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Anybody able to sync the P800 with Outlook XP? |
Cunning Man
Joined: Dec 18, 2002
Posts: 40
PM |
Problems with The New PC Suite - Synchronization Works Only Partly
I was delighted to hear about the new PC Suite version last Friday, and rushed home to download and install it that day. In fact, I reformatted my hard drive, installed a fresh copy of Windows XP and Office XP, went to Windowsupdate and downloaded all the updates possible - for Windows as well as Office XP (yes, even the latest update for Outlook 2002) - before installing the new version of PC Suite for the P800 (downloaded off the SE website).
All excited, I set up the synchronization settings (making sure to point syncing to the right Outlook folders), allowed access to Outlook when the window came up, and waited...
At first, I was elated - for the first time since I bought the P800, the "Synchronization in progress" window actually had changes! It was so nice to actually see the progress bars move (from "Initializing", to "Analyzing", etc) and then that nice little window saying Synchronization was completed.
I looked at the contents of my P800 and Outlook... At first it seemed that everything had been synchronized... but unfortunately this was not so!
RANDOM, INCOMPLETE SYNCHRONIZATION
Approximately 1 in 5 of my contacts/events/notes are not synchronized. Even more troubling is that some new entries in Outlook are not only not synchronized over to the P800, but worse, are deleted from Outlook!
The annoying thing is that, at least after the last 2 days of playing around with different settings, it appears to be totally random with regards to which one of the contacts or events or notes are not synchronized. Very very worrying indeed. A problem of this nature is going to worry a lot of potential purchasers, who like myself, was hoping for the P800 to be the reason I could retire my PDA+cellphone combination.
Before all the P800 fanboys start flaming me - firstly, I have to say I am happy Sony Ericsson have come out with a new version of the PC Suite software. However, I hope that anyone who has problems with this version will also send emails to SE to let them know that we will need another iteration. Or maybe they need to hire some new engineers. I don't recall so many synchronization problems with even the first versions of my Palms/Treos/Pocket PCs.
Maybe SE just haven't tested their software in "real world" environments of PDA users. I will readily admit that I am perhaps a rather heavy user of Outlook (I have almost 4000 contacts, and currently about 8000 calendar items and notes), but these have never been a problem for my Palms or Pocket PCs.
Aside from the faulty partial synchronization of data, the process is also extremely slow. For example, it takes on average about 1 minute for my Palm to synchronize with Outlook. It's been taking my P800 about 15 - 20 minutes to (partially) synchronize! Definitely not suitable for use in office situations - there's no way I could hang around waiting for 20 minutes if I have to rush out for a meeting.
Other faults that have been noted before: Non-syncing of Outlook recurring-all-day items, too few phone number fields in the P800 and the inability to map the ones that are available, "Out of system resources" message with Outlook crashes intermittently...
In conclusion, I am really hoping SE get their act together soon regarding synchronization, or they will not make a dent in the lucrative enterprise market - who will continue to use Palms/RIM devices. This latter population have no use for the camera, and really just want a mobile phone with stable, heavy duty PDA functionality, and as these P800 faults become known, will naturally gravitate towards the new Blackberrys mobile phones, or Treos (new version out in mid-year) or the upcoming Palm Tungsten W (although the latter lacks a mike/speaker in the device body), or if they are more adventurous, the new Kyocera or Samsung phones with the Palm OS. Some might even go with the Pocket PC phones (XDA, SPV etc) until they realize these are far too slow...
I am sure there are some of you with a troubleshooter's bent who might want to offer some suggestions as to how I might be doing something wrong; please post your ideas here! Here is my current setup:
- IBM ThinkPad T20 (with latest BIOS update)
- 512 Mb RAM (I just spent US$200 on Saturday to upgrade it from 256 Mb because I thought that it might make a difference...)
- 60 Gb Hard Drive (with over 30Gb free)
- Windows XP SP1 (and every update on the MS website)
- Office 2002 (and every update on the MS website)
- The latest version of Sony Ericsson's PC Suite software (downloaded on Saturday January 25, 2003)
- No other software on the notebook (all above was freshly installed on Friday)
- Synchronization using the standard USB cradle (file transfers etc ok)
Many thanks in advance for any ideas as to how to get synchronization to work properly. Although my guess is that it will take an even newer version of PC Suite.
Best regards,
C
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float
Joined: Feb 22, 2002
Posts: 173
From: Malaysia lah
PM, WWW
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Finally i got it to work, just by upgrading the PC Suite software (1.1.1). It works flawlessly for all items, tested with some minor changes and it's sync'ed correctly.
I did a force full sync the first time (phone->pc) for the fear of duplicates contacts. Email sync was not working correctly the first time but okay since.
Now, my only few complains are:
1. Category not sync'ed
2. Picture not sync'ed
3. I've to acknowledge 'allow access' on outlook everytime the sync process started (as in XTNDConnect, i thought it could be better this time)
/floAt |
xerx
Joined: Jul 31, 2002
Posts: 375
From: New York City
PM |
how come i can't install pc suite via WinXP home? the add hardware thing cannot find the software??? | |
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Access the forum with a mobile phone via esato.mobi
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Posted: 2003-01-27 05:08
