Switch from BlackBerry?

[dougie]

Hi. I'm thinking of switching from BlackBerry to the Droid 2 Global with Verizon. My biggest hope is that the Droid can comfortably sync my Outlook-based work email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes/memos. Is all of this possible? Any advice on this one vs. another Droid to accomplish all of this? I love the tasks and related reminders in Outlook and I use the notes for many things. I can use the Enterprise software with my work, too, if that matters. Thanks in advance for helping this here newbie!

 

[rbruceporter]

The D2G Syncs with Outlook (or more accurately Exchange) just fine. You may need some setup help from your Exchange admin to get the settings correctly entered. However, check with your network admin first, my employer does not allow Android based phones to sync due to security issues. They currently only support Blackberry and iPhone.

 

[jgwilliams]

The stock apps do not sync tasks and notes from exchange with the droid phones. An app like touchdown will sync your tasks.

The syncing does not work anything like a blackberry. There appears to be lots of problems with the push function on the motorola droids. They do not function when the phone sits idle. There are other threads related to this problem. A fix is supposed to be on the way.

 

[silver6054]

The D2G Syncs with Outlook (or more accurately Exchange) just fine. You may need some setup help from your Exchange admin to get the settings correctly entered. However, check with your network admin first, my employer does not allow Android based phones to sync due to security issues. They currently only support Blackberry and iPhone.

Mmm, I think the exchange syncing is the #1 problem for business users of D2G and the Pro. Many threads about this, look at the Motorola Support Forums. Fixes are planned but it really doesn't seem to work well for most people. Touchdown seems to work better but many report that that also stops working from time to time.

 

[rbruceporter]

I think it mostly depends on the version of Exchange, and the mode you are using to sync. At my last job I was allowed to sync with our Exchange server and we used 2003. I never once had an issue with over a year of use. Tasks, Notes, Calendar and Contacts all synced flawlessly. We had a top notch Exchange Admin on staff that had setup a front end Exchange server just to support syncing.

For what its worth I had more trouble syncing with Exchange when I was a Windows Mobile user and using ActiveSync than on the Droid.

Thats why I believe it has more to do with how Exchange is configured than an issue with the Droid itself.

The other option is to use Google Sync services on a computer with Outlook, and enable 2 way or 1 way sync with your Gmail account. The downside with this approach is that you loose Notes, but Tasks, Contacts and Calendar work fine. The other downside is of course that mode only works while your computer is on and Outlook is running.