Nokia OVI Suite 2.0 – Ultimate Guide

For long Nokia had been bundling PC Suite with their smart phones for one click operations to sync contacts and data between the phone and Pc . Slowly and gradually the PC Suite evolved from data sync to include Music and Video Sync and now it has given way to Nokia OVI Suite  , v2 of which has just graduated from Nokia Beta Labs .

 

Nokia OVI Suite comes as a packaged suite of applications containing Contacts Sync , Messaging Sync , Photo Sync and Music Sync beside offering Internet connectivity through cellphone and shortcuts to OVI Store. The dowload size is of 88.3 mb

Once you have installed the OVI Suite ,   first you have to connect your phone . Plugin your phone through Nokia Connectivity Cable ,  Go to Tools and click add new device .  Choose the USB Cable ,  you can also choose Bluetooth if your phone is connected through it , and click next , OVI Suite will recognize your phone and install support software on the phone , click Next and choose what you’d like to sync with the phone , I chose all the options i.e Contacts , Photos and Messages .  As I’m using Win 7 ,  as soon as the phone is connected , WIN 7 will also start it’s driver installation for the phone and download some files off the internet to recognize the phone , it’s a one time installation and next time it will recognize the phone immediately.

Once you click Finish , OVI Suite will start syncing your contacts , messaging , photos and music .  The speed of sync depends on the data you are syncing , my 1330 contacts took a couple of min to sync .

 

In the options menu, you can also define how you want to sync the options include data from phone to get stored in OVI suite and does not sync with Microsoft Outlook ,  or data from Phone and Outlook gets synced with OVI Suite acting as a bridge between the two . Once synced , the contacts can be rearranged in groups , edited added  or deleted from the Contacts  menu

 

In photos menu , the photos on the phone gets synced with the PC and opens a folder of that particular month in Pictures Folder of Win 7 where it copies all the images from the mobile , a great improvement from PC Suite which used to make date wise folders and within a few months the number of folders could reach more than 100 , now it’s more organized.  The photos can also be organzied in folders in OVI Suite and can easily be uploaded to OVI Share ( still not usable in Pakistan )

 

In the Messaging option , Nokia has borrowed the Threaded Messaging from iPhone , still to come on phones ( N900 has it ) the threaded messaging on Nokia OVI Suite creates the timeline of conversation with a a particular contact , a useful tool in seeing how the conversation started and what was said . 

The Music Menu , syncs Windows Music Folder by default  ( or any predefined folder) with the phone but unlike iTunes , you cannot choose which tracks off the folder you want to sync so pretty much everything gets transferred to the phone unless you delete it off the OVI Suite Music menu .

 

Maps is another useful addition which not only helps in adding mapping data like City Maps to the phone but also connects you to the Maps on OVI website

Othe sync options include Bookmart syncing with Firefox and Internet Explorer , Calendar and Notes Syncing between Outlook and Phone

                   

OVI Suite also acts as the Tethering bridge between the phone and PC and offers one click function to connect your pc to the net through the phone data connection .

The setup is very simple ,  Go to Tools , click on Connect to the Internet , choose your service provider , Nokia has an extensive database of service provider settings but still some are missing but  chances are you will find the settings in the OVI Suite 2 , like in Pakistan it covers 4 major networks but not Zong , the China Mobile startup although it’s been around for a couple of years . If you can’t find your provider , you can always enter the settings manually . Click Connect and you are all connected to the internet . You can also see your data usage on the bottom right side column of the Nokia OVI Suite 2

My Thoughts on OVI Suite

OVI Suite does what it advertised but it still lacks some refinements , it asks for OVI login to be fully operational , yet it does not sync contacts with the Contacts on OVI cloud , I would like to have more control over which tracks I want to sync .

In Messaging , I can send message to multiple recipients but the method of select a contact , click on add another recipient , choose and repeat is  very cumbersome , can’t I select the contacts in one go and add one or more as I desire .  Addition of MMS from the PC will be a much needed feature , I can send my pics /  media straight from my PC

OVI Mail could be added to the suite with offline access

Addition of Mapping data is good but when Syncing mapping data between the phone and maps on OVI account will be  a good addition , beside launching of Maps on OVI instead of a browser could be done within the suite

OVI Store has a shortcut on the software , can it be managed from within the Suite

Nokia think about making OVI Suite more productive and usable , take the cues from iTunes which acts as one single platform unlike the OVI Suite .