Bluetooth phone pairing for a 2008 X5

[Monty04]

BMW has a list of compatible bluetooth phones for Verizon Wireless and the other service providers. For Verizon, all of the phones are from Motorola, with the exception of two Blackberries, 7130e and 8703e. I really don't have a high opinion about the quaility of the Motorola phones. Has anyone had good luck pairing and integrating with iDrive other phones than these?

[Beefy]

I iphone pairs perfectly and is a great phone. Sorry i did not realise you wanted something from Verizon. Iphone unlocked will work fine though.

[Yosemite_sam]

My 14year-old paired both my Nokia and his Sony-Erikson with the E70 during the testdrive we did in a matters of minutes so I was pretty impressed.

[Monty04]

Originally Posted by Beefy

I iphone pairs perfectly and is a great phone.

Thanks, Beefy. I know it's a great phone, but unfortunately it's not available on Verizon.

[bergs]

Picked up my X5 a few weeks ago and the dealer told me that if I used a non-compatible phone (one not on the BMW approved list) that I could damage the whole communication system and that BMW would not replace it. Is this something that could actually happen by using a non-compatible phone? I have Sprint and apparently there is like one or twi phones that work correctly with the system. Sounds weird to me...

[Insider]

ANY Bluetooth compatible phone should work with your system to allow hands free calling. There are some compatibility issues with older phones that cause problems in loading your phone book correctly, but calling still works. There is no way that using a non-approved phone can damage your system (take it from an engineer who has designed these systems). There are just simply too many phones on the market for the folks at BMW to test every one. The list for Verizon is short because these are CDMA phones, while the rest of the world uses GSM.

[X5_Rules]

I have a Verizon Blackberry 8130 World Edition and it works fine. The Address book is downloaded and I am able to make calls using voice recognition.

[Monty04]

Originally Posted by Insider

ANY Bluetooth compatible phone should work with your system to allow hands free calling. There are some compatibility issues with older phones that cause problems in loading your phone book correctly, but calling still works. There is no way that using a non-approved phone can damage your system (take it from an engineer who has designed these systems). There are just simply too many phones on the market for the folks at BMW to test every one. The list for Verizon is short because these are CDMA phones, while the rest of the world uses GSM.

So, all recently released bluetooth phones should pair and load the phone book correctly?

[FirstBMW]

I have a samsung i760 which paired and works great!

[DaveNW]

Originally Posted by Monty04

So, all recently released bluetooth phones should pair and load the phone book correctly?

Yes. BT is a standard that is getting to be more mainstream, and less phone-specific. Any normal brand late-model BT phone should work.

Dave