Switch From Palm OS (Centro)

[salguod]

Howdy folks. I'm new to the Android world, well not quite even new yet, my phone arrives on Friday the 11th.

My current phone is a Palm Centro, the last in a line of Palm based PDAs and smart phones. I have a question, first I'm sure of many, on how Android handles contacts.

On the Palm devices, you'd 'sync' your device to your PC, either to the Palm Desktop or to Outlook, which is what I did. I've been syncing with my home PC running Outlook 2003 and my work PC running Outlook 2010 with exchange. Sync would mean that the contact info existed in Outlook & on the phone. Change one, plug the phone in and sync and it's up to date.

With Android, you don't really sync, right, or do you? Does the contact data exist both in Gmail and on my Incredible or does my phone simply connect to the Gmail server and find the contacts?

I plan on connecting it to my work exchange server, so would those contact exist on my phone and exchange, or does the phone simply show what's in exchange?

In other words, if for some reason my phone cannot connect to Google or exchange, would I not be able to see my contacts?

Mostly I'm trying to understand because I'm pretty sure that Android is going to make me look at how I manage this data differently, not necessarily a bad thing. I may not want to have the same contact in both places, as I do now.

Thanks.

 

[gruss]

You could sync your outlook with gmail, its a fairly easy process then when you activate the phone it will pull them down. And yes you'll be able to see your contacts even with no data connection.

 

[salguod]

I'll have to look into sync'ing with outlook some more. When my wife got her Incredible, I didn't find anything that would sync them. I was able to export them from Outlook & import into Gmail, but I couldn't find a way to continuously sync.

 

[gruss]

I think it was goosync I used to use in the palm days? It may have went paid by now. but the export/import method would work to get the numbers in your phone initially anyway.

 

[wayrad]

If you're getting an HTC phone, you can download HTCSync to sync phone contacts with Outlook. It will not do Google contacts, only "phone" contacts (Android has two kinds of contact; however they can be interconverted). I should warn you that HTCSync is really buggy and often stops working properly, even if it works at first. There are also 3d party solutions which I have not tried.

I used Bluetooth to get my contacts from my old Tapwave Zodiac into my HTC Incredible - I just sent each category as a vCard, then imported them into the People app. It was necessary to edit out any carriage returns in the address fields.

You can export phone or Google contacts to your SD card for backup purposes and reimport them if needed. This works well. The card can be periodically backed up to the desktop via USB.

I recently installed the Lotus Traveler app for my work email. It's an Exchange account, and the last time I exported contacts I notice it listed my Lotus contacts as one of the options, so apparently those can also be backed up to a card.

Hope this helps.

 

[salguod]

I've looked at some of the Outlook to Android sync apps, but I'm not interested in paying $20-$30 for an app to sync. Frankly, I'm looking at this as an opportunity to get away from Outlook at home. I don't really want to pay for the new version.

So, will my Gmail contacts and my work / exchange contacts show up as different address books in my phone or will they be mingled together?

 

[gruss]

Tapwave Zodiac.

wow

been a while since I've heard that one


They might be "mingled" together but I'm a traveler user too so i cant say about exchange. If you have home and work numbers they'll show under one name so you wont have a bunch of duplicates....but i dont think you can split work and home as two different phonebooks. I have 2 phones so i've never tried that to be honest.

if your getting away from outlook i'd just do the export/import to google before you get your phone, then when youi activate your contacts will be there by the time you get home.

 

[wayrad]

So, will my Gmail contacts and my work / exchange contacts show up as different address books in my phone or will they be mingled together?

I don't know the answer to that one - I've avoided keeping contacts as anything but "phone" contacts, so that's all I've ever really had to worry about.