The killer app for me on my mac and iPhone is the ability to effortlessly keep in sync my mail, contacts and diary details across my iMac, Macbook and iPhone.

I don't have to connect my phone to my computer to keep everything in sync, it does it wirelessly using my mobile me account.

SO – does Android offer the same for google mail, calendar and contact details, or do I still have to manually sync the phone with the computer to keep the details consistent?

Ta

Exactly that. It's all over the air via Google. Just like MobileMe only without the monthly subscription fees.

geoffj: Android is a Google OS – so syncing with Google is a given.

Cougar: iPhones sync with Google just fine, no MobileMe subscription is required.

Yeah, but the OP said he was using MobileMe.

I've got an Android handset and other half (LoulouK on here) has an iPhone. We've got it set up so that both phones sync with a shared Google calendar so we always know what we're doing, and both also sync personal calendars separately with our respective work Outlook accounts. It was a bugger to set up, but works amazingly well.

Mmmmm – tempted to give one a try.

Yeah, but the OP said he was using MobileMe.

I can't help it if the OP shells out money for stuff that is free anyway 😀

We've got it set up so that both phones sync with a shared Google calendar

I do likewise with MrsGrahamS.

Avoids a huge number of arguments:
"I told you my parents were coming"
"Is it in the The Calendar?"
"Well no, but…"
"Not in The Calendar. Doesn't exist. I'm off to the pub."
*crying*

I can't help it if the OP shells out money for stuff that is free anyway

The OP started shelling out for MobileMe when it was .mac, long before Android phones came out.

IIRC the iPhone was the first device to do the automatic syncing thing between multiple computers and a phone. I know, because I lived through the pain of trying to sync various Nokia's and different flavours of Blackberries [shudders] with multiple computers.

So hold on…my Android phone will sync with my laptop Outlook calender wirelessly…so I won't need to plug it in? What do I need to do?

first your outlook calendar needs to sync with a google calendar – you need a google account for this, its pretty easy. Then you need to set your phone to sync with your google calendar account.

I do this on my desire with iCal on my Mac and my hotmail account and it works brilliantly.

Theoretically, Google Sync to sync Outlook with Google, then as Benjamin said.

However, it only syncs your default calendar, which was no use to me as I wanted to sync a secondary one. So I've been using this, http://www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync/

You can also sync your Facebook calendar with your Google Calendar too and Facebook events appear on your phone

benjamins11 would you chop your Desire for a new Iphone 4? still on fence re either…

However, it only syncs your default calendar, which was no use to me as I wanted to sync a secondary on

Not entirely true – you can set up a second calendar on a second gmail account, then share it with your main account. What you can't do is sync it directly.

What I do:
main personal gmail account – personal calendar, friends and family contacts
work email gmail – work calendar, published (automatically) to the home calendar, work contacts, syncs gmail to my work pop mail account.

On holiday I stop syncing the second account to the phone.

Dunno about an Iphone 4, im sure its great, but my Desire is pretty damn good and not sure that an iphone 4 is worth the considerably more money that it costs.

Ah, fair comment. I never tried it with multiple accounts, seemed to be a backwards way of doing it when Google supports multiple calendars. Cunning idea.

I use multiple calendars on Google (one for me stuff, one for MrsGrahamS stuff, one for "Both Of Us" stuff and one for other important dates) and sync them all over-the-air to our phones.

Never bothered with Outlook syncing tho – mainly because A) I don't have Outlook and B) if I'm sat at a PC I can just use the Google Calendar webpage.

I do this on my desire with iCal on my Mac and my hotmail account and it works brilliantly.

I've only recently started dabbling with Macs but my iCal only syncs my Googlemail Inbox (none of the other mailboxes/labels get sync'ed). How did you do yours?

Cheers

I guess when people say Outlook they mean Exchange syncing – i.e. with their work calendar

Is any of this stuff reliant on having latest version software? I like a small phone, and fancy a Sony-Ericsson X10 mini pro, but it is shipping with Android 1.6. Will this be very restrictive?

No – 1.6 will do all this

Outlook they mean Exchange syncing

Yes and no. It's an Exchange account yes, but we're doing the sync from the client side of things rather than directly from the server.