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boiler

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I have officially decided to punt my BB Storm and am looking to make the move to a Droid X. I have until the end of this month to do it though, as my early upgrade offer expires then. My one concern is the ability to effectively and ACCURATELY sync my outlook calendar and contacts with this phone, as I have read numerous threads of people on the interwebs saying it either doesn't work right or is a PITA.

 

I need some real feedback from a group of people I don't consider trolls (SJ, that was your cue to exit stage left). ifonze need nawt appli.

 

I can't say I'm thrilled about my stuff being up in the cloud, but it's not like I have state secrets in my calendar or contacts or anything.

 

From a business standpoint, anything else I would need to be worried about here when switching from BB to Android? Will the 2.2 update ease some of these concerns?

 

Thanks!

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My sister got one a few days ago. I haven't used it but one thing I can say about it is that it's enormous.

 

I know that's not helpful, sorry. :)

Large phone is large, thanks for the update captain obvious :P

 

Minor concerns aside, I just ordered the Droid X at lunch today. I still wouldn't mind getting a little more feedback as to the transition from a BB Storm to this beast.

 

kthx

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OK, it will NOT natively sync outlook contacts and calendar, however, there are a couple ways around this, none of which are terribly annoying.

 

You'll need Google Calendar Sync, which will basically poll your Outlook calendar as often as you want it to (I have mine set to 10 minutes), and sync that with your phone. You never have to plug it in, and it's fast and been 100% reliable for me thus far.

The only problem with it is it is a bit of a pain to get working with Office 2010, but I got around that too. (Google needs to update it)

 

As far as contacts are concerned, that's a little bit more painful....basically, you either buy a program to sync your Outlook info, or you export your Outlook contacts as a CSV and import them into your Google contacts. They will then instantly sync to your phone (a little slower if you're on a crappy data connection).

 

 

Additionally, I'd go for the Droid 2 over the Droid X, but that's just my preference. :shrug03: (I'd be happy to tell you why if you're curious, but was trying to stay mostly on point)

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Maverick' timestamp='1282062242' post='483367']

OK, it will NOT natively sync outlook contacts and calendar, however, there are a couple ways around this, none of which are terribly annoying.

 

You'll need Google Calendar Sync, which will basically poll your Outlook calendar as often as you want it to (I have mine set to 10 minutes), and sync that with your phone. You never have to plug it in, and it's fast and been 100% reliable for me thus far.

The only problem with it is it is a bit of a pain to get working with Office 2010, but I got around that too. (Google needs to update it)

 

As far as contacts are concerned, that's a little bit more painful....basically, you either buy a program to sync your Outlook info, or you export your Outlook contacts as a CSV and import them into your Google contacts. They will then instantly sync to your phone (a little slower if you're on a crappy data connection).

 

 

Additionally, I'd go for the Droid 2 over the Droid X, but that's just my preference. :shrug03: (I'd be happy to tell you why if you're curious, but was trying to stay mostly on point)

Thanks for the info, I'll see how the syncing thing works out. That was my only hang-up before I pulled the trigger. I am running Office 2007, so hopefully no out-of-the-box issues with that at least.

 

I ordered the Droid X yesterday, should have it by the end of the month. I am still curious as to why you would prefer the Droid 2 though. Care to share?

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Maverick' timestamp='1282140844' post='483408']

I like the Droid 2 better because it has a physical keyboard and it is a little smaller...that's about it. :-) If you like the jumbo screen and don't want a physical keyboard, the X is sweet.

Go big, or stay home!

 

The only downside to the Droid X for me is I'm not sure how the snes emulator would work without the keyboard... When I had a WinMo phone with SNES emulator, I used it fairly often (although the dpad was woefully sucky).

 

Not a deal breaker, but something I thought about.

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I would not buy either of the Motorola Droids (the X or 2) because Motorola has locked the phones so that only signed ROMs can be used on them. You can forget about the custom ROMs for those two phones. Not only that but HTC makes the best phones IMO right now. Also Motorola is terrible about pushing out the updates to their phones. Every update for the Droid so far has been pushed back at one point or got "recalled" because of bugs they did not discover during their long process of modifying an existing ROM to work on their phones - something the community has been doing for months.

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Meh, I love my original droid....but Mororola is already changing their tune a bit with their newer phones and have released part of their source code. We will see how far it goes, but at least the X is easily rooted.

