Mobile Phone Tools

Serious road warriors are expecting their cell phones to serve more as mini PCs, so the most advanced handsets really deserve to be linked directly to your laptop or desktop. BVRP Software’s excellent, if clunky, Mobile Phone Tools suite is a combination hardware and software solution that not only manages contact and calendar synchronization between phone and PC, but also converts audio, image, and video material into phone-compatible media. It can even turn your cell into a modem for your laptop.

You order the package with a connector specific to your phone model, and needless to say, the tools only work with recent models built for PC-to-phone connectivity (check the BVRP site for compatible models). The phone-like interface automatically detects your phone’s manufacturer and model and easily transfers contact and calendar info to the phone. A full-blown multimedia studio manages images, movies, and ringtones.

In our tests, the software was exemplary in converting most AVI and MPEG movies into phone format, MP3s into ringtones, and digital images into wallpapers. Pretty much anything on your PC can be down-converted into phone material, and the transfers were effortless. It was a joy to finally have our home desktop calendar with alerts on our cell phone, and the good synching tools can push new appointments we record on our phone calendar back to our desktop Outlook.

For road warriors who have not yet invested in a cellular PC Card modem, Phone Tools can be used as a link to the Internet. The software turns your phone into a modem for your notebook using a supplied USB cable, and pulls down new e-mail, brings up Web pages, and even sends SMS messages via your cell link. Browsing the Web proved tricky in our tests, so be sure to check in detail with BVRP to ensure your phone and service type is compatible with the software.

Phone Tools suffers from very cursory online instructions, and getting the software to find the phone initially took several tries at navigating both Windows XP and Phone Tools. Nevertheless, BVRP’s solution to the phone-to-PC link is about as good as we can expect for the time being.