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coming to Hero from an iPhone 3g - Prepare me please!

Ok, I am making the jump to Sprint from ATT, and conversely - to the Hero from the iPhone. I depend on the following items heavily so if you see a problem forthcoming, please prepare me with a little bit of advice to make the transition smooth.

1) Calender synced with MobileMe - plan is to go to Gmail and sync contacts, mail, and calender. My calender is very very important to me.

2) Mail. I will be syncing a web account from work, Gmail, and Comcast mail. Can it handle the three separate accounts.

3) SMS - it is the quickest way to make contact and verify appointments.

4) Yellow Pages Mobile

The value of the video and music is a nice feature, but I seldom used it on my iPhone.

I am a big App hater, as most apps are superficial. I have been with the iPhone for 3 years, and have seen only apps that are mainly to entertain with little real long term purpose, so the app controversy will not dissuade me a bit in my purchase.

Thanks in advance all.
 
1) Calender synced with MobileMe - plan is to go to Gmail and sync contacts, mail, and calender. My calender is very very important to me.
Seamless with Gmail & Google Calendar

2) Mail. I will be syncing a web account from work, Gmail, and Comcast mail. Can it handle the three separate accounts.
sync up to, I believe, 6 more emails

3) SMS - it is the quickest way to make contact and verify appointments.
Default App is great, I personally use Handcent to make it 'prettier' lol

4) Yellow Pages Mobile
An app called "Where" on the Android Market utilizes Yellowpages for its searches
 
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You'll want to set your gmail account on your PC first. I would also add your contacts and their phone numbers to your new gmail as well. The phone will ask you to log into your gmail account once it's turned on. This will cause your contacts, calendar etc... to be sync'd to the phone.

I wouldn't do anything else after that except run the Firmware update on the phone. This will allow you to have a MUCH better first impression of the phone and it's performance.

You'll find that google maps its quite usefull, the built in Gmail app has push so all your emails won't be "Checked" they'll simply "show up" and you'll be notified.

If you use Bank of America, You'll find that app very useful as I work 13 hr days and I have to pay bills while I'm in the bathroom. Makes life easier.

I'd download "Astro" from the Android Market to help you manage your SD card and it's contents.

I'd recommend NOT using the Android Sync for ANYTHING as it just plain sucks balls. You have Gmail anyway and it IS seamless.

Hope this helps well.
 
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I have yet to hit a limit on e-mail accounts, I'm running 8 so far on my phone. Gmail, AOL, Yahoo & Verizon.net, lol, yeah, Verizon...

No problems there, with the exception of the Yahoo WiFi glitch (can only get regular Yahoo mail OTA and NOT through WiFi)

No so big into Calendar use, but I used the HTC Sync and it took all of my contacts and appointments, etc., from Outlook and imported them nicely. I have yet to use the Google service for this as I have some privacy concerns.

The phone is a good piece of equipment that is only going to improve. With the promise of it being updated to the Android 2.0 it will have us all smiling for sure. "Where" as mentioned is an awesome application and some of the other location based programs can be useful, some a waste of time. Although, one of the advantages of the applications is to fill-in what the phone can't do. Any time, (so far) I needed to do something the phone couldn't (native) all I did was go look and find an app to do it, very helpful. :)

Sprint has pretty good network coverage especially if within all Major City's and surrounding areas. Their Plan Pricing is best economically and services offered for pricing I don't think can be touched competitively. Phone support is so/so, I have found if you call late afternoon (Eastern Time) that you get more knowledgeable people and better results.

With your limited scope of expected use, I think you will find yourself very pleased with the Hero and just might find yourself exploring limits with the phone as it seems to invite you when it is in your hand to really see what it can do.

Edited to add: I suggest if you decide to go with the Hero that you purchase it through Best Buy! Better pricing on the equipment and their rebates are applied at the time of purchase, no mail/wait craziness.

All just my most humble opinion(s)...

Happy Trails!
:)
 
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1) Calender synced with MobileMe - plan is to go to Gmail and sync contacts, mail, and calender. My calender is very very important to me.
My calendar is sync'd with Exchange(work) Google(myself) and Google(My girlfriend and myself event calendar)

2) Mail. I will be syncing a web account from work, Gmail, and Comcast mail. Can it handle the three separate accounts.
I sync Gmail, Yahoo and Exchange.

3) SMS - it is the quickest way to make contact and verify appointments.
The built in app is pretty good. If you're stuck on iPhone style messaging you can get handcent sms for free and make it look just like it does on the iphone.

4) Yellow Pages Mobile
Google voice search never fails me... :)

Good luck and welcome to the best mobile platform.
 
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Just a bit of further info.

I sync to a mac, and plan on using Doubletwist unless someone has advice to say about that.

I will have this device in my hands Saturday, after the mall craze and payday on Friday.

I love the ability to try it. I figure with the price break by Best Buy, it will cost me about $3 a day to try it out. If it works for me, my life will be blessed, and if it doesn't, it will be a minimal cost. I am hoping it works, because I don't see anything out there any better, unless your willing to put up with ATT to use the iPhone, which I am obviously not willing to do anymore.

Thanks again guys. I appreciate the App help too.
 
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1) Calender synced with MobileMe - plan is to go to Gmail and sync contacts, mail, and calender. My calender is very very important to me.
My calendar is sync'd with Exchange(work) Google(myself) and Google(My girlfriend and myself event calendar)

Hey Nick, how di you go about making a shared calendar between you and your gf? I'd like to make a separate family calendar so both my wife and I can enter events for our boys.
 
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Hey Nick, how di you go about making a shared calendar between you and your gf? I'd like to make a separate family calendar so both my wife and I can enter events for our boys.


If you log into your google account on a PC. You can get into calendars and create a new one. Then you have to go into settings and invite another user and give them full permission. Let me know if that doesn't work for you.

Then when you use the calendar on the hero you can pick which one you want to add the event to and your shared calendar should be available in the list as long as you've setup your phone to use the same google account that you setup the calendar in.
 
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If people in my company want to fetch email from Exchange on their iPhones, they had to set their phone up so that it asks for a 4 or 5 digit PIN whenever you wake it up. From what I have read online, if your Exchange provider does this you can't get your mail on any Android phone because the unlock PIN isn't a PIN but the "secret doodle" that you draw on the screen. Every time I try to set up my work Exchange account on my Hero I get some kind of error about how my phone doesn't meet the security policy demanded by the server.
 
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If people in my company want to fetch email from Exchange on their iPhones, they had to set their phone up so that it asks for a 4 or 5 digit PIN whenever you wake it up. From what I have read online, if your Exchange provider does this you can't get your mail on any Android phone because the unlock PIN isn't a PIN but the "secret doodle" that you draw on the screen. Every time I try to set up my work Exchange account on my Hero I get some kind of error about how my phone doesn't meet the security policy demanded by the server.

My exchange server did this to me when I had a WinMo phone. Doesn't bother me on my hero. Although the behavior only happened after I installed the root certificate on my WinMo phone.
 
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