Susteen Datapilot Cell Phone Data Transfer Suite Universal Review

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(More customer reviews)I obtained this software in a kit that included the software on CD along with a cable for my phone (LG 1300, a model with no camera, but pretty much everything else).
The packaging for the kit I purchased is quite nice, however, the fancy chart incorporated into the packaging which gives phone compatibility is obviously dated, since my phone is not present on the list but is known to the software.
More interestingly, the CD in my package was blank (not defective, but actually blank!). That was a bit startling. Sending emails to the company (every email address on their web-site) produced absolutely no response. I didn't bother to call since the idea of spending hours trying to reach a customer or tech service by phone that wouldn't respond to email seemed pointless. Anyway, about 6 weeks later a replacement CD showed up in the mail, with no explanatory note.
Interestingly, the replacement CD I received has a label on it that says "if the serial # you have does not start with 'BJ' please replace the first 2 characters of your current serial # with 'BJ'". Evidently, they have had to send out a bunch of these.
I remain totally mystified as to why Susteen didn't acknowledge any one of my emails and simply send me a download site (you can buy the software on-line by download, I believe). I had a valid serial number after all.
As to the software. My install was for XP (SP2). The install was not clean (rejected the serial number, then took it on a second try). The install didn't call for reboot, but I couldn't get connection to my phone until I rebooted, a minor quibble. The software's autodetect feature did not work for my phone, even though it wasn't among the phones the software listed as being problemmatic. I was able to successfully connect by entering my phone id info manually, although connecting this way failed on my first try (which is why I rebooted).
The connection appears to be a USB-serial replacement patch for an earlier serial version of the software. Anyway, the install is actually a series of installs, one of which puts in a driver similar to those for USB-serial adapters, which may explain the somewhat flaky connection issues I experienced.
Once I achieved connection, I was able to upload/download my address info, including the stuff I already had on my phone, an important plus, since managing this was a primary motivation for wanting the software in the first place. Incidentally, this process also took two tries, even after I had successfully made connection. I can't address the issue of syncing with Outlook, since Outlook has caused me enough grief over the years that I long since gave up on trying to sync anything with it. I am interested in seeing if I can sync this software with my PDA, but suspect I will find it will need to be a manual process. Frankly, given the rather low price for the software, I'm just happy that it actually can deal with basic capabilities of my cell phone.
The interface for handling ring-tones (assuming your phone supports this) is impressive given the evident playback limitations of a cell phone. I imported a large midi file and easily dumped it to my phone. Don't expect to do anything complicated with the software (there are much better products, albeit expensive ones, that do this; e.g., Sibelius), but the software does nicely display a staff line for each track, you can change the instrumentation on each track, modify notes, set tempo, and it downloads a reasonable rendition according to what the phone can play back (I dumped a lengthy Bach fugue onto the phone ... I suppose a 3-minute ring tone is a bit excessive, but it gives you the idea).
If your phone has wallpaper background (as my phone does), the software provides an image editor. Just as with the music, you would probably be better off doing image work with another product. Given the very limited display capability of the phone, you can't show much of an image anyway, but I did test it by putting a neat little jpg file I had on hand as my new wallpaper. It certainly distinguishes my phone and is an improvement over the stuff put on the phone by my supplier (Cingular).
The software provides other facilities (calendar, text message management) that I have not tested because these are for features I don't use my phone for (and probably never will).
I can certainly recommend this software. You do need to have a USB cable compatible with your phone. If you are willing to poke around on the web, there are suppliers who provide them for most phones for as little as $10, otherwise do what I did and buy the kit. Perhaps it's because I've used a huge variety of software over the years, but in contrast to other reviewers I found the interface to be just fine. There is a nice pdf documentation file included with the software that provides a pretty complete hand-holding for those not inclined to decipher an interface by trial and error. So why only 3 stars? Well, if you encounter difficulty, it appears to me unlikely that you will get much help from this company. I also thought that the install was unusually clunky. On the other hand, once in, the software appears to be solid and delivers pretty much what I expected it to.

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Cell phone data transfer suite software with universal USB cable for Motorola Sony Eriksson Sanyo LG Nokia And Samsung.System Requirements:Pentimum 100 Mhz or higher CPU 32 MB Minimum RAM 60 MB of free HDD space 800X600 or higher resolution 256 colors or higher USB prot CD-ROM drive.Format: WIN 98ME2000XP Genre:BUSINESS / FINANCE UPC:739234007799 Manufacturer No:DP300-X01

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