Upgraded to IPhone 4, Can't synch to Outlook Calendar or Contacts

GrahamZ1

The ONLY reason why I upgraded to a smart phone was that I needed a mobile calendar to go with the one on my PC., From the manual, it LOOKED like I could synch my calendar and contacts with Outlook. But in practice, there's no apparent way to do it. I've looked at the manual and the options that it says are there, are not there. It only synchs my e-mail settings, not anything else in Outlook.

I feel like I've been lied to. I'm already unhappy with the phone because of the sound quality on phone calls -- there's too much echo and not enough volume. Typing in passwords and selecting so on is equally frustrating (especially passwords as I can't see if I've made a mistake). If it's impossible to synchronize with Outlook then there's no advantage to this phone for me over my previous cheap 'dumb' phone.

GrahamZ1

I called Verizon regarding the problems.  Verizon was unable to answer the synch question, but they forwarded me to an Apple person who did, and I finally was able to synchronize everything (sort of...).  The problem is that the synch doesn't get all the critical fields, and those that it does get don't go into the correct corresponding fields for the phone app  I'm now going to have to look for a third-party app that may be able to handle all the fields that I lost and see if it works then.  I'll also probably have to spend an hour or so fixing all the data manually that got screwed up.  I'm not sure what will happen when it tries to synch again -- that really worries me since apparently the field mapping is not right -- if it ends up screwing up my Outlook data I'm going to have a fit.  I have a contact app but apparently it doesn't include any different data than is in apple's phone app.  They just made the screen look more fancy. 

So far as I can tell, the calendar looks ok, but I think I'll need something more robust.  The reminders aren't actually transferred -- aren't reminders supposed to be, you know, reminders, like in Outlook's Calendar?  It looks more like a task list.

The sound issue has been somewhat resolved -- the volume was improved after doing some kind of update on the phone, but the sound is still muffled.  According to Verizon, this is a known defect of the Iphone 4 caused by the placement of the speaker and microphone.

And I discovered a brand new problem with the phone -- frequent dropped calls.  I kept disconnecting while I was trying to get tech support.  I ended up having to use a land-line.  My previous phone (also through Verizon) almost never dropped a call from this location, and it also had great sound quality.  I'm spending more money, I expect a better experience.