I could not help but have some good laughs when last week I had to assist a colleague to transfer data from his old Nokia 9210i to his newly acquired Nokia 9300i. To say the least, the difference is clear between the two Communicators. My colleague had been using the Nokia 9210i since year 2001 and was quite reluctant to replace the old and tired, but rugged phone. Apart from the Nokia 9210i Communicator, he is also using the Nokia 6230 and Samsung C200 phones.

The Old 9210i & The New 9300i Communicators

Before the advent of GPRS services by GSM operators in Nigeria, my colleague used to browse on his 9210i Communicator by using an Internet dial-up account he had with a local ISP specifically for the purpose of browsing on the Communicator. It was an expensive way of browsing bearing in mind that he had to pay per minute of browsing, but since he wanted to browse on his phone, that was the only option available to him then.

Now with GPRS services available, he had to switch to a GPRS-enabled phone. He finally made the switch last week to the Nokia 9300i, after a lot of persuasion from me. He told me that the reason it took him so long to change the phone was the fact that there was nothing wrong with the old Nokia 9210i except that it could not browse through GPRS. This is apart from the weird shape and size of the old Nokia 9210i Communicator.

Limited Connectivity in the Old Communicator
Now that the switch had been made to the 9300i Communicator, he needs to transfer his Contacts from the old phone to the new phone. This is where we ran into some serious problem. Apart from the Infrared port on the old Communicator, there is no other form of connectivity like Bluetooth, GPRS, Wi-Fi or USB (although there is a serial connection through the Pop-Port). In short, it was not possible to transfer his over 600 contacts from the old Nokia 9210i Communicator to the new Nokia 9300i Communicator. What saved the day was that the Contacts on the old Communicator were almost duplicated on his Nokia 6230. The transfer of Contacts between the Nokia 6230 and 9300i was easily done using the Synchronisation utility in the new Communicator. This was done after successfully paring the Nokia 6230 and Nokia 9300i Communicator through Bluetooth.

Always Insist on Bluetooth
What saved the day was the duplication of the Contacts on his Nokia 6230 and also the Bluetooth connectivity available on the two phones. The lesson here is “Never buy a phone without Bluetooth connectivity”. Even though you might think you do not need Bluetooth today, it will save you a lot of hassles in the future if your phone has Bluetooth connectivity. With the Bluetooth connection, you can always transfer Contacts, photos, sounds, etc between Bluetooth phones without much hassle.

The two Communicators (9210i & 9300i in Open Mode)