Mobile Phones that Sync w/ PIM Software?

Burianski11 asks: "After searching for a phone that syncs with my PIM for a few months now, I'm stumped. I've seen phones that sync with Exchange Server and others whose web-based phone book will sync with a web-based PIM (Sprint has this). Are there any phones out there that will sync easily with PIM software, be it Outlook, Evolution, or something else?"

Comments

iSync

[cei]

Sure, iSync, part of recent versions of OS X, syncs my Nokia 3650 with iCal and Apple's Address Book via Bluetooth.

Re:iSync

[Mark Hood]

And Apple very kindly provide an up-to-date list of all supported phones.

Re:iSync

[AKnightCowboy]

And Apple very kindly provide an up-to-date list of all supported phones.

Which lists hardly any phones really. They only support a handful of phones from a handful of companies like Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola. What about Samsung, Sanyo, etc.? My Sanyo 4900 SprintPCS phone can connect just fine via USB and I can use it to connect to the Internet, but I can't sink my stupid address book via iSync?? Sanyos are probably the most popular Sprint phones for good reception and yet Apple ignores them. Weird. Granted, Sprint doesn't have any bluetooth phones, but I don't mind plugging in a usb cable to sync my phone.

Re:iSync

[RustyTaco]

Bitch at Sanyo for not providing an iSync conduit for their skrewy sync protocol. iSync supports SyncML, which is what most of those phones use. Thus they get support by supporting the standard. If you want to sync a Palm device you need to install the Palm Desktop to get the Palm iSync conduit.

Sprint has never been big on the "let the users do it themselves" mentality, prefering to see more along the lines of "If we don't force our way in the middle how can we charge them for it?" vis a vis "Picture mail" that requires you to go to their little web/wap page to look at pictures and insists that you download single, 15k jpgs in zip files instead of just signing and MMS transport agreement with other carriers. Incomming SMS was the same way until this morning, except that the web app didn't work from Trio 300s.

- RustyTaco

Handspring Treo

[Lenolium]

I have a Treo 270, it runs Palm OS. They pretty well have most of the syncing problem taken care of. I don't know what more you could ask, the thing is basically perfect (for those of us who like fliphones, and don't mind having a crappy browser). The builtin directory dials quickly, and it works really well for instant messaging with the thumboard being suprisingly usable for quite a bit of typing. Overall, I'd give it a 9/10, just because the web browser ain't too hot.

Re:Handspring Treo

[Rick the Red]

Of course, the Pocket PC Phone Edition also syncs with Outlook. My wife has one and she loves it. When you hold it up to your head it's a clunky phone and you can't take notes or look something up, but with the hands-free earbuds it becomes a PDA that also does phonecalls; you click on a phone number in Contacts and it dials it. Pretty slick.

Try Treo 600

[simonyau]

You may try Treo 600, it can sync with Outlook

http://www.handspring.com/products/communicators/t reo600_overview.jhtml

SonyEricsson P800/P900

[simonyau]

SonyEricsson P800 and P900 can also sync with MS Outlook/Lotus Notes/Lotus Organizer, according to SonyEricsson's website.

Most Symbian-based phones does this, don't they?

[dk.r*nger]

The 3650 does, anyway ..

The PC Suite provides "Syncronize", and SyncML "enables you to synchronize your calendar or contacts using a data connection to a remote server"

Isync Equivalent/SyncML for Windows? OSS??

[tigersha]

I would like to add and expand to the question because I have exactly the same problem. Everyone always repeats the isync mantra.

Howeever, the reality is that I (and I suspect the poster) do not have a Mac. So is there an equivalent for Windows? In particular a program that speaks syncml, that runs on windows, over bluetooth and syncs with Mozilla's address book?

On Linux?

Gnokii

[jhoger]

Try the gnokii project for software which can talk to the cell phone.

Then you just need to write some short script to convert your PIM software database to a form gnokii likes. Shouldn't be too hard. And probably someone has already done it.

BitPim

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you mentioned Sprint I assume you are in the USA. You can also get BitPim which works with LG CDMA phones (Verizon) and Sanyo CDMA phones (Sprint) as well as the embedded filesystems of other CDMA phones. It is available for Windows, Linux and Mac and is open source (Artistic License).

The version number is currently 0.7 for the "test" version which about accurately reflects its functionality (as with many open source projects, various things are incomplete :-)

It is also often in the top 100 projects on SourceForge and hence is somewhat lively.

Re:same boat... Try this

[mkop]

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/finder.php Seems to be able to find anything and maybe will stop more posts like this

Multisync

[DocSnyder]

I'm using Multisync with my Siemens S55 (connected via Bluetooth). Via IrMC, it can sync mobile phones via IrDA, Bluetooth or serial cables. Providers for SyncML, Evolution, OPIE (Sharp Zaurus or HP iPAQ running GNU/Linux), WinCE, LDAP, Palm and Backup exist as well.

Re:Mobile Phones that Sync w/ PIM Software?

[yelvington]

Yah, it's not like technology CHANGES or anything.

Just make sure phone follows the SyncML standard

[illegalien]

Make sure you purchase a phone that follows the SyncML standard (which is what Apple iSync uses) and you'll be able to get the phone to sync with many popular PIMs (if the PIMs don't support SyncML yet, they probably will soon). I sync my SonyEricsson T616 on a Linux box running Mandrake (Cooker) with Evolution 1.4.5 using Multisync .81 via Bluetooth. Things pretty much work 'out of the box' as far as syncing goes, but it's definately not as smooth a process as when I sync the T616 with my iBook. Additionally, I use Multisync to sync my Sharp Zaurus with Evolution also.

P.S. not tryin to brag, just noting that all this stuff does work 'easily enough'.

Multisync supports many devices including phones

[BigJim.fr]

MultiSync is a free modular program to synchronize calendars, addressbooks and other PIM data between programs on your computer and other computers, mobile devices, PDAs or cell phones. MultiSync works on any Gnome platform, such as Linux.

Currently MultiSync has plugins for

• Ximian Evolution synchronization, supporting calendar, ToDos and contacts.
• IrMC Mobile Client synchronization (supported by e.g. SonyEricsson T68i/T610/Z600, Siemens S55 phones etc.) via Bluetooth or IR on Linux, or cable connection.
• Windows CE / Pocket PC synchronization. This plugin is part of the SynCE project, and can be downloaded there.
• Opie and Zaurus synchronization.
• SyncML support (supported by e.g. SonyEricsson P800/P900 and many other phones and devices, for example the SyncML server Sync4j). SyncML also allows you to do remote connection of two MultiSync programs via an encrypted connection over the net.
• Palm synchronization.
• LDAP synchronization.
• Backup of your PIM data.

More detail about Multisync supported devices