When I received my last (and current) phone, a Nokia 5800, I searched how to sync the built-in calendar with Google calendar. The solutions available were:
- Third-party software: You install a program in your phone, and give your Google account details to a third company. The company downloads the data from your Google calendar to another calendar, and then this calendar is synced withs your phone’s calendar. Usually you must sync manually, and with some limitations (if you want it for free). An example is GooSync. I’m not happy with giving my Google credentials to a company, and in addition to that, the synchronization process is not very straight for a free account.
- Sync via Nokia PC Suite: Sync you Google calendar with your computer calendar (e.g. Outlook), and the sync your computer calendar with your phone via PC Suite. Two issues: you need Windows to execute Nokia PC Suite, and you need to connect the phone to the computer.
An alternative was accessing the Google calendar via the phone’s web browser (as I pay a fixed amount for Internet access via 3G, it’s not a problem), but at that time Google calendar for mobile had very little features, and didn’t allow editing and creating events. Apart from that, it missed the possibility of alarms and integration with the other applications of the phone.
After giving up the possibility of syncing everything together and stopping using Google calendar for a long time, last week I did a great discovery when I tried to input “nokia google calendar sync” on the search box just for fun. Google has released a new set of ways to sync several mobile phones with their calendar (and in some cases, contacts also). You can find the instructions right here, for Nokia S60 devices, Blackberry, iPhone , Windows Mobile and others. In the case of Nokia, it uses the availability of synchronization with Exchange servers (via this software made by Nokia itself), and allows manual or automated syncs.
I’ve been playing with it, and it works like a charm. Finally, I can input all my events to remember using any PC, and have it reflected on my phone, and viceversa.