How to transfer contacts from a Nokia to a Blackberry cellphone

Here’s the situation: just got a Blackberry 9000 and needs to transfer contacts from old Nokia N93.

Here’s the solution:

1. Using Nokia PC Suite, I synched Nokia mobile phone to either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express (Windows Address Book). I’m really not a big fan of Microsoft Outlook so I never installed it on any of our computers / laptops. Outlook Express, however, is, I think, always installed in XP or Vista operating systems. So, in my case, I synched to Outlook Express. I’m not really sure but I think Outlook Express uses the Windows Address Book.
2. Using the Blackberry Desktop Manager, I synched from Windows Address Book to Blackberry Device. You have to select where to sync from using the Synchronization configuration window.
3. That’s it.

There are several solutions available in the Net and there’s this solution about exporting your contacts to CSV, import it your e-mail client or Gmail, export it to CSV, use ABC Amber Converter to convert the CSV file to an IPD file (this is the file where Blackberry holds its contacts) and restore the IPD file to your Blackberry device.

While this solution works, it’s not entirely accurate. The mobile phone number ends up being saved in the Notes field of your contact card. If someone calls or sends you SMS, you won’t know who called or sent.

The Windows Address Book sync approach, on the other hand, (more?) accurately saves the mobile number to the appropriate Blackberry contact field. In fact, in the Blackberry Desktop Manager, you can select which Windows Address Book fields map to which Blackberry contact fields.