Windows Vista vs. Motorola Phone Tools (using Razr V3m)
Written: Mar 07 '07 (Updated Apr 24 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to obtain, easy to install. Would be powerful if it worked.
Cons: Doesn't do nearly what it's advertised to do! Loads of work for small results.
The Bottom Line: If I could find another way to communicate with my phone I'd uninstall the program! VERY disappointing.
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| ltrain's Full Review: Motorola Mobile PhoneTools 4 for PC |
I'm not software technician, or even a computer expert but I hope to give a "real life" version of my experience with this program. I've spent a week working with it and I hope my time can be used to enhance your experience.
Technical Details
As I said, I'm no techno expert but here are the details as I know them. My software platform is Windows Vista 32 bit. My system is a brand new Dell Dimension E521 with 4200 dual processors and 2 gigs of ram. My cell phone is a Motorola V3M Razor (also new).
I bought Motorola Phone Tools from a local vendor and brought it home with great excitement. This product, made by a vendor called BVRP, claims to allow me to do a great deal of things with my Motorola phone, my PC, and a USB cable.
What is it supposed to do?
Using this software I'm supposed to be able to transfer data onto and off of my phone. I can move pictures and movies that were created on the phone to my PC. Also, I can create wallpapers for my phone and transfer them onto it.
Keeping my phone book, calender and my contacts in Outlook up to date with the cell phone is another feature of the software. Sync them up with a single keystroke!
Sending text messages and making calls through my phone is yet another feature the software boasts. Type texts like you'd type an email, click buttons to call people from the cell, the whole nine yards.
Best of all, I'm supposed to be able to use this program to chop my existing MP3 collection into ringtones and transfer them directly to my phone! No more paying for so-so ringtones, I can create exactly what I want!
Initial Installation
Installing the software was easy. Insert CD, run program, follow the wizard. Anyone could do that much with no problems at all.
First run: setting up my phone
When I ran the program the first time it asked me to hook my phone to the PC and that it would detect it and set it up. I hooked in and the program started a progress monitor...sort of. It was a clock with hands that spun round and round. This spinning went on for approximately 10 minutes before the software seemed to simply give up and go to the next step: no confirmation of success or warning of failure, just went to the next step.
At this point my phone is giving no indication of contact having been made at is still displays a message that says "unable to charge" (it's supposed to be able to charge through the USB port).
A cell on my desktop!
The next step for the program was to throw up a console for me to work from. This console is made to look just like a cell phone. Granted, a generic phone but a phone all the same.
Run the update program!
The CD I bought didn't have the newest build so when I ran the Update feature I was blessed with a download. I thought this may fix them other problems...boy was I wrong!!!
It still doesn't work!
Still, my phone couldn't be detected by the software. Windows Vista also didn't offer the drivers I needed to even charge the phone. At this point I'd had no success with either.
Help from the 'net
You'd think the makers of Phone Tools would have a pretty good support page, right? Not hardly! The manufacturer's site, www.bvrp.com/customers/motorola/ wasn't good for anything other than buying more software. Woo hoo!
After searching through many forums I stumbled across a user who offered a link to the drivers at http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/USB_Drivers/
How this user came across these drivers I'll never know but they worked to an extent.
As soon as these were installed I was able to hook up my phone via USB and start charging.
Retry Phone Tools
At this point I restarted Phone Tools hoping the new drivers would help. This time it was able to find my phone and allow me to upload images and download from the phone! Also, I was able to upload full MP3 songs to my phone with the software.
Edit ringtones - or not!
Next I tried to use the ringtone studio to create a few custom 'tones. I could edit the songs (after looking for another tutorial online...it's not intuitive at all) but when I'd try to save them the program had an error and wouldn't save in MP3 format! My only option was to save the ringtones in WAV format. The Razr V3M does not recognize WAV files so these were fully useless to me.
The bottom line:
I've spent a week working with my phone and this software and all I can do is transfer a few files as if my phone were a USB hard drive. Not even close to the results advertised for the product. I'm very disappointed and if I could find another product for my phone I'd uninstall Motorola Phone Tools completely.
Other reviews
If you find this review help please check out a couple of my others:
Motorola H500 Bluetooth vs. Motorola Razr V3m
Triple duty - A Razr V3m story
Motorola v810 is one tank of a cell phone!
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UPDATE 04-24-08
I'm dilligent about updating Windows as often as Microsoft allows. For all these months the updates had no effect on MPT or most of my other software. A few days ago I was forced to uninstall MPT and reinstall it. After the reinstall the programs automatic update features took it to a revision level that hadn't existed before even though I'd ran the auto updater each time I started the program. Now this piece of software connects right to my phone and allows me to transfer data nicely. I haven't yet tried the media studio or address book features but I wanted to pass on this new information as I felt it was an important add.
Recommended:
No
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