Best mobile phone for syncing with Google Contacts?

by philg

It is time to replace my hated Motorola KRAZR phone, whose virtues start and end with the fact that it is a flip design.

I’ve decided that I need to make my entire life Google-centric, storing all calendar events and contacts with Google and continuing to use Gmail. The ideal phone would therefore presumably be the new Google Android phone, but that won’t be available until the end of 2008?

So… what phone can sync reasonably well with the Google Web-based apps? And simultaneously run a good gmail client (is the Java one better for small screens than just trying to use a phone browser with the standard HTML Gmail?)?

I travel around a lot and am too busy to mess with trying to configure Wifi at every stop. That means the phone must have high-speed cell phone network data capability (i.e., the iPhone must be ruled out).

It would be nice to have a phone that is good for running Google Chat and/or AOL Instant Messenger, to keep in touch with my friends (though it may be sufficient to run Google Chat alone since that can connect to AIM).

A friend has a AT&T Tilt (made by HTC) that seems to have every possible feature: high-speed data, built-in GPS, real keyboard, music, video, etc. I played around with it a bit, however, and found that Web browsing, while not painfully slow as with the iPhone, was somewhat clumsy because it doesn’t appear to reformat pages for the small device. I think the interface would have worked great with a much larger display. The thing is Windows-based, which makes me believe that syncing it to Google apps will require piping everything through Microsoft Outlook (not ready for that much pain, I don’t think).

It would be nice to have a phone that works in foreign countries, so that rules out Verizon and Spring, correct? Or do they have some kind of scheme to let their customers talk in GSM countries?

It would be very nice to have a flip-phone design, so that the phone doesn’t make or answer calls from within my pocket, but I have a feeling that this is too much to ask and that I’m out of sync with American consumers.

I’m wondering if given the inherent cumbersomeness of smart phones if it isn’t worth sucking it up and getting a very small computer that can also make phone calls. If the thing can fit into a blue jeans pocket, it would be small enough.

What are the smart kids using for smart phones these days?

23 thoughts on “Best mobile phone for syncing with Google Contacts?”

  1. Just wait for the 3G iPhone, it’ll be out sometime this year and with the recent release of their SDK, will have the richest apps on it.

    If it really can’t wait, than I figure something from Nokia would be decent. I’d take the Symbian device over Windows Mobile.

  2. If you haven’t ruled them out for other reasons, BlackBerrys work really well with Google Apps. (I think this part of Google’s plan to get at Microsoft.) Calendar Sync works both ways, the Mail client is excellent and well-integrated (for example, it can flash the on-phone “new message” light), and maps integrates with the GPS receiver that are on some BlackBerrys. There’s also a Google Talk client. (These are all Google-supported, native apps.)

    The web browser isn’t great. (Though you can also use Opera Mini.) 3G versions seem to exist, but are rare in the US? I don’t know if you can use a BlackBerry as a modem.

    See http://www.google.com/mobile/

  3. Michael: How does a Blackberry work if your primary source of email is Gmail? And how does it sync with the Google Calendar and Contacts? Is there a purely Web-based system? I don’t need to use the phone as a modem. When I go to the trouble of hauling out a laptop, there is usually WiFi available.

  4. I second the vote for a Blackberry (which is not what I was using when you were here, though my wife, non technical though she is, was).

    I’ve tried an iPhone for quite a while and just can’t type anything like fast enough to answer emails and/or text messages. Having a GPS built in and access to Google maps is a nice feature which is genuinely useful too and scores above the iPhone.

    There are other advantages to a Blackberry that a lot of people miss, particularly compared to Nokia or Windows smartphones. The usability really is good for the tech minded – lots of shortcuts for example, because unlike Windows Mobile devices the software writers know precisely what hardware they are writing for. No touch screen means one handed operation. Small things like reading an email and want to reply just hit R, top of the Mail hit T, press space twice to insert a period and a space, press and hold a letter for uppercase, press space bar for a @ and subsequent pressed for a period when typing an email address, press space for a period when typing a URL (why the hell doesn’t EVERY device do those?) and so on.

    Email arrives on the device and whilst you’re reading it it downloads more of it in the background, plus it doesn’t need to download headers, attachments without asking etc. This is a big deal when traveling internationally and using a data (non WiFi) network and you’re paying $15 a megabyte. I was in the Canary Islands last week and a week’s worth of emails (say 50 incoming and 20 outgoing per day) was about 700kbytes. This is radically better than any other type of device.

