E72 Experiment with Exchange

After the longest time in being with a touch interface on two Android models, I was thrilled to be back with the E72 for even a short period. Typing on a hardware qwerty was a great feeling, and nothing made me happier than being able to pound away at awaiting keys on a familiar phone. Since leaving behind the two BlackBerry Bolds of the 9800 and 9000 for my Captivate, I found myself settling once again for something that didn't satisfy me 100%. This unsatisfactory circumstance was further perpetuated by the lack of worthwhile GSM Android devices equipped with a hardware qwerty. Two major CDMA carriers in the USA had the privilege of sponsoring models such as the Droid, Droid 2, and Epic 4G, but I was forced to choose between two lackluster units offered by Motorola: the Cliq and the Backflip. None of these even remotely compared to the feature set of my Captivate or Nexus One, so I didn't see the point in wasting my time. Not to mention that these same phones were hampered by a most horrible cluster of a mess called MotoBlur that I plan to stay far away from. Despite my admiration for Android, this frustration eventually led me to wondering if I could survive on a non-Android smartphone.

A friend of mine had reminded me of how the iPhone could sync my Google data via Exchange, but I was skeptical at the time. I had already been let down by the unimpressive performance of GooSync on the previous E72 and Google Sync on the BlackBerry Bolds. Tolerating syncing discrepancies with contact duplications and missing calendar appointments left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was certain that Android was the only way to go. However, being away from a hardware qwerty for that much longer started to shake my faith in Android. I seriously considered leaving the familiar OS, but I didn't want to do without the reliability of my Google data being synced over the air. As an experiment, I took my iPod Touch and disabled all PIM data syncing via iTunes in order to rely completely on Exchange. Once I followed instructions found from an online Google search, ALL my calendar, contact, and email data synced to my Apple device flawlessly!! After seeing that activities initiated on the iPod could be synced to my Google account and then to my Captivate, I was overjoyed! For the first time, I felt like I could afford to leave Android behind as long as I had access to Microsoft Exchange. The next logical step was to acquire an alternate phone with such a feature. That is my main reason for taking on this E72 once again.

Trent Smith
Sent from my Nokia E72