 

I LIKE the HTC phones, but they're slower than Moto with updates. The Incredible still isn't running Froyo, and people are worried that it's the Sense UI that's slowing things down....preference is prefernce though, and there is definitely nothing wrong with the Incredible.

 

 

As far as the emulators go, the buttons are overlaid on the screen...it works really well.

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Sweet. If I can at least get Chrono Trigger working, I'll consider it a win.

 

I'm not terribly worried about the rooting thing at this time. I'm betting I have this thing for a while before I start messing around THAT much with it. By that time, someone will have figured out a one-push root and it'll all be gravy.

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Sweet. If I can at least get Chrono Trigger working, I'll consider it a win.

 

I'm not terribly worried about the rooting thing at this time. I'm betting I have this thing for a while before I start messing around THAT much with it. By that time, someone will have figured out a one-push root and it'll all be gravy.

 

They have a one click root already :)

 

Chrono Trigger is what I'm playing on mine right now--I love it...plays smooth as silk. :wiggle2:

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I have a Nexus One so I'm not sure if this will apply, but it syncs seamlessly from Outlook 2003 --> Google Sync --> phone. It doesn't work well at all though, going from the phone --> Google Sync --> Outlook. Any calendar entry I create on my phone always ends up in Outlook's deleted items dated 31/12/1979. The entry looks good in the Gmail calendar but for some reason doesn't translate well to Outlook 2003. I can also create entries online in the Gmail calendar and it will sync perfectly both ways. Just seems to be a problem going from the phone to Outlook.

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I have read a ridiculous amount of information regarding the syncing thing including articles and hundreds of forum posts. I think I am going to give gsyncit a try.

 

Pretty good (recent) reviews, very responsive developer and it handles calendar, contacts, tasks and notes. Once I get the phone I'll probably buy the plugin and start playing around with it. I don't use much if any of the more advanced calendar features in Outlook, so hopefully it won't make things too complicated.

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really like the part of iOS that supports exchange out the box.

Android (at least 2.1 and up) has support for Exchange, and from what I've read it works pretty well. The problem is everyone using Outlook as a standalone (i.e. me and many many others) is left out in the cold. This, unfortunately, is one area where iDoes things a bit better.

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do you have a choice to switch the account you're using outlook (standalone) to google apps?

It's my personal stuff - I don't have it locked down to work or anything, so I could switch if I really wanted to. I like Outlook's interface and convenience when working on my laptop, and it has mostly been out of habit since my first smartphone (and current BB) sync flawlessly with it. I might eventually wean myself off Outlook and towards Google apps once I get a little experience with them. Right now I don't even have so much as a Gmail account, so I need a smooth transition for now.

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if you move everything over to google apps, you can still use your outlook client for your laptop, but you can migrate all your contacts into google apps, then have your droid connect straight to that.

 

the biggest challenge is migrating your old mail to google apps, but if you're downloading them all (pop3), then you can either copy them to google apps (imap), or start from a fresh start.

 

google apps is a good move -- do it.

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Not worried about e-mail - POP3 account so it's all in outlook. I intend to have Google apps as the intermediary between outlook and my phone (gsyncit only syncs outlook with google apps, not directly to my phone). Once I get acquainted with google apps, I may cut out the outlook end all together. Have to see how it works, especially with my work e-mail.

 

Now if only the **** phone will get here already!

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I have the X and love it :) I am doing 2 exchange sync's (work and school), and my gmail account, and all work flawlessly. It also pulls all my contacts from exchange, google, and facebook, which is really convenient. Overall I am super happy with it so far (had it since the Friday after it came out).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally got my Droid X last night! :luxhello:

 

Took freaking long enough though, the wait was killing me.

 

This thing is awesome. I only got a little bit of a start on the app downloading and customizing last night, but I'm really digging Android so far. Puts that old BB Storm to shame in every way possible.

 

Already downloaded snesoid and psx4droid, looking forward to trying to fire up some chrono trigger and FFVII (never played any FF before, heard this was one of the best).

 

Got my outlook and Google accounts synced flawlessly thanks to gsyncit, so I am 100% thrilled with this thing so far.

 

ETA: The "camera hump" is a complete non-issue. I hardly notice it while holding it and like that the rest of the phone is so thin (you know, the part I'm actually touching). Size is great as well. Gives a bit more exercise for my thumb to go top to bottom of the screen, but it's very manageable my my average sized hands.

Edited by boiler
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