    Battery lasts several days. Opera Mini browser is okay for looking up something in Wikipedia or whatever. Google has a whole suite of applications for Blackberry, including maps as mentioned above, with great searching. You can either use their dedicated email client or forward messages from their service to your Blackberry address for instant delivery, set the reply-to address to your GMail account and blind CC Gmail when you reply, so you’ve got a copy of everything in Google with the benefits of proper BB email. Google Calendar will sync with your Blackberry too. Standard USB cable for charging. Standard-sized headphone socket. Easily replaced batter, standard (microSD) memorycards. One button keyboard lock. SSH client for late night server reboots. SatNav for rental cars. Loads of IM clients. Loud ring tones.

  5. I think the problem right now is that, basically, all smart phones suck.

    I lost my (non-phone) iPAQ a few months back, and my LG cell was getting a bit creaky, so this month I picked up the current cream of the crop: Verizon xv6800 (HTC Titan, similar to your friend’s Tilt).

    It’s horrible. I have to soft-reset once a day, everything has a two-second lag, I have to get the stylus out to turn on the speakerphone, I can’t sync with my PC about half the time for no apparent reason, I miss phone calls, the processor is 50% slower, the screen is 200% lower resolution… I can’t count the ways in which it is a step backward from every single phone I’ve ever used, including the time the dial on my phone broke and I had to do all my dialing by flicking the handset.

    And unlike the old hard-core Palm hacker communities, it seems the only folks developing for Windows Mobile are, um, kids. I know that makes me sound old and cranky, but frankly, I have yet to see a single Windows Mobile community that doesn’t revolve around (a) skinning/theming, (b) playing YouTube videos, (c) saving six cents on a phone call, (d) rediscovering that round things can be wheels, and (e) skinning/theming again, but now with reflections and transparency. I’m not sure where all the engineering-types are, but they are definitely not developing Windows Mobile apps.

    Unless your current phone is not only broken but actively sending electric shocks through your body, I’d wait till fall, when Google Android and Verizon’s open access hit, and that plus (presumably) a wave of iPhone copycat development advances the state of the art.

  7. Just get blackberry 8820 and you will never want to look at any other phone. It is built for email and java apps. For im install jivetalk which is a unified messanger. There was an amazon deal for att 8820 version.its a gsm phone and not crippled in any way. For international you will need to call carrier and ask unlock code if you want to use third party sim cards. No you can’t expect to do a lot of browsing. But its good enough to read your blog and post coomments whis is what I’m doing right now 🙂

  8. Windows Mobile seems to offer by far the most powerful hardware and the best applications, especially off line applications (like pop3 clients or non-internet based maps/routing). However many of the current devices have stability or driver issues. WebIS mail is a good “full” email client and you can find IM clients for mostly every protocol (including native skype for example). Recently Google announced some PIM sync capabilities with outlook but I don’t know how well this will work with the applications on Windows Mobile.

  10. I have to agree with Jay. I switched to the Sprint version of HTC Titan, and I’d say I’m 51% happy with it. Just enough to keep, but not enough to recommend.

  11. HTC devices will be great for browsing the web once opera mobile 9.5 is finished (it is currently in closed beta, slated for release soon). The Tilt and Titan do have some issues as noted above but most can be resolved using 3rd party firmware. I agree that Windows Mobile sucks but currently there is nothing better, unfortunately.

    I use Sprint Mogul (HTC Titan) as a portable wireless access point to get my laptop and ipod touch online, in most major US cities it can get EVDO Rev. A which has speeds faster than many cable/dsl connections. Pair that with a $15/month unlimited data connection and I am one happy geek, certainly beats paying $10-15/day for a hotel connection.

    It will be interesting to see what comes out of nokia now that they have purchased Trolltech (who also just released Qt support for Windows Mobile). I think their platform has a lot of potential.

  12. the blackberry 83xx/88xx are fine phones, but i don’t think they fit your criteria for google sync’ing.

    there are some third-party apps for windows mobile that sync with google, but i have not experience with them.

    honestly.. i think the phone you want isn’t available yet. the closest native google-sync-friendly phone will probably be based on Android.

  13. I am using goosync.com to sync to my symbian smart phone. It coverst google calender to syncML which a lot of phones support, including windows mobile smartphones. So its a easy way to get over the air 2-way calender sync.

  14. wrt HTC Tilt, I have a kind of precursor, the HTC P3600 aka Trinity aka (in the UK) Orange SPV M700. It theoretically does music, video, web, Word, PDFs, etc., but as with most smart phone, the reality is often a lot uglier. Music software sucks, video has limited formats, Word is slow, PDFs aren’t reformatted (I wish they just extracted the text of PDFs, not tried to render the whole thing!).

    So I only use the web, and even then, it sucks. I had to register Opera in order to use multiple tabs. It’s also quite slow when any graphics appear and rendering is often sub-optimal so you have to scroll ten times to get to the content. Furthermore, it has some uncharacteristically poor usability choices, e.g. opening from a bookmark requires you to drill three levels into the menu system, and entering a word into the address bar does nothing (ie doesn’t use I’m Feeling Lucky like Firefox does, or resolve it to a .com).

