Considering a SMT5600 - Cingular

[staats]

I've spent a couple of days looking at this phone.
Here's what I want:

Replace my Palm and cell phone in one package. The Treo650 is way too much stuff and I don't want to deal with all of that just for a phone. I do have a lot of contacts with some text description that is very useful to me.

I will not do video, surf the web or even get emails with this. I just want a "complete" contact manager and a phone that's fully integrated with my PC.

Right now I'm using Windows 2000 Professional and Outlook Express for email. I use the Palm as my PC organizer. It's "OK" but not integrated with my email on the PC.

I want a change to a single unified system that's integrated with my phone. I can export the Palm database to Outlook.

What I'm wondering is how many fields the contact manager will support on the SMT5600 and which ones?

Will it support the multiple folders of contacts from Outlook. I've read about some problems with this. An organizer with just one huge folder of all contacts is not a good solution.

Also, if you go to the Audiovox website you don't get a good idea of what software for the PC comes with the phone. I've read Outlook 2002 comeswith it. Is that true?

I've also read that the synchronizer doesn't work with Outlook express.

Help?

Bob

[Mike Temporale]

Hi staats, welcome to the site!

I can export the Palm database to Outlook.

Outlook can import from Outlook Express. So, you'll have to sync your Palm to OE and then install and run Outlook. If it doesn't automatically detect the old stuff, you can run File / Import.

What I'm wondering is how many fields the contact manager will support on the SMT5600 and which ones?

On the Smartphone there is: First Name, Last Name, Work Phone, Mobile Phone, Home Phone, Email, Work2 Phone, Home2Phone, CAtegories, PAger, CAr Phone, Work Fax, Home Fax, Assistant Phone, Radio Phone, Email2, Email3, Web Page, Custom RingTone, File As, Job Title, Department, Company, Street, City, State, Zip, Country, Home Street, City, State, Zip, Country, Other Street, City, State, Zip, Country, Notes, and Birthday.

Is there anything missing that you need? ;)

Will it support the multiple folders of contacts from Outlook. I've read about some problems with this. An organizer with just one huge folder of all contacts is not a good solution.

Multiple Folders of what? Email? Contacts? I think you can do folders in email, but not contacts. However, I'm not sure since I don't use them. I don't carry all my email with me. Just the last 7 days or so. If it's older than that, it can wait until I get back to my machine.

Also, if you go to the Audiovox website you don't get a good idea of what software for the PC comes with the phone. I've read Outlook 2002 comeswith it. Is that true?

What PC software? Outlook, and that's it.

I've also read that the synchronizer doesn't work with Outlook express.

Correct, you can only Sync email using Outlook. Other mail programs will not work. (There are some 3rd party tools to enable syncing other mail clients like Lotus Notes).


Hope that answers your questions. 8)

[Sven Johannsen]

The biggest issue you will need to come to grips with is all the contacts being in one big folder. At least those that you wish to sync, must be in the root. The management is done by categories. If you work them correcly they can actually be more powerful, as you can have an individual assigned to a company, as a friend, and possibly a relation all at once, where you would wind up with duplicates if you put that individual in folders. I think you will find the method used to access any particular contact is extremely efficient and compensates nicely for the flat file.

Yes the phone comes with Outlook, no it won't work with Express. You will likely want to move your desktop e-mail interface to Outlook as well to take advantage of the full PIM integration. Even if you don't retreive mail with the phone you can take advantage of syncing some mail to it, to reference in the field, as long as your mail service is a pop3 or imap account. (HTTP mail services can be retreived by Outlook, but they can't be sync'd)

There are very few fields in contacts in Outlook that aren't supported on the phone, including notes. It does not support any custom fields though. I can assure you, you will have significantly more options than on Palm Desktop.

Since this is a phone, with a phone keypad, please be aware that text entry at the phone is a bit challenging. It is of course possible.

P.S. Sounds like you knew it, but you can sync your Palm directly with Outlook using Chapura Pocket Mirror which likely came with your Palm. Chapura also makes a one time Palm Desktop to Outlook sync app, for those folks whose Palms died and they need to move all the data directly on the PC.

[staats]

*The biggest issue you will need to come to grips with is all the contacts being in one big folder. At least those that you wish to sync, must be in the root. The management is done by categories. If you work them correctly they can actually be more powerful, as you can have an individual assigned to a company, as a friend, and possibly a relation all at once, where you would wind up with duplicates if you put that individual in folders. I think you will find the method used to access any particular contact is extremely efficient and compensates nicely for the flat file.

Well this is part that I can't figure out. Since I can't get any decent documentation on this phone perhaps you can tell me how I can map my current folders into "categories" which don't exist in Outlook Express?

Do they exist in Outlook? If that is so then fine. I'm looking for the same organization on the phone and the PC.


*Since this is a phone, with a phone keypad, please be aware that text entry at the phone is a bit challenging. It is of course possible.

Agreed, I'm not looking for that. There are much better devices out there for this and I'm also not going to be surfing the web with this either. It looked to me as though if I approached this with limited goals they could be met very satisfactorily by this phone.

The organization of the contact list has me concerned. I really don't want to get this phone and contract and then go oh!

Thanks for the help

Bob

[staats]

Will it support the multiple folders of contacts from Outlook. I've read about some problems with this. An organizer with just one huge folder of all contacts is not a good solution.

Multiple Folders of what? Email? Contacts? I think you can do folders in email, but not contacts. However, I'm not sure since I don't use them. I don't carry all my email with me. Just the last 7 days or so. If it's older than that, it can wait until I get back to my machine.



Contacts. In Outlook express you can have folders of contacts. My Palm has contacts associated with a type (single only). I understand that organization on this device is by categories and since I'll be "upgrading" to Outlook which I've never used I'm wondering if it also organizes by categories which map directly on this device.

Thanks BOB

[Mike Temporale]

As Sven pointed out, you can't do folders for contacts. Categories is really the way to go with this. In Outlook, it's very easy to assign someone to a category. For the first time, you need to open a contact, and in the lower right hand corner there is a field for Category. Just type in the name and save it. Once you have a single contact in a category, you can just drag and drop other contacts into that category. :)

[staats]

Sounds like both of you are saying that Outlook can work either with folders or categories and in order for this to work with the SMT5600 it needs to be setup with all entries in the root folder and then I need to map my folder organization and "types?" from the Palm database into categories. After that I do everything by categories on the phone and PC.

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I wish this stuff was available online from Audiovox or even MS (easy enough to find) but here I got my answers in a couple of hours. Kudos! :)

Bob S.

[staats]

OH just one more thing.

Can I confiure the synch software on the PC to NOT make any attempt to synchronize email? I just don't need that mess. Email at home is fine for me.


Bob S.

[ARW]

OH just one more thing.

Can I confiure the synch software on the PC to NOT make any attempt to synchronize email? I just don't need that mess. Email at home is fine for me.


Bob S.

Yes you can, in Activesync. Go for the 5600 and Outlook, you'll be glad you did in short order.