One of the cool things about my job is that I get new phones constantly. I don’t get to keep most of them, but I do use them as my primary device throughout the review period, which allows me to legitimately review how a phone works and whatnot. One thing that I’m often asked is what I do to get a new phone setup for use. Obviously I can’t just pull it out of the box and be ready to rock and roll, I need to do some setup procedures. My buddy Jeb Brilliant suggested that I record it all, to share with you guys, so here it is.
The first thing that I do with any S60-powered phone that I get is hard reset, using *#7370#, with password 12345. As I get alot of review units, this first ensures that someone else’s information wasn’t left on the device, but it also clears it out to give me the optimal initial setup. Next up, I sync with PC Suite. This solves 2 problems instantly – first, it sets up a Bluetooth relationship between the phone and my computer (I hate syncing with cables, it’s so 2005), and second, it gets all of my contacts and calendar information onto the phone, so that I at least can *use* it.
Once I have my PIM information on the phone, I usually go about changing the settings to my default setup. This means setting the display brightness to full, changing the powersaver timeout to 90 sec., the light timer to 30 sec., and the fonts to small. I also take this opportunity to set Wireless Data to ‘When Available’, and disabling any auto keylock functions.
At this point, if needed, I *could* walk out the door with the phone and be able to get by. However, it’s definitely not optimized. Next step is to install all my applications. Despite having AutoSisInstaller available, I usually do this app-by-app, as the applications I install on a phone varies slightly. I have a folder on my laptop called ‘Apps’, within my ‘Phone Stuff’ folder, where I store all my .sis files. With this, I can usually have most all of my needed applications installed within 15-20 minutes.
Next, I take to the web browser. As posted before, I use Keytoss.com as my mobile homepage, and then I head to m.jaiku.com to download the S60 Jaiku client. Once that’s installed, I go download Google Maps Mobile, and then I send myself a download link for Nokia Email Beta.
At this point, I at least have everything that I need *on* my phone, though it’s all clearly in the wrong place. Once everything is installed, I can set about to reorganizing the menus and submenus, based on my default menu layout, detailed here.
While this sounds like quite a bit of work, it usually takes me around 30-40 minutes to get from pulling a phone out of the box to being able to walk out the door, confident that the phone is setup to do what I need it to, how I need it to do it.
What rituals do you have for setting up a new phone? Do you even bother setting them up fully, or do you just pop your SIM card in and worry about it later?
