, but I don't think there is any solution for directly syncing a cell phone with a pocketpc. You can beam individual contacts, but I haven't heard of anything that does a whole batch.

[Kowalski]

seven, i think you are right, i searched a solution for zimbo mentioned, but couldnt find a solution. maybe someone has invented something to solve the issue but this has a very little chance

[JvanEkris]

This is not possible. This is because they both are designed as clients, not as hosts.....

Jaap

[Sven Johannsen]

This is not possible. This is because they both are designed as clients, not as hosts.....

Jaap

That would be the issue if we limited ourselves to USB. I would think there would be little stopping it via BT or IR except for the software to do it, i.e the appropriate profiles. My Desktop BT manager has a profile called PIM Sync on it which is how I sync my SonyEricsson phone. With the PPC having the greater amount of PIM data, having a PIM Sync profile on it, and connecting to a paired phone with it, could conceivably be made to sync them. At least that information that is appropriate for the phone.

I think it is more a matter of the folks producing this sort of thing not recognizing the market, or being correct in that the market is too limited.

[Menneisyys]

This is not possible. This is because they both are designed as clients, not as hosts.....

Jaap

Actually, it IS possible. There're several PPC apps that offer full, painless (no need to send contacts one-by-one), fast Mobile phone <> PDA synchronization. Plus, it is REAL synchronization, with change tracking, so consequent synchronizations are far faster than the initial (which can be quite slow, because the SIM card can be only read at slow speeds - I've measured some 1-2 minutes of transferring speed for as few as 70-80 SIM entries in a previous SMS/GSM synch'er roundup of mine).

The two most important sync apps are Smart GSM and mPhone.

Feel free to ask further q's about these two apps.

[zimbo1980]

Don't suppose you could post links to those 2 developers?

[Sven Johannsen]

Seems like mPhone http://www.mobem.com/products/mphone25/index.php
does a whole lot more than just sync.
You can see Smart GSM at http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=8290&associateid=185

Both seem to be restricted to phone #/contact sync, but I suppose that is what is needed. My T610 has calendar and note functions, but I'll admit I don't use them.

Thanks for the app names, I hadn't seen those and frankly might have missed the sync aspect as they do so much management.

[zimbo1980]

Thanks for those excellent links...

Smart GSM looks better so far in that it handles the extended phonebook abilities of newer phones which can hold email, postal address etc against each phone book entry.

I'll try them both and see which is best.

[Menneisyys]

Incidentally, the problem with extended phonebook export (to phone) / import (from phone) results in 'flattening' the data with some programs. It all depends on the app itself whether it supports the standardized suffixes (e.g., /H, /W and /M for Home/Work/Mobile). If it doesn't and/or exchanges data with the phone in a non-standardized way, the phone will 'flatten' the data if you upload to the phone; and, the PDA will flatten the data when it downloads it from the phone.

This means if you have a contact with a (say) home, a work and a mobile phone, with a decent synchronization program, all the three entries will be sent to the phone in a way that only one Contact is created, with these three (subordinate) fields. With a non-standard/non-extended phonebook-compliant program, however, the phone won't be able to parse the (prolly non-existent) suffixes and considers all the fields relating to ONE contact as separate contacts. That way, the "flattened" version will look something like this on the phone:

<contact name>/H
<contact name>/M
<contact name>/W

instead of

<contact name>

The opposite direction (download from phone) is the same: if the PPC-based GSM handler app doesn't understand the standard suffixes, it will export the records received from the phone to the PPC Contacts database as unrelated, top-level records, with the same name as above.

A roundup of the Contacts-synchronization-capable programs as of 01/2004 as long as extended phonebook-compliance is considered:

connect2internet PRO 2.5 ( http://www.2kdevelopment.com/pages/connect2internet.html ): supports extended phonebook entry Contacts db -> phone upload but not download
Mobem mPhone 2.6.3 ( http://www.mobem.com ) : both directions are supported
IA Phone Manager 1.30 ( http://www.iastyle.com/iapm/download.asp ): both directions are supported
Pocket Presence Running Voice 3.05 ( http://www.pocketpresence.com/rvgsm.asp ): neither direction work
Pocket PhoneTools 4 ( http://www.bvrp.com/ENG/products/pocketPhoneTools/ ) : uploading works to a certain extent (all extended entries must be one-by-one sent to the phone; the phone, on the other hand, creates a non-flat version of the numbers); download doesn't
smart GSM 2.3.3 ( http://www.smartsoftworks.com/download/ ): both directions are supported + the phone/PPC Contacts fields can be freely mapped to each other
message master Mobile Client 6.1.0.12 ( http://www.derdack.de/download/mmmc2002.exe ): neither direction work

