Droid X Verizon Wireless Sync vs Touchdown

[andycincy]

I have been reading through these posts and haven't seen any discussion of Verizon wireless sync. This worked great for my Moto Q and allowed me to sync outlook email/calendar/contacts with outlook on my PC, WITHOUT actually connecting directly to the server. I need to keep my PC on and logged in, so I just lock it every night and I am fine (unless power goes off or some auto windows update installs and causes it to start a reboot).

So, I had an HTC Incredible for 6 days before I returned it because it couldn't hold a charge for more than 3 hours, and now am getting my Droid X delivered tomorrow. For the days I had the Incredible I had to use Touchdown to sync my outlook calendar/contacts with my google account, and had to set my emails to auto-forward to my gmail account. It worked fairly well, but of course any email replies i would send from my phone would come from my gmail account and would not sync to my account at work on my desktop. The IT department at work could have set it up so that the incredible would sync directly with the Exchange server, but they would have locked down my phone so that whenever i wanted to use it i would have to type in a crazy password that includes upper case/lower case/alpha/numerical. And I would have to change the password every 90 days. No thanks, hence the Companionlink solution.

The Verizon wireless sync application (www.wirelesssync.vzw.com) seems to be a great in-between solution. It syncs your stuff in almost real time but does it between your PC and your phone, keeping a firewall between your phone and the server. The IT guys are happy and so am I. Problem is that when you go to choose a phone to set up the wireless sync account, no Android phones are listed...mostly only stupid windows mobile phones.

So, here is my question. Does the X solve this problem, or am I back to using Companionlink? There is no way i am going to put in those crazy passwords i have to change every 90 days just to make a phone call or use an app...I see a co-worker do it with his iphone and it is a PIA. Any suggestions or pointers are appreciated, thanks.

 

[NMAUL]

andycincy did you get an answer on this? I am trying to sync my droid x to my outlook via usb and can't seem to find a solution that works. Any ideas?

 

[andycincy]

I emailed customer support at Touchdown and the founder of the company replied...he told me that Touchdown only syncs with Exchange Server and to try Companionlink. So I downloaded & installed companionlink.

You can sync companionlink directly w/outlook via usb, or thru gmail wirelessly. It syncs calendars and contacts with my phone perfectly by actually syncing all that stuff thru the gmail account and then with my phone. For email you have to set a rule to 'redirect' every message to your gmail account, which essentially forwards a copy to your gmail account as soon as it hits your exchange server. Like I said in the earlier post, using this method is inconvenient for 2 reasons. 1)Deleting emails from your phone/gmail account leaves them in your outlook so you have to delete them again when you get back to your computer, and 2)if you need to reply to an email you essentially start a new thread with your gmail account. And, you have to leave your computer on, outlook on, and just CTRL-ALT-DLT then 'k' to lock it when you are not around, since Companionlink is a program running on your desktop.

Oh well, at least this way you can see your emails when they show up, and the contact/calendar aspect of it is flawless. I really like the Droidx implementation of email, which makes it much easier to quickly select a bunch of emails quickly to delete them, so this is not too much of hassle. With the Incredible you had to select/delete each message separately...major PIA.

 

[andycincy]

To be clear, the title of my original post here referenced touchdown, which is a different program then companionlink. A simple google search will get you to the sites for both. Not sure why anyone would need Touchdown though because supposedly Droid x is supposed to sync fine with built-in apps to exchange...if your it staff give you permissions to do so. Anyway, just wanted to clarify that for the benefit of anyone else reading this.

 

[NMAUL]

Thx andycincy. I was aware of companionlink as I was using it with my Droid ERIS, setting up my email separately worked fine with my Droid ERIS.

I did find a thread that I'm still reading that seems to indicate that the Droid X looks for an SSL certificate regardless of whether the 'use secure connection' is checked or not. Moto is aware of this an working on a fix. That should solve my problem, I think.

In the end, though, am looking for a one stop shop that includes email sync via USB and based on all that I have read, including your previous thread, that's just not happening if the corporate IT isn't using MS Exchange. Our corporate is using Novell Groupwise ...

Anyway, thx for posting a reply.

 

[wmscottmc]

Yes please update this thread if you find a good solution. I tried a couple of these 3rd party apps which didnt work well, so I ended up migrating my Outlook calendar/contact info to google which I didnt want to do for many reasons. I dont use Outlook anymore. (you cant even migrate all outlook data to google. your outlook notes/memo's for example will not migrate to google so you will not have those on your DX unless you install another app and manage those seperately.)

I was surprised that no real good sync solutions exist (that sync all outlook data and have a great UI), and more surprised that more people dont seem to care about this issue.

You'll have people tell you that there is no problem but that usually because they are either talking about Exchange, or they dont use most features of Outlook and think that google calendar is just fine.

Let us know if you find a great solution, or if any new 3rd part apps exist. I would love to go back to using Outlook, and syncing directly with the DX.

 

[plumcrazy]

I found this but have not tried it. pricey but if it works id do it.
Android Sync Software for HTC EVO, Nexus One, Droid, Hero and Other Android Phones

 

[masterclean5]

TASKS are not supported. Not good...

 

[fostytou]

TASKS are not supported. Not good...

I have not used it but the first thing on their page right now is [h=2]"The Missing Sync for Android now syncs tasks and bookmarks!"[/h]