I'm extremely excited to tell you guys that Nokia's Ovi service has finally been expanded beyond Share On Ovi (Photos). This service has been available for about a month now, but Ovi has sent out an email today to make everything official. You can now sync your Nokia E71's Calendar entries and Contacts with Ovi Sync and view and modify your information from any computer with a internet connection.
Sync Your E71 Calendar
I'm really liking the look of the web-based calendar. Ovi has done a great job of making it useable and easy to manage. I can add or delete entries, modify meetings or tasks, and add details. It's going to be so much easier to work with a real online to-do list and make sure that it properly syncs with my E71. I really think it rivals Google Calendar's functionality especially since it's so easy to use. It's almost completely eliminated my need for Google Calendar. You really need to try it yourself to understand how good it works. Check out the screenshot below.
Sync Your E71 Contacts
Also new is the Ovi Contacts service. Here you can add, delete, modify all your E71contacts as well as create groups and modify those. It's ten times easier to do this on a real computer instead of spending time inputting contact details from your phone. I don't have a screenshot to provide because I don't feel like blanking out all my contact details.
You can also show your Flickr friend's photo streams on your Ovi dashboard. This is great to keep track of your buddies or family who refuse to transfer from Flickr to Ovi.
The Bad?
The only downfall right now is you have to sync manually. It would be awesome if you can schedule a sync but I'm sure this functionality will be here in the near future. Other than that I haven't seen anything that I don't like so far.
More Screenshots
Rafe from All About Symbian has put up a more detailed review of the new Ovi service. Click here to check it out.
See An Intro Video & Try It Out
Go to www.ovi.com right now and sign up for an account. If you already have a Nokia Account you must use this to login. If you've used Nokia Email beta or Files On Ovi then use that login. It's not the same as your Share On Ovi login, but they will be combining the two in the near future. Once your all signed up you will get a text message that will setup your E71 so that everything can sync.
Have any of you already tried this out? If not, let me know how you like it. Since I'm running on Linux Ubuntu instead of Windows (which I have to talk about again), this new Ovi service has really made life much easier without PC Suite. What are your thoughts?
I'll be doing an article soon comparing Ovi Calendar to Google Maps. Should be interesting indeed.
