Smartphone / app suggestions

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is more theoretical than anything else, since it’ll be a while before I can afford a smartphone (the new plan I’d need would at least double my monthly phone bill, since sadly they don’t seem to offer plans more suitable to my actual usage). But someday I would like to take another step into the 21st century, and since I have zero experience with smartphones, I turn to the Dope…

The singular must-have with this smartphone is that it must sync with my Outlook (currently 2007, someday I may be able to upgrade, and I’m currently running Windows 7 Pro). Critical are the calendar, contacts, and tasks; ideally I could also sync email. (If I had to do webmail from the phone it wouldn’t kill me, but I’d prefer not to.)

I’ve heard good things about Android phones. I’ve heard pretty Meh things about Microsoft phones. AT&T won’t get my money so (last I checked, anyway) iPhones aren’t an option. My current carrier is Sprint, they’ve been remarkably hassle-free, so I’d really prefer not to switch.

So, of my options, what’s the best way to go? I’ve done some googling on syncing apps for Android, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot out there that works reliably AND syncs everything I need it to. Maybe I’ve missed something. I’d prefer Android since I’ve heard such good things about it, but I’m not absolutely married to the idea if there’s a much better option out there. I assume if I have the money to afford the plan, I can probably afford to pay for an app (unless the price tag is completely insane, like $200), so I’m willing to look at those… I didn’t find any free ones, anyway.

Other things: I almost certainly would be surfing the web from my phone (especially if I have to use webmail for email). I have no idea what’s out there for apps so have no idea or opinion on what of those might be useful. I would like it to also function as an MP3 player, but it’s not critical. I doubt I’d use it to view movies, because why watch a movie on such a tiny-ass screen? The phone is used approximately equal parts work and personal – I freelance, I also don’t have any other phone for calls to the relatives, for example.

So, what’s out there that would work for me?

2

Just FYI, Sprint and Verizon are also authorized carriers for the iPhone in the US.

I use the iPhone’s native Mail app to get my work e-mail (Outlook) and my home e-mail. There are various calendar apps that will sync with Outlook - I don’t do it, so I have no experience with it myself. You might want to look at Calvetica as a starting point.

Safari is fine for web surfing but I prefer Perfect Browser. I use the native Music app for songs, and Instacast for podcasts.

3

I have an Android phone (Droid X) and had no problem at all synching my email, including calendar and contacts, and I don’t use webmail on my phone. I don’t use tasks but I’d guess setting it up is the same as for calendar and contacts.

As far as the phone itself is concerned, I absolutely love it.

The screen is larger than the iPhone and the UI is more versatile and customizable. Whether or not that’s important to you is a personal preference, I guess. It is to me.

Google Navigation was pre-installed on my Droid X, as it was on my wife’s Incredible, and it is amazing.

I love having the option to speak my emails and text messages instead of typing them, although generally I use the keyboard with Swype. I do speak my search terms in the browser though, which is much more convenient than typing.

My carrier is Verizon, so I don’t have issues with phone signal coverage and strength.

I pay approximately $150 per month for the plan my Droid X and my wife’s Incredible are on.

What else do you want to know?

4

DroidX. I second all that was said above. Love it!

5

Outlook can be used to connect to a number of different types mail servers, so bear in mind that I’m only discussing the case where your copy of Outlook is connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server (almost inevitably because you’re accessing your work email).

If the Exchange server that you need to connect to has ActiveSync (which is an optional add-on, so ask your IT folks if this is the case and let them know why you’re asking) then either an Android-based smartphone or an iPhone should have no problems synching to your office mail accounts (since they’re stored on the server and both your PC’s copy of Outlook and your phone’s mail system are basically synching with the Exchange server they’re both using). In fact, you pretty much don’t have a choice but to be synched.

My wife and I both have Android-based smartphones and connect to our mail accounts at her company’s Exchange-based mail server. A number of her fellow employees with iPhones do the same. Everything works fine.

Note that the above is not covering the case where all of your accounts are on POP3/SMTP servers (like, say, Gmail or verizon.net or comcast.net, etc.)

6

Is this all with Outlook? I don’t have any of this stuff in Google Apps, too much of a pain in the ass to port 15 years worth of crap over to the cloud.

Is this a web browser?

choke …or more than triple my current phone bill. I hope it’s only that insanely expensive because there are two high-usage phones on it.

ETA in response to the above: all of my email is POP. My main account isn’t on an Exchange Server, and when I tried using Exchange on the secondary account which is, it chewed up my primary account, so I told 'em to give me the POP info for that too. This is all (email, calendar, tasks, contacts) syncing with data on my actual desktop computer, not on a server.

7

In that case, ignore everything I said in my earlier post, as it’s all irrelevant.

8

Ono, can you explain further (or anyone, for that matter). Every time I google “android sync with Outlook” what I get seems to say that syncing to Exchange is easy, syncing to the desktop Outlook using POP accounts without Exchange is a giant pain in the ass, requires a separate app, and doesn’t sync email. And that many of the apps out there are buggy, or require Google Apps as a middleman (and again… fifteen years worth of email to port over, to an email account I will largely not use in itself, as I have my own domain and hosted email).

So perhaps the info I’m turning up is already out-of-date. Is there native support for all this in the latest versions of Droid?

9

If your mail is POP3 and you want to move all that over, I imagine it would be somewhat of a pain, although doable. Of course I’m not using Outlook on my phone. I use the calendar app for my calendar, the mail app for my mail, etc… all part of the OS.

Nope. It’s the Google Navigation app that was preinstalled. There’s no need to use the browser for navigation.

Well, we do have unlimited data and text. I think $70 per month per phone for unlimited data/text, free verizon to verizon phone calls, and free nights and weekends is pretty reasonable actually. We never go over our minutes, but yes, we definitely use the phones.

One of the reasons we like our Android phones so much is that it has allowed us to discard a number of standalone devices for a single device that does everything. In addition to being really good phones, we don’t have to use my wife’s iPod Touch anymore because we synched her entire iTunes library to our phones. We don’t have to use our old standalone GPS anymore because of Google Navigator, which is better than any GPS device I’ve ever owned, and more accurate. We don’t need standalone digital cameras or video cameras, because our phones now serve those purposes and the quality is pretty good. My wife dumped her old PDA and now manages all her appointments and contacts on her phone.

10

I don’t think I can help you. The mail at my company is configured as IMAP, not POP3.