Suggestions for cell phones which sync calendar with (k)ubuntu

[kwokyinc]

I have been using (k)ubuntu as my primary OS at home since 8.04 and have been loving it.

I would really like to have a cell phone which I could reliably sync my contacts and calendars with whatever PIM manager in (k)ubuntu. Can you guys give me some suggestions of cell phone models that can achieve this goal?

Currently I am using a 4-year old HTC device running Windows Mobile 5. I tried the “opensyce / synce” solution to sync the data between my phone and evolution in (k)ubuntu but it breaks quite often. Whenever it breaks, I would need to hard-reset my phone and do a fresh sync of my contacts and calendar all over again (the process usually takes 10-15 minutes). I am quite fed up with this and wanna buy a new phone that is more Linux (particularly Ubuntu) friendly.


Main question:
Can you guys give me some suggestions of cell phone models that can achieve this goal? I just want sync my contacts and calendars “accurately” and “reliably” with whatever (k)Ubuntu’s PIM. Being “accurate” and “reliable” is very important.

Some side questions:

• Now that a lot of stuff have gone to the cloud, has my objective (i.e. synchronizing with PC) become obsolete / irrelevant? Should I just buy a phone (Android) and sync my contacts / calendar to the cloud (Google calendar)?
• I heard that Nokia is the major contributor of qt and Symbian has gone open source. Can Nokia phones do what I want?
• Android is Linux based. How good is getting sync / data exchange from Android to Ubuntu?

[kubicle]

Re: Suggestions for cell phones which sync calendar with (k)ubuntu

I think opensync (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSync) is still a work in progress for KDE4 (I remember reading they need a new version of opensync to get it into akonadi), but it *should* support a number of phones.

Google calendar (or another service) is a viable option (especially if you need to sync more than two phones/computers). I noticed the google calendar akonadi resources are available in the karmic repos (package akonadi-kde-resource-googledata), but I haven't tried it so I can't tell how reliably it works. Maybe someone else can share their experiences.

[Fintan]

Re: Suggestions for cell phones which sync calendar with (k)ubuntu

Google calendar (or another service) is a viable option (especially if you need to sync more than two phones/computers). I noticed the google calendar akonadi resources are available in the karmic repos (package akonadi-kde-resource-googledata), but I haven't tried it so I can't tell how reliably it works. Maybe someone else can share their experiences.

I installed google calander akonadi resources a few weeks ago on my kk and it is very easy to set up with kontact. Very reliable and stable.

I too am looking to replace my motorola razr. I will probably go with htc hero with android.
Another option would be the new nokia N900.

Not sure how they sync as I haven't tried yet but I will google around when I have the time.

Hope this helps and enjoy

[kwokyinc]

Re: Suggestions for cell phones which sync calendar with (k)ubuntu

The Maemo thing looks interesting. But looks like it's going to be out of my budget.

I too will probably get a HTC hero in a month's time.

[jtsmith73]

Re: Suggestions for cell phones which sync calendar with (k)ubuntu

About to go GSM phone shopping in a month... Have there been any notable developments syncing Kontact with Android OS phones?

Thanks in advance,

Jimbo

[Guest]

Re: Suggestions for cell phones which sync calendar with (k)ubuntu

You can sync your windows mobile device, at least 6 and above, with google's calendar and contacts (and gmail if you want) as an Exchange server. The instructions are here:
http://www.google.com/support/mobile...36&topic=14299

Just don't enable synchronizing "Tasks", it breaks the sync for everything and the tasks don't synchronize anyway. I do from time to time have to break and recreate the sync relationship (it deletes everything on the phone and then downloads everything again), but I haven't needed a complete hard reset, and even recreating the sync when I need to only takes a minute or two.

I point out WM6+ above because v.6 added a level of security that is required to sync with some exchange server configurations. I really don't think this is the case for Google though, their instructions don't list a version requirement so I think WM5 will probably work.

Good luck.