Company:	Susteen
Website:	www.susteen.com
Price:	$79.95 list
Pros:
Great to access the phonebook on your cell phone.
Cons:
Not all phones are supported.
Score:	4

Wouldn't it be so much easier to sync your Outlook contacts with your cell phone phonebook instead of manually entering each number into your cell phone keypad? Susteen's DataPilot does the job for you and much more, like editing your images and composing ringtones.

The Datapilot Universal Kit comes with the software suite and cables. The software suite includes 6 applications, the Phone Book Manager, the Ringtone Com-poser, the SMS Manager, the Internet Data Connectivity, the Image Editor and the Calendar. You can launch each application directly through your Start menu or by first opening the DataPilot launcher, which gives you quick centralized access to all the applications.

There are 2 USB cables that can each interface with 5 different connectors (for a total of 10 connectors). Each connector is designed for each type of cellular phone supported. The connectors are color coded to match the USB cable they interface with and each has an image of an animal printed on it to be referenced with the included chart to see which connector matches which phone. Currently DataPilot supports a long list of phones made by Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson and Nokia. Additional phones are supported if you purchase the addi-tional IR cable ($19.95).

All cell phones supported allow you to download and upload your phone book information and the software nicely interfaces with Outlook if needed.  The remaining 5 applications each works with some of the phones, ranging from the LG 1010 that only supports the phone book to the Motorola V300 that supports all 6 applications.

The interoperability of the phone book and the wide range support of the universal kit is great because it gives you the flexibility of switching phones, updating your phone book often or even if you have multiple phones, possibly within your family or company, to keep them up to date.  If you don't plan to use this application with multiple phones, you can always purchase the single cable solution ($59.95).

The phone book application is pretty straight forward. You can set it to download all the contacts from your phone or a partial list. You can then update the contact and resend them to the phone. We tested DataPilot with Sprint's Samsung A500. Initially we couldn't get it to work because the phone was run-ning an outdated version of the firmware that was compromising any sort of cable connectivity. We obtained a free firmware upgrade from our local Sprint store and at that point the operation with DataPilot was seamless. Within moments we were able to download the entire phonebook to our PC, even entries with multiple phone numbers like home and office. When testing with the Samsung A680 the setup and connection was seamless.

Using the Internet Data Connectivity application we were able to use the phone as a modem. Rather than spending hundreds of dollars buying a CDMA2000 or GPRS PC card and paying additional monthly fees we found DataPilot to be a great alternative. Using the Internet Data Connectivity application you can just go online using CDMA2000 (or GPRS if you use a GSM phone) speeds (approximately 50kbps). To use this feature our Sprint phone required PCS Vision ($15 a month) on the plan.

New phones these days come with sync cable or they can sync with your PC through Bluetooth, IR or even over the air (for example the Microsoft Smartphones). DataPilot is still useful and great for people with older or non-syncable phones, and especially for current CDMA users. For example Sprint has very limited number of cell phones that have IR connectivity and none with Bluetooth. Sprint users can benefit a lot from using DataPilot.

DataPilot offers a great all-in-one solution so you can seamlessly access your phone's phonebook and other useful tools. We definitely recommend it to Sprint and Verizon customers that own a phone supported by this package.