So I’m just about to venture into the world of Android phones for the first time. An Orange San Fransisco will arrive on Tuesday and by the end of the day it will be unlocked, unbranded and running Android 2.2 (is that Froyo?) with a Virgin Mobile PAYG sim.

I have a few specific questions for anyone more experienced than me…

I have my contacts in Windows Live Mail – can I sync them with an Android phone? Ideally I’d like to keep in sync but even just saving me re-entering them would help. (I think contacts are in phone memory, not on the sim, on my old phone)

I have a couple of Virgin Media email addresses (old ones so they end with @ntlworld.com). I know Vmail is based on and similar to GoogleMail – how easy is it to get my email onto the phone?

I have all my music in Itunes in ‘Apple Lossless’ format – what’s the best app to get it on the phone? I’ve read about one called ‘Andless’ – any good? I don’t need it in high quality format on the phone as I mostly use my phone for music on planes with a fair bit of background noise.

I’d like to use one of the SatNav applications but need one that doesn’t require a live data connection as I’m on PAYG. I’d need European mapping on it, preferably only downloading the countries I need to save memory.

Finally, is there anything I can do about any of this in advance of getting the phone? Is there an Android equivalent of Itunes? Do I need to download anything and/or create an account?

TIA.

More questions will follow, no doubt!

Can’t really help with your questions, other than to say that I bought and unlocked a San Francisco last weekend and it’s bloody ace! I can’t believe how good the screen and the quality of phone actually is, regardless of price.

Android app market will no doubt be your new best friend… enjoy!

Yeah 2.2 is Froyo.

I don’t use WLM but you should be able to export your contacts somewhere (should be in CSV format). You can then import this file to your google account (guide: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=8301&topic=12877). There may well be a faster way, but this will work just as well and won’t take very long at all.

It is also possible to get your windows live email in your android email app. There’s a guide here: http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/google-android/articles/98770.aspx. This should also work with your other email addresses, providing you can find the POP3 info – there’s a guide here: http://help.godaddy.com/article/4906

Will get back to you about the rest 😉

For offline gps for android, take a look at these:

http://www.mapdroyd.com/

http://www.alk.eu.com/copilot/android/ (not sure if this one works offline, I read somewhere it did but you should check it out further)

For playing lossless aac, Andless does seem to be the best. Doubletwist is a great desktop app for adding music to android, however it will convert your lossless to mp3 I expect.

Before getting your phone..create a google account if you don’t have one. You can then set up your contacts ready for when you get it.

As above, do your contacts stuff in Gmail on a PC and the phone will just sync with that.

Virgin email accounts are no problem, and I’d suggest setting it up with IMAP, it’s far superior to POP3. If you have trouble with the settings just shout and I can post the relevant bits.

Or forward all to a handful of new gmail accounts 😀 gmail > all other email services.

Virgin email uses the Gmail engine… so to all intents and purposes it is Gmail… 😀

Thanks so far.

I already had a Google account (for Google Reader) so have created a Gmail account and copied my contacts, tidying a few up at the same time.

I’ll probably end up keeping my Virgin email accounts as I think Gmail is blocked at work but Vmail isn’t.

flipiddy how much did it cost you to get it unlocked?
I’m also thinking about getting the SF and getting it unlocked. Quite fancy trying android.

Jim, see how much this costs – http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/how-to-unlock-de-brand-and-root-the-zte-blade-orange-san-francisco/1824/

Modaco has a good forum for the phone – it’s also known as the ZTE Blade

and orangesanfrancisco has some good tutorials and walkthroughs

I bought 2 a couple of weeks ago and can’t believe how good they are for the money.

I’m using the FLB-Froyo G2 rom and find it very stable.

Whilst the SF/blade geeks are on this thread, what’s the latest stock android for them? I’m perfectly capable of installing various “cooked” (god i hate that term, but that’s a rant for another day) ROMs, but I might need a cheap android device for some work soon, so close to stock as possible would be better.

Yes, I could look that up, but CBA.

I upgraded from a Nokia to an Android phone the other week, couldn’t get my contacts to transfer via Bluetooth so I copied/exported all of the contacts to a Micro SD card, plugged that into the new phone and imported them.

For Syncing iTunes I’m using the free version of Salling Media Sync, the Mac version however they do one for Windows as well. Doesn’t work with anything that’s DRM protected thou.

http://www.salling.com/

DRM on iTunes stuff shouldn’t be a problem if it’s purchased since April ’09, DRM was dropped then, and anything bought before then can either be upgraded for 20p/track, IIRC, or, you can get around the DRM on older iTunes purchases by copying to a CD or DVD and re-importing them; it was Apple’s work-around while the music biz forced DRM on digital downloads.and anything ripped has no DRM anyway, so that’s a non-issue.

Hmmmm…… not convinced my Contacts have copied correctly from Windows Live Mail to Gmail e.g. there is no entry in the ’email’ field for any of the. The email address is in a text field instead.

I’ll only know for sure whether it workd or not when the phone arrives but I suspect some sorting out will be needed.

As said above re mapping – CoPilot is a good piece of software. It does work offline, though will offer to update itself each time it starts up – you can disable this.

Cheers guys, just ordered an SF/blade after reading this thread. Left my iphone in a waterproof backpack last week.
Which seemed sensible, until I put a soaking wet jacket in it to 🙂

IanMunro – have you tried drying the phone out – remove battery, place in a bowl of rice, cover it with clingfilm and leave for a few days ?

Yeah, I suck in a dehydrator for a few days. It got to the stage where I could get it into recovery mode (though it was evident that it had suffered some water contamination within the screen), however trying to restore the OS is producing error code 23 which looks like a hardware problem. Might be fixable, but I need something else in the meantime 🙂

Just bought a SF today, currently charging… then the fun begins… not looking forward to debranding it.. even after looking at all the guides on it…

OK, quick question….
how do I associate my phone to Android Market?

I have a gmail/google account and have told the phone about it. The phone has synced my contacts from gmail. I have signed in to Android Market using the browser on my phone but when I try to download something I get the ‘no phones associated with this account’ message.

Solved it – now I’ve removed all the Orange gubbins and installed a clean Android 2.2 it’s done it all seamlessly. I don’t think the Orange mail stuff liked the Virgin PAYG card I’ve got in it.

I know this is turning into a monologue but thanks to ‘realconspiracy’ for this…

For playing lossless aac, Andless does seem to be the best. Doubletwist is a great desktop app for adding music to android, however it will convert your lossless to mp3 I expect.

I’ve gone for Doubletwist which seems to be just the job. The fact that it downgrades to mp3 is just fine by me – on my phone, I’m more interested in quantity than outright quality.