I bought a couple 8900's the other day and have been struggling trying to get my contacts from my Nokia E71 to my new BB 8900. I have about 400 contacts and most have multiple phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, email addresses, notes and a lot more or I would just manually enter them all. I've wasted enough days now that I probably could have manually keyed it in by now but I'm stubborn like that. Let me tell you what I've tried and how it's failed:

I tried to sync the contacts from the E71 to Outlook but for some reason it will sync the names, thumbnails, random info but NO phone numbers. The plan was to then use Blackberry Desktop manager to import the contacts to the 8900.

I tried to copy the contacts within PC Suite and then export it to the PC in a .csv file which I did but when I use Outlook to Import the file I get an error and have searched and can't seem to overcome that issue.

I tried synkia or something to that affect and managed to register my E71 and then upload all my contacts but when I attempt to change the phone to a BB 8900 it says that the settings are not available. I tried to manually set it up to no avail.

I read that you can sign up for Blackberry online and then use some address book link to send your settings to the BB but even though I registered my BB email address and looked and looked and searched I can't find anything near that feature.

I tried to log into T-Mobile and after much looking all I can seem to find is the option to manually key one name and one number at a time and then send like ten contacts at a time. Not even an option for what I need and I can't find anything else on the T-Mobile site to move all the info.

I can't find an option within the E71 to send a contact via bluetooth ether.

I can't begin to explain how frustrating this most simple of tasks has become and I'm beginning to think that a Blackberry just isn't for me before I'm even able to give it a chance. Please help me get step one completed here so that I can see if this device will be my first device that isn't a Nokia in about a decade. CONVERT ME TO A BB USER!

Edit: I also tried to create a backup to my MicroSD card and then put the SD card in the 8900 but couldn't find an option to import them.

Well, I ended up dumping 250 of my contacts onto the SIM and then copied them to the 8900. I then had to waste hours to edit the contacts, add the rest that it didn't save and then modify all of the above. What a pain but it's done.

Was your E71 fully synchronized with Outlook? Which version of Outlook?

You need to set up DM to synchronize with the desired program. Basically, you need to tell DM which program it should synchronize with.

If you are using the latest DM version - 4.7.0.32 here's what you should do to set up synchronization with Outlook:

From the main screen, Click: Synchronize => Configure => Synchronization

For EACH option, i.e. Calendar, MemoPad, Address Book, Tasks, you'll need to click Setup and chose Outlook from the drop down list.

Click OK once you have each option set to Outlook and try synchronizing with your 8900.

Don't know about fully but it would update all my calendar entries, tasks, notes w/o doing anything via PC Suite/Outlook so I assumed it as all good until I needed to sync my contacts. Only then did I notice something wasn't functioning. Got it all set up manually so I guess it doesn't matter anymore anyway. Now just need to get the internet settings all set up properly as I'm having a few issues.

You may have the existing contacts dealt with manually. But what happens when you enter a new contact on either the 8900 or in Outlook? Does that show up? Or if you edit a contact on the 8900 or in Outlook, does that change show up? If not, you should go through the above steps to setup seamless synchronizing all of your contacts.

Well, it appears as though the 8900 is now syncing contacts with Outlook so we're all good there.

One problem though is that I can't seem to sync/connect to BB Desktop Manager via bluetooth. If I plug a cable in it works fine but even though the phone is paired with the laptop it doesn't seem as though DM wants to recognize it.

The bluetooth sync issue is pretty well documented. You can find a number of posts on the subject here, and I believe RIM also documented it. As I recall, this will ONLY work with a Microsoft bluetooth stack. If you have Widcomm (perhaps as a result of installing a Logitech bluetooth keyboard or mouse), it won't work. Maybe somebody else will post about it here -- or you can search -- shouldn't be hard to find.

This is what i did... I had almost 300 contacts in my E71 and i want all of them on 8900 without losing any info..

I did upload mine contact to Microsoft Exchange server via mail for exchange in e71. you can use free service from mail2web they offer free exchange mail service.

Next sync back on blackberry via astrasync they offer free trail version to sync with exchange servers...

I was bit in hurry while typing it out.. but if you need more help catch me on my pin (24AA9B4F)

It's a work laptop and the ONLY thing I have paired with it was my E71 and nothing more. I don't have any keyboards or mouse or anything else so I'm not sure what the issue would be but it's kind of frustrating that it can't do something so simple. I really am starting to like this phone but if it's not capable of the most basic of tasks I'm not sure it will work out. I need it to update my calendar regularly and seamlessly as my E71 did and it needs to do it every several minutes as I work on my laptop so when I head out of the office I have all of my appointments right by my side.

I was banging my head against a brick wall from Wednesday until Saturday before I gave up and decided to do it all manually. In hindsight I wish I had just decided to do it this way on Wed and be done with it. Your idea sounds like the perfect solution I was looking for and hopefully it will help someone else who is searching for the same solution.

Unfortunately, the PC/laptop vendor may have chosen to use any 3rd party bluetooth stack. From all that I've read, if they've used anything other than Microsoft's own BT stack, the Blackberry will not be able to sync to it. Here's an article that gives you a better description, as well as one person's recipe for making it work:
Blackberry 83xx: Setting Up Bluetooth Sync in Windows XP Using Blackberry Desktop Manager on a Dell D630 - Johnnyxxx8217;s Journal

Ugh. This is SO frustrating. With my Nokia I loaded the Nokia software (PC Suite) and everything just worked flawlessly out of the box. No messing with this or loading that or tweaking this other thing and wasting time to make it work. Can't RIM do a better job on something so basic as this if they are supposedly so far ahead of the curve and all about perfecting things to save time and effort that meet the busy lifestyle of their target customer?

It sounds like the problem is not with RIM but with the Nokia or your laptop or something else on your end.

Using Desktop Manager to sync a blackberry with Microsoft Outlook is very easy.