    One thing you didn’t mention is input mechanism. This is actually why I went with the P3600, because it takes stylus input. I spent 30 minutes in 1998 learning Graffiti; I never felt the need to carry a keyboard in my pocket after that and have always benefitted from less bulky devices and more screen real estate. I’m reluctant to switch to an iphone with its tiny soft keyboard.

    I haven’t tried integrating with Google features. I did try installing Google Maps native edition and it simply doesn’t work.

    With smartphones, you are reduced to choosing the best of the worst; there’s really no smartphone that really gets it and doesn’t do stupid things. Iphone comes close, but lacks 3G, stylus input, and sane PDF handling.

    BTW Why would you hold a PC to your ear? Put it in a backpack (utility belt etc) and use a headset!

  16. i own a blackberry pearl and I’m pretty satisfied with it. Synchronization with google calendar is a breeze, mail operation works as it should, it’s small, slim and light and works as a phone too 🙂

    If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me.

  17. Note that installing Opera on Windows Mobile results in a far superior browsing experience compared to the included Internet Explorer.

    I use a T-Mobile Dash.

  18. philg,

    get a bberry – on sprint – all blackberry plans come with ulimited data usage as PAM – phone as a model. Any modern laptop comes with built in bluetooth and then you are set – to snarf data off the sprint network at a few hundred kilobit. voice calls are not possible when the phone is being used as a PAM.

    the 88xx from sprint are gsm capable. unlike verizon, which ties you to their plans, you can get your own sim card and party on when you are in wonderland or wherever you travel…

    I second that the google apps on a blackberry are par none. the browsing generally sucks – but hey it is fast.

    the blackberry plans are $40 on top of your phone plan…..oh and dont get the suretype keyboards – they are ok but dont compare to the full keyboard blackberries….

  19. My last phone was a Blackberry — which was very good, and the one before that was a Windows mobile phone — which I returned in disgust two weeks after getting it.

    However, the iPhone is a joy to use. I just got back from a ski trip where I had the iPhone plugged into my Giro helmet: http://www.snowshack.com/detail/SNW+G%2D01066+S
    for tunes on the go.

    It works very well with Gmail — my only email. It uses the new Gmail IMAP interface so that when you read (or delete) a mail on the iphone it shows up as read (or deleted) on the gmail web page.

    The iPhone also apparently works with Google Calendar: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/updates-from-google-docs-and-google.html

    Also, it’s great when traveling that about 1/2 of higher end hotels now seem to have clock/radios with an iPhone dock on top — giving you charging and external speakers.

    As far as not being 3G, I find that although it is somewhat slow, it is still very usable and I think it gives — by far — the best web browsing experience I’ve had on a phone. Check out this article: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/03/iphone-delivers-bigger-browsing-share-than-windows-mobile/
    If the iPhone web experience were not vastly superior, why would the browser share be so high?

    Of course, when the 3G model comes out, I’ll probably upgrade in the first week.

    Setting up WiFi at a new location is extremely quick and easy. I leave my iPhone in auto-detect mode. That way, if I’m not currently connected to WiFi and the phone detects a WiFi network while you are trying to load a page, it asks you if you want to attach to the network. If you tap Yes and no password is required, that’s it — you are connected. If the network requires a password you get an immediate pop-up asking for it.

    There IS sometimes an issue if you are using WiFi in a hotel or hotspot somewhere when you are using one of the other apps (not Safari) to access the internet (e.g. the stock price app). Often these WiFi networks require you to view some initial web page before viewing anything else. So, you have to go to Safari, view this page, then use the other app. This did have me baffled for a while before I figured it out.

    You can also allow the iPhone (or any iPod) to be treated as a disk drive (you configure this setting from within iTunes) and then you’ve always got a multi-gigabyte portable drive with you.

    People worry about the typing speed, but after about two weeks I found I was almost as fast as with my Blackberry. You learn how to use the virtual keyboard, and learn how to work with the auto-correction — either accepting it’s automatic and usually correct interpretation of your typing or explicitly rejecting any inappropriate corrections (by tapping the proposed correction which is generated and viewable on the fly).

    Although the iPhone doesn’t have GPS, it does have a button on the Google Maps app which triangulates your location based on cell tower signal strengths. It seems to have an accuracy of about 1/4 to 1/2 mile. Of course a real GPS would be better…

    Also, I’m excited about the fact that over 100,000 people downloaded the new SDK in the first four days:
    http://news.digitaltrends.com/news/story/16026/over_100000_download_iphone_sdk
    That will no doubt lead to many new useful and fun applications.

    The only real problem I have with it is the speaker-phone which is very quiet and almost unusable.