Incidentally, I've written a very big and thorough review of all the available PPC SMS/GSM handlers (in a non-English language), the above info can also be found there; is there any interest in an English-language, greatly upgraded & updated version? :)

[Menneisyys]

Smart GSM looks better so far in that it handles the extended phonebook abilities of newer phones which can hold email, postal address etc against each phone book entry.

I'll try them both and see which is best.

Actually, mPhone also handles extended phonebook entries (just tap a given contact and you'll see). It's just that you can't manually map phone/PDA Contacts fields to each other - Smart GSM is capable of that too.

[Sven Johannsen]

is there any interest in an English-language, greatly upgraded & updated version? :)Yea, but would that be in Canadian English, US English or British English. Hate to have you do it in British English and have to run it through BabelFish anyway. ;)

[Menneisyys]

Yea, but would that be in Canadian English, US English or British English. Hate to have you do it in British English and have to run it through BabelFish anyway. ;)

US English. At least I'll try hard to conform to the US English rules & spelling :) (My native tongue isn't English.)

[Islanti]

I would be interested in an overview of the GSM sync programs available. I'm definitely looking to purchase this kind of software soon, so making an informed decision would really help. I've been debating between Smart GSM and mPhone recently.

One thing that concerns me is that Smart GSM hasn't been updated since October 2004 (and Nov 2003 before that) and mPhone hasn't been updated since Feb 2003. That seems like a long time to go without updating these applications, especially considering they don't sync the Calendar or Notes at all (i.e. they should be updating their app to support these features).

Seeing as I get PC Outlook syncing for free from Sony Ericsson for my T610, it sure seems like a paid program for the Pocket PC should have at least the same level of functionality.

[Menneisyys]

I would be interested in an overview of the GSM sync programs available.

OK, I'll try to come up with a new, updated roundup.

(OT: did you know that your nick means 'Iceland' in Finnish?)

[Islanti]

OK, I'll try to come up with a new, updated roundup.
Even a quick post would be great! Your time and effort are much appreciated. :)

(OT: did you know that your nick means 'Iceland' in Finnish?)
It's a long story why (being that I'm Canadian living in the US), but yes. :)

[Menneisyys]

OK, I'll try to come up with a new, updated roundup.
Even a quick post would be great! Your time and effort are much appreciated. :)

OFFTOPIC:

Well, of course I'll answer quick questions like the topic starter q because they only require a few minutes' work. But, to rewrite & update my one-year-old article containing over 70k chars is not a 'quick post' :) And it's not just a simple translation: retesting the latest versions, VGA/Landscape testing, moving databases between machines-testing, Notes/Calendar-synchronization testing (now, it only discusses Contacts and SMS-synchronization + dialing and Connectivity-related stuff, e.g., their own Internet dialers) etc. will also be included. Fortunately, old WinCE-related stuff needs not be retested (I've also discussed Handheld PC (Pro)'s/PsPC's.)

(OT: did you know that your nick means 'Iceland' in Finnish?)
It's a long story why (being that I'm Canadian living in the US), but yes. :)[/quote]

Canada? There're quite a lot Finns living in there. You one of them/have Finnish relatives/friends? (Don't answer if you don't want to.)

[Islanti]

Clearly a quick post won't do justice to you efforts! :oops: I didn't realize it was so expansive. I'd be very interested to see it when you're done!

Hopefully it gets a more rational response than your Loox / HP screen comparison. :)

In the mean time, I'm going to do some digging around myself and see if I can find a program that'll do 2-way sync for (nested) contacts, calendar, and notes via BT. I suspect nothing has all those features, unfortunately. Most of the programs I'm seeing don't even say they sync to the phone's memory, just the SIM card.

As for the nick... I had a very good friend live in Finland for a few years and I managed to pick up some of the language. I "adopted" Iceland as a country for a research project at the time, so I ended up using Islanti. Like I said, long story. ;)