Despite the lackluster reviews I’ve been very happy with Verizon’s Chocolate phone (LG VX8500) since I picked it up back in August. I haven’t had the trouble others seem to have with things such as using the touch sensitive ‘buttons’.
One major gripe I immediately had was that despite my purchase of the ‘music’ package (complete with headphones, a cd of drivers and a USB cable) I wasn’t able to transfer pictures or ringtones to and from the phone.
The problem is that Verizon didn’t provide any software with controls for interfacing with the phone. They only provided drivers and instructions with how to use Media Player or Yahoo and the like to transfer tracks to your phone.
BitPim
After a bit of searching around I stumbled across a great piece of software called BitPim which takes care of that problem and more.
When I first downloaded it, the software didn’t have the LG VX8500 phone as a selection which required me to pick a near miss and reconfig the connection settings.
The resulting hack left several of the core BitPim features unavailable but enough to still remain tremendously useful.
Fortunately for Chocolate owners there is a new version of BitPim (0.9.08) which has the LG-VX8500 as a selection. You can now download and upload data to your heart’s content, including:
- Phonebook
- MP3s
- Video
- Pictures
- Midi
- Ringtones
- Calendar
- Memos
- SMS
- Call History
- and more
Getting Started
Provided you have a USB cable which allows you to connect to your phone, getting up and running is easy. Follow these simple steps and you’ll be transferring content in no time.
- Install the USB drivers for your phone. Download the Win2k drivers here
- Connect the phone to your PC using the USB cable
- Windows will attempt to install the drivers (point it to your drivers’ location)
- Download BitPim
- Configure your BitPim connection settings and select “LG-VX8500″ as your Phone Type
- Once you’ve connected to your phone with BitPim, download the existing data from your phone
Voila, you can now move data to and from your phone - have fun and thanks BitPim!