bluetooth cell phone + windows= magic!
December 27, 2005 12:56 AM 
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I need help syncing my cell phone with my computer, or suggestions for a website that can help me.
I have a Motorola v505 phone, formerly with AT&T wireless, now with Cingular. It's been retired (probably because it was an AT&T phone), but is essentially identical to the current v551 but without video. The phone has bluetooth. I use windows XP.
I want to get my photos taken with the cell phone camera off of my phone. Emailing them all to myself is impractical becuse I have a lot of pictures and because cingular requires a special plan addition to email from the phone. I don't need to sync my contacts or anything else; just photos.
I have a friend with the v551 and a mac. He says that he can use a usb bluetooth dongle with his mac and the phone shows up as an external drive. I have no idea if this will work with windows, though. The motorola website makes it really hard to find this kind of accessory (or anything useful at all), but the last time I hunted the right software+bluetooth dongle package down, it was like 80 dollars. Generic bluetooth dongles only cost 30 bucks, which is the about the upper limit of what I want to spend on this. The "Phonetools" software alone is like 40 bucks, and does way more than I need.
Off brand cables found at Fry's also require software that frankly looks a little suspect. I've found the phonetools software for download, but it isn't really what I want and I still need a cable (which is cleverly hidden on the motorola website).
What I'm thinking might work is this: buy a generic usb bluetooth dongle, get phone near said dongle while plugged into computer and hope for magic mac-like happenings. However, I haven't found any indication that this will work, and searching for good cell phone websites is frustrating and full of portuguese ringtone sites.
Can anyone tell me if there is an easy way to make this all work out, or suggest a good topical forum where I can ask this question? I've had this phone for a year, and I really want my pictures. I've tried to make this all as clear as possible and anticipate questions because it's pretty specific, but I'll be happy to clarify if necessary.
posted by MadamM to technology (5 comments total)
When you connect the dongle, there's a bluetooth icon in the system tray. You right click and set it up to communicate with the phone, then once it's connected, you can either "send files" or "receive files". I used the "send files" option to upload games and ringtones to the phone.
What I can't tell you for sure is whether or not the "receive files" will let you download pictures, as I don't ever recall actually doing that. But what I *do* know is that the generic dongles work with the bluetooth enabled motorola phonetools, so you should at least be able to use that software in conjunction with the generic dongle to download the pics.
If you want secondary confirmation, i'd recommend asking at howardforums - the people there can easily answer the question.
posted by helios at 1:31 AM on December 27, 2005