Motorola V220 phone and downloading photos

[Theodoric]

My wife has had a Motorola V220 phone for Xmas, but I'm after advice on downloading photos to my PC. After what seems like days of Internet searching and dealing with Motorola I have accumulated the following info.

1) There is a USB port on the phone, but absolutely no mention of it in the manual or on the Motorola site (there are a few general mentions, but nothing specific to the V220).

2) Dozens of other people who have bought the phone are also totally in the dark about how to download photos from the V220.

3) There is a piece of software called p2kman which may or may not solve my problem; I have managed to get hold of a copy and downloaded it.

4) Emailing Motorola directly finally got them to tell me that what I need is Motorola PC220 USB Data Cable with PhoneTools V3 Software. It seems to be available from various companies for about £20.

5) Further searching found a piece of software called Fone Data Suite USB Motorola (MA-8870) that was available for about £16.

Now, as it is free, and as I already have a suitable USB cable, I'm leaning towards p2kman. However, I'm a bit uncertain about it since:
a) There's no support.
b) Reading the manual, and various posts, suggests that getting it to work on XP may be complicated. (Suggestions about various Registry changes being needed tend to put me off).
c) It is installed as a Modem (possibly on Com 3) which suggests unlimited possibilities for hardware conflicts and generally messing up my PC.

So, has anyone had any experience of using p2kman and what would they recommend about trying to use it?

If I go for buying some software, has anyone any recommendations on this MA-8870 software, as opposed to the Motorola product.

And now a couple of whinges.

1) Am I being unfair on Motorola, or are they really a bunch of unhelpful, money-grubbing so and so's.

2) In the past, whenever I have bought a printer, scanner or camera, it has come with a USB cable and the necessary software. Are Motorola trying to screw the last penny out of we suckers, or is this standard behaviour for all phone manufacturers?

[Richard M]

I would have thought you'd get the USB cable with the phone, I had one with my V3.
It does make life easy though because you can carry the cable around with you and charge it from any PC with a USB port.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Richard M

I would have thought you'd get the USB cable with the phone, I had one with my V3.
It does make life easy though because you can carry the cable around with you and charge it from any PC with a USB port.

I'm finding my V3 won't charge unless the motorola software is installed on the PC

Theo, most printers these days do not come with cables, although motorola charinging $50 for a USB cable and then extra for the software is definitely a rip off!

[TigaSefi]

u need mobile phonetools on any computer for the V3 to be charged from the usb port. And yes u also need a usb cable for £20 to be able to download from v220, I have a v300 and I brought one (till my dad blew it up)

[Richard M]

I didn't know that, I assumed it would from any PC because Phonetools is not running when I charge it on mine.

[tkiely]

pretty sure my son gets his pics from his 220 via a bluetooth dongle.

[TPD]

I joined this forum specifically because I'm so annoyed at the Fone Data Suite MA-8870 mentioned above as an alternative to Motorola. It doesn't work. It tries to install a wireless modem on your PC by default, screws up your previously existing internet settings, and the phone manager can't find the handset so you can't even download photos (which is all I wanted it for). As I sit here (having, obviously, sorted out my internet connection) it has spent 10 minutes "trying to connect to handset", does not show up on the com port as it should according to the help file, does show up as "Motorola modem" in the modems (which I specifically did not want), and the troubleshooting page is worse than useless. Same on my (brand new, bog standard because I haven't had time to mess around with it yet) windows laptop. My advice - steer clear of this piece of junk at all costs unless you want to spend a frustrating afternoon trying to access your handset.

[Rodders]

Originally Posted by TPD

I'm so annoyed at the Fone Data Suite MA-8870 mentioned above as an alternative to Motorola. It doesn't work. It tries to install a wireless modem on your PC by default, screws up your previously existing internet settings, My advice - steer clear of this piece of junk at all costs

I totaly agree, It screwed up my pc as well, took me a damn week to get it back to normal