Regretting my choice?!?!?

[Sailing_Nut]

So I had an HTC Thunderbolt that I very much liked. Well, I cracked the digitizer AND soft bricked it with a ROM upgrade. My wife told me to go get a new phone, so I went for the newest shiny toy.

Well (many might call me a looser for this) I am missing the sense launcher & widgets from HTC.

However the biggest problem I am having is the lack of a Google or Samsung application that allows me to sync my contacts and calendar with Outlook on my PC.

So, does anyone know of a good sync solution? Also any suggestions for good widgets that replaicte some of the "fun" things in sense are appreciated!

 

[Uzza]

Not a loser...tgis phone takes dedicatiob for perfection.

Start with Rocket Dialer

 

[tjh011]

Calender - Getting started with Google Calendar Sync - Google Calendar Help

Contacts - Outlook4Gmail - Address Book Synchronization | Scand

I havent tried these yet, but this is a good start.

 

[andyandroid81891]

About to get my dad into a Nexus but this is a real sticking point. Is there really no native ability to sync with outlook?

 

[tjh011]

About to get my dad into a Nexus but this is a real sticking point. Is there really no native ability to sync with outlook?

I think if you have an exchange account it will sync perfectly. But, I use Outlook for my work, but unfortunately no exchange account.

 

[john30308]

Was going to say that Exchange does work great, but then realized that you're using Outlook without Exchange. Sorry... no help.

 

[ttaylor0024]

I was able to sync my calander with outlook with my droid... I used IMAP on my Gmail and it seemed to work just fine. I might have had to mess with some settings though, I cant remember.

 

[pragmatous]

I think the thing with google is that it has all of that built into google's system by default. So the question is, why do you need to sync it to outlook when it is synced to gmail?

You have to create a gmail account to use the market so why not just use their free calender and email? Then use outlook, create the account, and have it grab the information from gmail.

Outlook 2007 - Gmail Help

If you use chrome you can even sync your bookmarks.

 

[quickaudi]

Why not just use google apps for those activities?

 

[andyandroid81891]

I think if you have an exchange account it will sync perfectly. But, I use Outlook for my work, but unfortunately no exchange account.

My dad uses outlook for work. I believe he uses exchange but I'm not sure.

 

[Blue218]

For a calendar check out "jorte"...it is free and syncs with the google calendar....not positive about outlook though. I like it because it gives you several choices and the ability to view one month at a time (like the sense calendar with HTC)

 

[DonDraper]

I think if you have an exchange account it will sync perfectly. But, I use Outlook for my work, but unfortunately no exchange account.

What is your work using if not Exchange on the backend?

 

[zerocool79346]

Exchange works great but IIRC, Outlook without Exchange hasn't worked well in stock Android from the very beginning. OP you might try the app Touchdown, I've seen quite a few satisfied people who use it. Isn't cheap but it seems to get the job done.

 

[wtherrell]

add-on to outlook the app called gsyncit. It syncs your outlook to your gmail. I use it and love it. Does contacts, appointment calendar, tasks and memos. If you don't want to go through the gmail route, Companionlink has several options. You can sync directly through a USB cable or through the Companionlink Servers.

 

[tjh011]

What is your work using if not Exchange on the backend?

Its more that I use it for work to manage my contacts, calendar, and email, not that the business uses it. Its a small business.

 

[devwild]

add-on to outlook the app called gsyncit. It syncs your outlook to your gmail. I use it and love it. Does contacts, appointment calendar, tasks and memos. If you don't want to go through the gmail route, Companionlink has several options. You can sync directly through a USB cable or through the Companionlink Servers.

Note that if you do want to go through gmail, you can sync with multiple gmail accounts, so you could set up a secondary gmail account to use for this purpose and keep your personal gmail account you set the phone up with clean.

