Own - Skin

These days, most of us live ane die by our mobile phones – our personal and business lives revolve around them; and yet technology moves so fast that our phones become outdated and are replaced so quickly. Luckily, the days when buying a new phone means that you have to laboriously re-enter all of your precious contact numbers are long gone.

There are a number of different ways that you can transfer contacts between your old and your new phone, including:

1. SIM CARD
The original and simplest way to port your contacts is via the SIM card. This system sells itself on the ease of use and the fact that it guarantees universal compatibility, but this simplicity also brings with it the inflexibility – the SIM card can hold just one name and one number per contact, and a typical limit the number of contacts it 250, so it is rapidly ending its tenure as a medium for the storage and transfer of contact information.

Advantages: Ultimate cross-device compatibility
Disadvantages: Limited capacity


2. BUSINESS CARDS VIA BLUETOOTH
Bluetooth connectivity allows data to be relayed between two phones within a range of about ten metres. All Bluetooth-enabled phones can send and receive contacts as vCard files, which allows you to transfer a complete contact to another phone with ease. Using the “Mark/Unmark” feature of your Nokia device, you can also send a batch of contacts at once – the phone still makes a separate transfer per contact, but provided the two devices are paired and set to automatically accept transmissions from each other, you can set things in motion and put the kettle on whilst the phones do most of the hard work – it’s as easy as Options>Send business card>Via Bluetooth. The down side is that the vCards go into the Received Files folder of an S40 phone or the Messaging inbox of a Symbian smartphone, you will need to individually save each contact transferred to your address book, so it still isn’t an ideal solution for large numbers of contacts.

Advantages: Quick and easy, wide compatibility, all contact information can be transferred
Disadvantages: Still laborious in the case of large numbers of contacts, bulk sending may not work correctly from a different brand of phone.


3. DEVICE-TO-DEVICE SYNC
Many Nokia phones have a Synchronisation or Switch feature which allows you to transfer personal data such as contacts between compatible devices. This is an effective method to transfer data, but unfortunately different versions used in different phones (depending on age and OS) mean that even two different Nokia devices might not be compatible for this method.

Advantages: Easy to use and almost entirely automatic
Disadvantages: Not a reliable cross-platform method

4. SERVER SYNCHRONISATION
A growing feature of the mobile internet is the ability to transfer your phone’s personal data with a remote server, which is not necessarily the ideal way to transfer between devices but gives the added functionality that you can recover your data wherever you are in the world as long as you have internet access through your phone, so if you lose your data (or even your entire phone) on a business trip abroad, you don’t have to wait to get home to recover it. An example of a server synchronisation service can be found at www.ovi.com

Avantages: Remote storage of data means you can use anywhere
Disadvantages: System still in its infancy for personal consumers

5. PC SYNCHRONISATION
Using Nokia PC Suite, N-Series PC Sutie or Ovi Suite you can synchronise your PIM (Personal Information Management) data with your PC (Outlook, Outlook Express, Vista Contacts, Lotus Notes etc.), allowing it to be subsequently transferred to another Nokia device. For Mac users, there is Apple’s iSync software which does the same thing, though whilst it makes transfer between different brands of phone possible it does not guarantee compatibility with all phones from any manufacturer.

Advantages: Any PC-connectivity-enabled Nokia phone is compatibile (PC only), cross-brand support (Mac only)
Disadvantages: Synchronisation software not always reliable


6. CONTENT COPIER
Using Nokia Content Copier from any of the three PC Suites mentioned above, you can copy all or a selection of personal data from your phone into a backup file that can be restored to your phone after a repair or update, or transferred to another compatible phone. This gives ultimate protection as almost all of your phone contents can be saved, but the big downside is that this method is no use to you if you are coming to Nokia from another brand. Wise users back up their phones with Content Copier regularly to ensure that nothing is lost if the phone is lost, stolen or broken. Me, I remember to do it now and again .

Advantages: All data can be backed up, and most data can be restored to most Nokia phones
Disadvantages: All of the big manufacturers have their own version, but they are not inter-compatible