I'm thinking about switching from Symbian to WP7 and I need some help!!

[netkodrugi]

Hello everyone, I'm new here and new in Windows Phone world at all so please be gently with me

Anyway, I am seriously thinking about switching from Symbian to WP7 although it lacks some advantage features that I'm using frequently, but again, I like the Ui and facebook integration and I would like to give it a try..

The first thing I would like to know is the contact syncing. You see I have couple hundreds of contacts im my current phone and most of them having multiple entries and are represented with appropriate photo so I’m curious if I’ll be able to somehow move all these contacts to my future WP phone!? I don’t want to lose numbers, mails or thumbnail photos !?

Also, as far as I know when you add facebook account to people hub, it automatically snyc the phonebook with my facebook friends which is cool feature unless you have couple of hundred of friends that you really don’t want to see in your phone book!? On Symbian it is quite simple to link existing contacts to their facebook profiles but I am not sure if it is possible to do the same on WP devices!? So for example I have not more than 50 contacts that are also my friends on facebook and I’m curious if I’ll be able to limit people hub to sync information only with these people!?

Another question, since my phone will be tied in to facebook, will I still receive notifications on facebook.com if my phone is constantly being updated from facebook? The same problem is with the picture tab, I really don’t want to see it filled with photos of 500 people from my facebook account?

Sorry for my English and 10X in advance

 

[Averry]

If you have a Windows Live account...like a hotmail, Live, or MSN email account..you can go in there and start managing all of your contacts ahead of time.

 

[Fleon]

Hello everyone, I'm new here and new in Windows Phone world at all so please be gently with me

Anyway, I am seriously thinking about switching from Symbian to WP7 although it lacks some advantage features that I'm using frequently, but again, I like the Ui and facebook integration and I would like to give it a try..

The first thing I would like to know is the contact syncing. You see I have couple hundreds of contacts im my current phone and most of them having multiple entries and are represented with appropriate photo so I?m curious if I?ll be able to somehow move all these contacts to my future WP phone!? I don?t want to lose numbers, mails or thumbnail photos !?

Also, as far as I know when you add facebook account to people hub, it automatically snyc the phonebook with my facebook friends which is cool feature unless you have couple of hundred of friends that you really don?t want to see in your phone book!? On Symbian it is quite simple to link existing contacts to their facebook profiles but I am not sure if it is possible to do the same on WP devices!? So for example I have not more than 50 contacts that are also my friends on facebook and I?m curious if I?ll be able to limit people hub to sync information only with these people!?

Another question, since my phone will be tied in to facebook, will I still receive notifications on facebook.com if my phone is constantly being updated from facebook? The same problem is with the picture tab, I really don?t want to see it filled with photos of 500 people from my facebook account?

Sorry for my English and 10X in advance

Will your Symbian phone sync to something else? Gmail/Hotmail/Exchange? If so, you can sync your contacts there and sync then back to your phone when you get a WP7 device. Basically, you are limited by what your symbian phone will do. I can't comment because I've never owned one.

For Facebook syncing, there's an option to turn off the contact list sync if you don't want FB to populate that list. I don't think you can pick and chose which contacts, however. I was concerned about this as well, but I ended up syncing the whole list to contacts and realized it actually works just fine. I never actually look up anyone to call anymore- I just use voice dialing or pin my favorites to the start screen.

You'll still get your facebook.com notifications, don't worry.

The complaint about the people hub getting filled with facebook content is usually just from people who don't actually have a WP7 device. You don't see any of the random facebook stuff unless you manually swipe over to that section. So if you want to see all the latest pictures, swipe. If you don't, just don't swipe and you only see just your own stuff.

 

[netkodrugi]

Will your Symbian phone sync to something else? Gmail/Hotmail/Exchange? If so, you can sync your contacts there and sync then back to your phone when you get a WP7 device. Basically, you are limited by what your symbian phone will do. I can't comment because I've never owned one.

That shouldn?t be an issue as I can sync contacts with most of available services, I can also export them as vcf cards and than import in outlook altogether with pictures and I guess than I can easily sync my outlook address book with Windows phone?! Or I am wrong!?

For Facebook syncing, there's an option to turn off the contact list sync if you don't want FB to populate that list. I don't think you can pick and chose which contacts, however.

