Vodafone 541 PC Suite 6.3.18

Vodafone PC Suite is a carrier oriented suite and it is intended for the Vodafone 541, 555 and Smart mobile phones. Each of the phones has its own special features and this also reflects in the PC Suites. Vodafone did not actually make the PC Suites for their phones as there are from the manufacturer: Alcatel has one PC Suite, Huawei another and probably Nokia from the last one. Our approach will be for the 541 PC Suite. This one is in fact an Alcatel provided suite and it is similar with the Alcatel phone versions. Installing this suite is simple and also the package contains the drivers needed for the Alcatel based Vodafone device. Optionally, Windows media drivers and DirectX 9 are also available and are enabled by default to be installed but these are not really needed on Windows 7 as are already preinstalled or updated with Windows. So everything that users need checked is the effective Vodafone drivers and the PC Suite files. After the installation is complete, a connection window appears prompting for the user to connect his Vodafone device to the computer. When the phone is connected, all the buttons from the suite will be unlocked. The interface at first seems to be a bit crowded and chaotically placed but this can be easily changed by going through it a couple of minutes. The upper part contains the action buttons for the right sections and on the right, we have the Options, Operation and Help buttons (which in fact are dropdown lists). On the left, we have the section buttons but these are of different sizes. Alcatel wanted the most important and the most frequently used buttons to be bigger and easier to reach for the users. All the other buttons are on the lower left corner, are smaller and placed differently.

Message is the first section button and once clicked it opens the Inbox on the right. Here users can download the messages from the phone, upload new messages to the phone, create new SMS, delete a selected message from the list, reply or forward a message, find a certain message from the list and print a selected message. Also, users can browse through inbox, outbox, sentbox, choose templates for messages and recycle deleted messages.

The PhoneBook contains the local contacts list and the outlook list from the PC. Users can download a phonebook to the list, upload contacts to the phone, create a new contact, delete a selected contact, send a message to a contact from the list, find a contact, chat with a contact and print the contacts list.

File and Multimedia is a phone explorer presenting the PC folders list on one side and the phone local memory list on the other so files can be transferred from the Phone to the PC and vice versa on the fly. Using the Customize Logo button, pictures can be taken with the Capture genius and setup as wallpaper for the phone and already present images can be modified directly from the interface by using the available buttons. Customize tone uses the same explorer and contains a player on the bottom of the screen for the selected music files. Customize video is basically the same as the Music one but it contains a video player instead. Customize MMS transfers multimedia files between the PC and the phone, can create new MMS messages and send them. IMPS log management is for chatting. File management is for other types of files from the phone or the computer.

When clicking Podcast, a dedicated window opens for channel management and resources libraries. Users can add a channel, add a group, update channels and delete channels from the list.
Backup and restore is for emergency situations if the user ever needs a backup in case of something going wrong with the phone to restore on it.

Data synchronization is used to sync all the phone related data with the PC through the PC Suite. When the button is clicked, it opens up the Sync Expert containing additional options and setup. Communication shows the phone model and manufacturer, Conflict is for actions to be taken when a situation like this is found, Log is for viewing all the logs about actions and Help if for additional info in using this window.
Dialup Internet is for connection properties management. Users can add a new connection, delete a connection, edit a connection's properties or setup a phone modem connection.
Customize animation is for creating a .gif for your phone to setup as a background or something else related.

Overall this Suite is very complex, feature packed, has a lot o options to pick from and complete in management areas.