Many people bought an expensive Sony Vaio notebook, equipped with built-in Bluetooth, only to discover that they cannot sync their Windows Mobile 2003 device (Smartphone or Pocket PC phone) - although sync with Sony Clie PDAs works fine.

On the other hand both Sony and Toshiba notebooks use Bluetooth hardware from CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio), so why ActiveSync over Bluetooth works in Toshiba notebooks, works in many other notebooks and with popular Bluetooth USB dongles, but doesn´t work in Sony notebooks? 

The answer is simple: different software, meaning: different Bluetooth drivers that Sony and Toshiba use. Possible solution would be to apply in Sony notebooks other software drivers, for example those from Toshiba. However we cannot guarantee that it will work due to some copy protection mechanisms that driver making companies require: for example software from WIDCOMM is looking at Bluetooth MAC ID of given hardware, and if it is not in specific range, drivers will not work. Sometimes however such drivers can be fooled and in fact we managed to run some drivers on hardware from the other Bluetooth vendor.

To get more information about the Bluetooth implementation in Sony notebooks click here and here . The same regarding Toshiba notebooks is here .

Source: msmobiles