    Having said all of this, I’m also a fan of Blackberrys and I will be keeping a close eye on Android based phones. However, for the moment, I find using the iPhone a pleasure almost every time I interact with it.

  20. If you’re looking for something you can take with you around the world, there are a couple Verizon phones and bb devices that do this, but I’d really recommend sticking with a pure GSM phone. One of my users has a Verizon device like this, but with it come a number of gotchas, like it doesn’t auto set the time/timezone (wtf?) based on the network.

    I have a Nokia E61i (blackberry form factor) and a Nokia E70 (gull wings qwerty) both which I purchased unlocked directly from Nokia and have served me very well, yet both lack American 3G. Although I’ve used Gmail with IMAP on both, I prefer the Java interface. It works extremely well as long as you’ve got connectivity, it’s not really designed to be used offline/for reference purposes though. I’m not a heavy calendar user, but Goosync.com worked for me.

    Take a look at the Nokia N95, there are two versions with 3G (HSDPA), one with 8GB of internal storage, the other with a microSD slot for storage. Both are quad mode GSM so roam well internationally. They also can be configured to auto lock when the slider is shut, so you won’t have the pocket answer problem. Since they aren’t through a carrier, they also aren’t crippled and allow you to use cheap local sim cards and tether using bluetooth. At the moment, there is no Nokia phone with US 3G and qwerty.

    Other nice things about the N95? Wifi, headphone/tv out port, standard microUSB port, bluetooth 2.0 (incl A2DP), a native podcasting app (perfect for listening to NPR on the go) and a Webkit based browser. If you want to touch one before buying it, drop by the Nokia flagship store in nyc or chicago.

    I don’t work for Nokia, just like to pimp their wares.

  21. Sprint is my provider and I use a Blackberry 8830. It works incredibly well with all of the Google apps … so well that it makes me wonder what their ulterior motive is. Maps works beautifully with the phone’s integrated GPS. It’s the only Blackberry phone/provider combination that has 3G; My plan allows me to use the phone in tethered mode.

    I’ve looked at the iPhone and, despite it’s beautiful UI, I think the Blackberry is superior in terms of sheer usefulness (for an email/contacts centric business user). My technophobe wife likes it so well that she picked up one to replace her 5-year old POTS handset despite my offers of an iPhone. Trust me, that’s the ultimate endorsement.

  22. I used to have a Blackberry and now am using a Nokia E61i. It’s really hard to beat the Nokia for features — wifi, built in SIP VOIP client, decent IM clients, native Google maps and GMail client, a nice webkit-based web browser and a good alternative in Opera Mobile.

    HOWEVER, the E61i does not do U.S. 3G, the UI can be frustratingly slow, and Nokia US repair service has an abysmal reputation.

    I can’t comment on the Google Calendar sync capabilities of the Blackberry, but I have to say that as primitive as their own calendar software can be, it seems to be a solid, well architected platform. As people have pointed out, there is at least one BB model which is a dual US CDMA (Verizon/Sprint) + GSM (foreign bands only) phone.

    I use my E61i on T-mobile because I’m a bit of a phone geek and it fits my budget (it’s a heck of a bargain, actually), but if you can afford the service costs, the dual GSM-CDMA Blackberry 8830 on Verizon w/ EVDO is probably a great choice.

    I’d make certain that Verizon doesn’t limit your ability to install apps on the phone, however, and look into Google’s calendar sync. Native GMail worked great on my old 8290. Hope that helps.

  23. re: philg’s question “How does a Blackberry work if your primary source of email is Gmail?”

    Using Google’s Mail client, everything works pretty much as you’d expect. There’s an assumption that you’ll be using the web client much of the time–there are very many things you can’t do from the client (such as set up filters), and by default, only the inbox (and not any other labels) is displayed. It does do things like Ajax-style email address completion from GMail’s list of contacts. (Can be a little slow.) The search is quite good and fast.

    I actually have my BlackBerry set up so that GMail forwards some mail to my BlackBerry. Mail sent from the BlackBerry gets bcc’d to my GMail account (setup via the BlackBerry web interface), with a “From” address of my GMail account. (BlackBerry calls this a “Reply-To” address, but they do modify the “From” header. The “Sender” is a BlackBerry account but this seldom causes problems.) GMail, upon getting the Bcc’d mail, figures out that since your “From” address is the same as the “From” address you’re using there, it’s a “Sent” message, and puts it in the appropriate folder. So all this works about as well as it could.

    You can also get the BlackBerry to talk to GMail’s IMAP, though I haven’t tried this. I suspect it won’t do folders, and there will be a bit of a delay since it needs to poll.

    “how does it sync with the Google Calendar and Contacts?”

    Contacts aren’t synced.

    The calendar sync is done via an app that runs on the BlackBerry. There’s no web-based configuration; you enter your username and password into the app itself and after that it just works.

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