Nokia E61 versus HTC Mogul: Mac Connectivity Test
Another in my comparison series, this time when connecting the device to a Macintosh to exchange data. I’m not going to touch on the PC side of things since they are more or less tied.
Disclaimer: I work for a competitor of both HTC and Microsoft in the smartphone space. That being said, my day job currently has nothing to do with smartphones. This is my own opinion.
Since the advent of Nokia Multimedia Transfer on my Mac, I can more easily sideload content to and from my Nokia device. I can also use the file browser to just get the files I need. There’s also iSync support for many of Nokia’s S60 Third Edition website.
If for some reason, I decide to hook up my Eseries or Nseries devices into a Linux box, a couple of keypresses makes them able to copy files to and from the device. Now I can get data off my phone no matter what OS I use.
But then there’s the HTC. You plug this thing into a Mac, it does nothing. Software to sync contacts and calendar is available, but its worse. There isn’t the equivalent of “Mass Storage” mode, either. This means the only way in and out of this device is over Infrared or by pulling the MicroSD card.
In terms of calendar and contacts, I am using the native ActiveSync client on the HTC Mogul and Mail for Exchange 2.0 on my Nokia E61 for over the air sync. Both do good with the inbox, but the mail client in the HTC Mogul allows me access to my entire folder structure in addition to just the inbox. I expect that Mail for Exchange will have this and other features in upcoming versions. I will dive into the Email client in a future post.
Clear winner here is the Nokia Nseries and Eseries devices. Mac users like myself whom want to sync their phone to their computer should probably avoid Windows Mobile-powered devices unless you’re willing to pay extra for the privilege.