Warning (I feel compelled to provide because I work in the business ) - before you use any service that forwards your mail or calendar through another provider like gmail, be sure to check your company's security policies - if you work with sensitive information, it could be in violation of federal/state/company laws and policies. If you are just syncing calendar and contacts this way, there may or may not be some leeway here since there's less sensitive info involved. If it's a concern, check first, you don't want to get hit with the liability issues after.

Whenever possible, you want to sync with the company mail server directly, so use exchange if it's available. If that doesn't work and you can safely sync your calendar and contacts with external account, gsyncit is by far probably your best option. Companionlink is the main tool I've seen for syncing directly over USB, but it's frankly overpriced and asks for an additional office app on your phone you probably don't need otherwise, so only use it if you need it.

I found this site in a google discussions topic on the subject, It has a bunch of tools to try: Sync Android/Droid with Outlook/Exchange

It suggests MyPhoneExplorer as a free option: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fjsoft.myphoneexplorer.client&hl=en

As for widgets and such, you'll probably have to be more specific as to what you liked. There are a lot of options out there to emulate the sense features, though I don't know if any of them are good, since I've never used sense myself .

 

[jeff0r3]

Just curious... If you like sense so much, and like how everything works on it.. Why didn't you get the rezound?

 

[Sailing_Nut]

Just curious... If you like sense so much, and like how everything works on it.. Why didn't you get the rezound?

Very good question! I have to admit I got a little bit "sucked in" by the marketing hype around ICS and had some misconceptions about the "pure Google experience." But as I have gained more experience with the GNex I have come to appreciate it more.

I did enjoy some of the "cute" features of sense like the weather animations, but those were just fluff.

Some things I really do miss are the Facebook integration. Not so much for the day to day stuff, but it was nice to have my contact pictures updated and having their phone numbers updated if they changed them on Facebook. I did find Contapps to get my pictures over from Facebook, but it does not move phone numbers & etc. I do realize that moving that additional data is a violation of the Facebook TOS, but somehow HTC and Motorola (as hearsay) managed to "get around" this problem and allow all of this stuff to be transferred between the phone and FB.

I was also missing some of the sense widgets, but have found suitable replacements. The only thing that is really missing (probably due to my lack of persistence in searching) is a clock/weather widget that shows the current local weather based on your GPS location.

 

[samsays]

Another solution is to get better syncing between Outlook and gmail of contacts/calendar. I have used Fieldston Software - gSyncit - Sync Outlook and Google Calendars, Contacts, Notes and Tasks - Toodledo - Evernote in the past and found it worked very well.

 

[172driver]

For Outlook syncing, my wife & I use Companion Link. It automatically syncs between Outlook & Google daily (or whenever you tell it to).

The only hitch is that the appointment color-coding system of Outlook doesn't seem to translate over to Google Calendar, but we put up with it.

I love that, once you set it up, it's fully automated.

(no I don't work for Companion Link, just sharing my experience)

 

[Poseign]

Very good question! I have to admit I got a little bit "sucked in" by the marketing hype around ICS and had some misconceptions about the "pure Google experience." But as I have gained more experience with the GNex I have come to appreciate it more.

I did enjoy some of the "cute" features of sense like the weather animations, but those were just fluff.

Some things I really do miss are the Facebook integration. Not so much for the day to day stuff, but it was nice to have my contact pictures updated and having their phone numbers updated if they changed them on Facebook. I did find Contapps to get my pictures over from Facebook, but it does not move phone numbers & etc. I do realize that moving that additional data is a violation of the Facebook TOS, but somehow HTC and Motorola (as hearsay) managed to "get around" this problem and allow all of this stuff to be transferred between the phone and FB.

I was also missing some of the sense widgets, but have found suitable replacements. The only thing that is really missing (probably due to my lack of persistence in searching) is a clock/weather widget that shows the current local weather based on your GPS location.

I wouldnt worry too much about facebook integration. Android 4.0.3 is in the works and with it is comming a new Social integration API that will allow facebook syncing (as well as other social site syncing) to work like it did on older versions of android.