[rcranz]

I have several family and friends who have upgraded their phones and lost many of their phone contacts in the process. For some reason most of their contacts disappeared after switching phones. I'm not sure if this a carrier issue, or if it was due to their Android phones.

So, I wanted to ask, do you think it's a good idea if I saved all my contacts in the "SIM Contacts" of my BlackBerry Passport? (My carrier is AT&T.) What are the pro's and con's? It looks like my BlackBerry is automatically saving my contacts in my main Google Gmail account. I'm not sure if I like that yet.

I would appreciate to hear your preferences for saving phone contacts. Thanks!

[Daanisawesome]

You could use an app to save your contacts to a single file.
This way you'll never lose them as long as you keep the file somewhere safe

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[RoseBud68]

Still using a Little Black Book to keep all my contacts in.

[anon(9186565)]

So, I wanted to ask, do you think it's a good idea if I saved all my contacts in the "SIM Contacts" of my BlackBerry Passport? (My carrier is AT&T.) What are the pro's and con's? It looks like my BlackBerry is automatically saving my contacts in my main Google Gmail account. I'm not sure if I like that yet.

As far as I know SIM contacts can only consist of a name and one number. If you have a contact with two or more numbers you have to save each number in a separate contact. If you do so you will reach the maximum very quickly. My SIM can hold 100 entries. I don't know if there are newer types of cards that can save more contacts.

How I save my contacts: I don't want to save my contacts at Google neither. That's why I use the free mail account of my carrier (Telekom Germany). For me they are trustworthy and they have to follow strict privacy protection laws here in Germany.
Another possibility is to set up your own CardDAV account on a webspace. I use ownCloud on a free webspace for my calendar but contacts are possible, too.


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[rcranz]

As far as I know SIM contacts can only consist of a name and one number. If you have a contact with two or more numbers you have to save each number in a separate contact. If you do so you will reach the maximum very quickly. My SIM can hold 100 entries. I don't know if there are newer types of cards that can save more contacts.
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I just now started up BlackBerry Blend and made a connection to my Passport Phone. I took a look at the "SIM Contacts" tab and pressed "Add Contact". There is a blank form with 15 fields. Here is a photo:



It appears that I can store multiple numbers and lots of information. Right now all of my contacts are listed under the Gmail tab. Well, I might test the SIM Contacts option and see how it goes. I do backup all my contacts on paper too, but having a reliable digital method would be nice too, especially for those times when I swap my SIM card between new phones.

[anon(9186565)]

Interesting! Last time I tried to use the BB10 built-in function "copy contacts to SIM" it stopped after 100 entries and each entry only had one number. As I said, maybe there are newer SIMs with more storage capacity. My card is 5 years old now.
Please try to add "multi-number contacts" and let me if it works. If it works I'll ask my carrier for a new card.

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[BeetrootJulip]

SIM Contacts are an out of date feature left over from a time when contacts were the only thing saved on your phone. Sync them to an email account.

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[Daanisawesome]

Depending on the sim you can store up to 200 contacts.

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[Technarch]

Store your contacts in the cloud.

As for Google knowing who you talk to, yes. They have an entire team focused on studying how often you call your mates up to have a chat about the footie game.

Even if you didn't use Google, Google would still know because your friends use Google.

Storing stuff on a sim card is STUPID.

Why? Because the minute you lose your phone all your contacts are gone unless you wrote them down.


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[rcranz]

Interesting! Last time I tried to use the BB10 built-in function "copy contacts to SIM" it stopped after 100 entries and each entry only had one number. As I said, maybe there are newer SIMs with more storage capacity. My card is 5 years old now.
Please try to add "multi-number contacts" and let me if it works. If it works I'll ask my carrier for a new card.

I just now spoke with an AT&T agent. He said my nano SIM card can hold a max of 250 contacts. The SIM contacts can also be managed online at the "AT&T Address Book" web site.

I was able to add 2 contacts to my SIM card via the online AT&T Address Book. However, if I try to add a SIM contact via BlackBerry Blend, it automatically sends that contact to my Gmail contact list.

So far I have 2 contacts added to my SIM card. The hard part is trying to figure out how to sync the contacts to my phone. The online address book website shows that I have 2 contacts, but this is not reflected in my phone Contacts section. Also, I still see 0 SIM contacts when using BlackBerry Blend.

I'm gonna keep playing with this.....eventually I will figure out how to sync the SIM contacts to my phone.

[rcranz]

Storing stuff on a sim card is STUPID.

Apparently, AT&T is able to save SIM card contacts on their "AT&T Address Book" website. It's not clear to me if the actual SIM card has storage space, or if the SIM data is actually synced to their server?

Anyways, I'm just trying to learn about the SIM card features and weigh the pro's and cons for now.

[Technarch]

SIM saving was only worth it back in the days when nobody had data plans. It was a way to transfer them to your new device or between devices without having to do a download procedure.

Saving to sim and then backing it up to the cloud is stupid. So when you get your next device let's say it is nano-sim, you're going to try and find a cutter so you can squish your micro-sim contacts in?

Or maybe you will just use the data connection..

I don't have a single contact saved to my sim. Why should I?


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[rcranz]

Saving to sim and then backing it up to the cloud is stupid. So when you get your next device let's say it is nano-sim, you're going to try and find a cutter so you can squish your micro-sim contacts in?

I just wanted to play with the SIM card and see how it worked. So far, I've found out that it doesn't even work at all. An AT&T agent told me that the SIM card can hold a max of 250 contacts. So far I have been unable to store one single contact on the SIM card!

I guess the "AT&T Address Book" has no relation to the SIM card at all. It appears to be a cloud type service. I do see an AT&T Address Book section in my phone's Contacts app...However, I can't even synchronize these AT&T specific contacts up to their Cloud server.

After struggling so hard to use either the SIM card or the AT&T Address Book, I have concluded that, Yes, saving contacts in my GMail is the best option. AT&T's options don't even work properly, so why bother? Haha.

[BeetrootJulip]

I just now spoke with an AT&T agent. He said my nano SIM card can hold a max of 250 contacts. The SIM contacts can also be managed online at the "AT&T Address Book" web site.

I was able to add 2 contacts to my SIM card via the online AT&T Address Book. However, if I try to add a SIM contact via BlackBerry Blend, it automatically sends that contact to my Gmail contact list.

So far I have 2 contacts added to my SIM card. The hard part is trying to figure out how to sync the contacts to my phone. The online address book website shows that I have 2 contacts, but this is not reflected in my phone Contacts section. Also, I still see 0 SIM contacts when using BlackBerry Blend.

I'm gonna keep playing with this.....eventually I will figure out how to sync the SIM contacts to my phone.

What is the purpose of this quest? There is no point to using SIM Contacts.

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