Best of both

Posted on 14 Aug 2008 at 12:39

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Your PC and mobile phone are probably the two electronic devices you use the most. Why not get more from them by combining their capabilities?

Even if your mobile phone is fairly basic, there are all sorts of things it can do beyond making calls and texting. Almost any handset made in the last few years is likely to be able to play music, take and share photos, send and receive email and more. These are the kinds of things you probably also do on your PC, so it makes a lot of sense to get the two working together.

Most mobile handsets now come with software that makes it easy to control of many of the phone's features from your computer. Chances are you left the installation CD lingering in the bottom of the phone's box, which means you're missing out on all the extra functionality it could provide.

In this article, we'll show you the kinds of things you can do when you connect your phone to your PC. It's impossible to cover every handset specifically, but we'll look at capabilities that are common to three popular manufacturers: Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung. We used three handsets in our tests, varying in age and sophistication. The Samsung SGH-D600 is a 'fashion slider' with a modest set of features. The Sony Ericsson K610i is a basic 3G handset, and finally the Nokia N95 8GB is a powerful smartphone. Whatever phone you've got, it should have a fair amount in common with one of these.

Making a connection

It's generally wise to install any available phone software before connecting the handset to your PC for the first time. This ensures the correct drivers are ready and waiting for the device, rather than letting Windows guess what it should use, with predictably unpredictable consequences. Although the software should be included on a CD with the phone, it's usually best to download the latest version. Nokia's drivers are at tinyurl.com/5l689n, Sony Ericsson's at tinyurl.com/6b4aqp, and Samsung's at tinyurl.com/2q4xzb.

Install the software in the usual way, then connect your phone to the PC. You can do this with the appropriate USB cable (annoyingly not supplied with some cheaper phones, but available cheaply from online stores) or via Bluetooth, if both your phone and PC support it; but initially USB is the easiest and most foolproof option, since it doesn't require any setup.

Phones often display a choice of connection modes when attached via USB, inviting you to choose what you want to do next. For example, with a Sony Ericsson handset you can opt for Phone Mode or File Transfer. The former enables the supplied PC suite applications, while the latter shows your phone's storage as a memory drive, so you can drag files (such as MP3s or photos) to and from it in Windows Explorer or access it from ordinary applications.

Synchronising data

Chances are, the people you call or text from your mobile phone are the same ones you email or instant message from your PC. Synchronisation lets you copy contact information between handset and computer to keep the same information current on both. If you add a contact on your phone, then synchronise with the PC, the contact will be added to Windows Address Book. Similarly, create a contact within Windows, then synchronise with the handset, and the same details will be available on your phone.