Well, interesting that you ask this. right now, all I have set up (at least that I know of) is Google Calendar. I do not know if my contacts are being synced with Google or not. How can I check that out? Under "Accounts & Sync", and then under "Google" I do have checked off Sync Calendar, Contacts and Gmail, but I have not been using Google for contacts yet. How can I see if that has been done or not?
As for Gmail, I have an account (which I needed to create to set up Google Sync) but I am not using google for my email. I am having my Outlook account (POP3) sent to my device. Seems to work fine for me this way. No complaints to speak of.