Nokia Tutorial: Send & receive text messages from your PC over bluetooth

Oh, and multimedia messages too!

Have you ever thought to yourself how awesome it would be to have your phone in the other room and still send/receive sms & mms messages directly from your PC? How about check your phone’s calendar & contacts, even modify all the entries without any wires using your computer’s full size keyboard? This is all possible with most Nokia smartphones and the PC software that comes with it.

I’ve been doing it for years with my Nokia E71 and most recently my N97 using Nokia PC Suite. That is not to be mistaken with Nokia Ovi Suite. See – Ovi Suite has this functionality but only while connected via usb cable – not bluetooth. This is one of the main reasons I continue using Nokia PC Suite, also known as Vanilla to some Nokia fanatics.

If you don’t have a Nokia smartphone, we still got you covered, though not as detailed. See the bottom of this article to get this functionality for iPhone, Android, & Windows Mobile.

Now back to the topic at hand.

First thing’s first – You need bluetooth on your PC

To make this work you must have bluetooth capabilities on your computer. Some high-end computers already have bluetooth built-in which makes it all so much more convenient to get this working.

But what if you don’t have bluetooth built-in?

Not to worry. I am in the same boat as you. I picked up a mini bluetooth usb adaptor from Amazon for about $13 shipped (I have Amazon Prime). In case you’re interested I purchased the IOGear USB 2.1 Bluetooth Micro Adapter which I can highly recommend. It’s built well and fits tightly into the usb port. It almost feels like it’s built-in to the side of my laptop.  It’s like a nub that barely sticks out. I don’t have to worry about it breaking off if carrying around my laptop and being a little wreckless. Now I can connect a bluetooth mouse, headphones, or whatever else I feel like connecting. With a range of up to 30 feet I can literally walk into another room and stay connected, as long as your other device’s bluetooth signal is strong enough.

Get connected with computer and PC Suite

Once you have the bluetooth capability squared away the rest is easy. If you don’t already have Nokia PC Suite (vanilla) you can get it from here. Whatever you do – DON’T let Nokia talk you into downloading Ovi Suite or you’ll lose the bluetooth sms capabilities. I feel that Nokia Ovi Suite is way too clunky and slow anyways.

Now that you have PC Suite installed follow the on-screen steps to connect your phone via bluetooth. The process is fairly simple, especially in Windows 7. You might need to download some drivers but Windows was able to find them immediately.

After that you’re good to go. You can use Nokia PC Suite to install apps, download your photos & video, communicate via sms/mms, backup your phone, tether your phone’s internet to your computer, browse files, and more. Just like you would if connected via usb cable.

Check out a few screenshots…

PC Suite for other mobile operating systems

I’m not experienced with other smartphone brands but I did find a program called PC Suite (same name) that gives you most of this functionality, I’m just not sure that it works over bluetooth. Maybe another TMF writer can review it for us. It works for iPhone, Android, & Windows Mobile. Check it out PC Suite here.

Leave a comment if you have a question or need some help.

Mike Macias has written 458 articles for The Mobile Fanatics.

Mike is the editor-in-chief of The Mobile Fanatics. Contact him via email or at his twitter page.

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