I also read somewhere that it is possible to add facebook info only to existing contacts!? But I am curious how it works!? For example if I have Mr. Xxx yyyyyy in my phone book but his name on facebook is xxx zzz yyyyyy how phone will manage to recognaize it is the same person if there is no option to link it manually. Also, if I for example I have Ms Catherine Zeta Jones in my phone book, and then I add my facebook account that also contains friend with the name Catherine Zeta-Jones will I get duplicated contacts in people hub or p?hone will attempt to merge them? This is quite confusing really, I think that microsft can do thi much better, if nothing else why not bring an option to only sync people hub with certain group of friends on facebook. I have VIP group with 20 friends on list and that?s basically I all need to sync and to see in my phone book.

I was concerned about this as well, but I ended up syncing the whole list to contacts and realized it actually works just fine. I never actually look up anyone to call anymore- I just use voice dialing or pin my favourites to the start screen.

Well yes but if you have already 500 contacts in outlook that you need to sync with the phone and then after adding the facebook the address book will get another 500 contacts and I really don?t like idea of searching through one thousands contacts to find the certain person, especially considering that windows phone lacks the sorting people into groups and defining the favourite contacts that will be over on the top. Ok, there is recent list but that?s not really what I am looking for.

As a matter of fact I think that phone functionality of WP OS isn?t as great as the rest of the OS. I also hear that it is impossible to add custom ringtones to contacts or even groups of people!? There is not even speed dialing option?!

I just use voice dialing or pin my favourites to the start screen.

Not a huge fan of any kind of voice commands!

The complaint about the people hub getting filled with facebook content is usually just from people who don't actually have a WP7 device. You don't see any of the random facebook stuff unless you manually swipe over to that section. So if you want to see all the latest pictures, swipe. If you don't, just don't swipe and you only see just your own stuff.

Yes but it will still eat my battery and bandwidth to sync photos and statues that I will never look at!? Comon Microsoft?! You can do this much better!!!

 

[netkodrugi]

Anyone?!

 

[kevynpm]

For linking contacts, the phone will try to automatically do this if it can match up the names... if not, you can manually link contacts VERY easily from the phone. Once you link contacts together, you'll have no duplicates. It's actually very well done and easy to use.

Worried about a long list of contacts? What you might want to do is go ahead and import the contacts you care about into your Windows Live account at live.com. Then when you get your WP7 phone, use the "Only sync Facebook info to existing contacts" (or however it is worded) option, so that only those Windows Live contacts you care about will populate your People hub. BTW, it's super easy to fly through an incredibly long list thanks to the Jump List feature. In the People hub, your contacts are organized alphabetically by name, with little dividers between A, B, C, etc. Tap one of the those letters, and the jump list appears, showing all letters. Tap a letter and you jump directly to that position in the list.

Also, you mentioned syncing your existing phone contacts to Outlook.... you can download the Outlook Hotmail Connector to sync your local Outlook up to Windows Live. That will let you get those contacts over to Live quickly and easily.

 

[dtboos]

You can choose to only sync people's facebook profiles with contacts you already have if you like.

And the facebook "feeds" don't update until you navigate to the pages associated with it, so it does NOT eat your battery. It updates when and only when you go to the page.

Speed dialing and custom ringtones are not built in. You can pin people to your home page, or use a "speed dial" app which puts frequent callers inside, but these are features that will come in time. The OS is brand new.

 

[netkodrugi]

Problems again

You see, I'm expeticng to get mmy HD7 tomorrow and I wantt o be ready once when it arrives and of course the first thing I'm planing to load on it is my phone book. So I started as you suggested and synced my phone book with outlook in a minute (i want such featueron WP7 devices as well). The 2nd step is installing the Hotmail Connector that provides an option to sync contacts from Outlook to live.com. I briefly tested it and it indeed works fine and and I can eaisly choose which contacts to sync but the problem is that it dosen't sync contact photo? I have 500 contacts of which 478 are represented with appropiate photo and I really need a simple solution to sync my contacts with all details inclouding photos!

 

[dtboos]

Not sure about the outlook sync. I sync'd all my contacts to my email account directly, and the photos went with them. Maybe there is a setting in sync manager to sync photos also? If not, try to do directly from phone to your hotmail/live account.