Looking for a Verizon phone that works well with Macs that is not an iPhone

September 21, 2011 6:11 AM

What is the best Verizon phone that works well with Macs but is not an iPhone?

We're contemplating switching to Verizon from ATT. The wife doesn't want an iPhone (doesn't like the feel of it, prefers actual keyboard), but we're an all Mac household. What Verizon phone would you recommend for a Macintosh user that has the following requirements:

1. Not an iPhone

2. Has a physical keypad

3. Can sync the Mac address book to the phone and vice versa

4. Can sync calendars between the phone and computer with as little hassle as possible.

posted by Brandon Blatcher to computers & internet (12 answers total)

You're probably going to end up looking at something with Android that uses Google Calendar/Contacts as the middleman. Lifehacker has a more detailed write-up.
posted by holgate at 6:25 AM on September 21, 2011

Any Android phone at all will do what you want to a T.

(And the best part of Android + Google Apps is that there's no real "syncing." I've never had to physically plug my Android phone into my mac. All the magic happens "in the cloud.")
posted by schmod at 6:48 AM on September 21, 2011

This phone was announced today.
Also what they all said above for the syncing.
posted by pyro979 at 6:57 AM on September 21, 2011

Any Android phone at all will do what you want to a T.

Not all Android phones have physical keyboards.
posted by alms at 7:15 AM on September 21, 2011

You're probably going to end up looking at something with Android that uses Google Calendar/Contacts as the middleman.

We do not want not want to use Google anything to accomplish this. Is there a way to do that?

Any Android phone at all will do what you want to a T.

Does it involve using Google apps?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:26 AM on September 21, 2011

You could use Missing Sync with an Android phone, I guess. They also have it for Blackberry. I can't vouch for how well it works.
posted by kindall at 7:41 AM on September 21, 2011

You're shooting yourself in the foot here. Blackberry support on the mac is... functional, and I believe you can sync media on Win Phone 7, but not contacts. Really, though, you've ruled out the best smartphone (the iPhone) and the 2nd-5th best phones (Android Phones) right off the bat.
posted by Oktober at 7:44 AM on September 21, 2011

Brandon Blatcher - I am certainly not an expert, and I am certainly not your expert - but I have had more than some difficulty getting my wife's Sony-Ericsson Xperia - which is an Android machine with a physical keypad - to play nice with her iMac. If you want easy plug-and-play this one certainly isn't it.
posted by three blind mice at 7:46 AM on September 21, 2011

Really, though, you've ruled out the best smartphone (the iPhone) and the 2nd-5th best phones (Android Phones) right off the bat.

Just so I'm totally clear, it is impossible to use an Android for email, address and calendar syncing without going through some sort of Google app, correct?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:36 AM on September 21, 2011

All of the Android phones I've played with (G1, Nexus, Droid Incredible, Droid X, Evo, Epic 4G) worked by having you sign into google, then syncing all of the mail/contacts/calendars from the cloud. There are definitely mail/calendar/contact apps that exist besides google, but I haven't played with them enough to 1) know what sort of local sync, if any, they employ and 2) whether they're anything but crap.
posted by Oktober at 10:00 AM on September 21, 2011

it is impossible to use an Android for email, address and calendar syncing without going through some sort of Google app, correct?

The third-party software I mentioned in my 7:41 AM post does allow the phone to be synced with Mac applications without using Google's Web apps as intermediaries.

Of course, there's still Google's OS, and many apps installed on the phone to contend with.
posted by kindall at 10:04 AM on September 21, 2011

I have a google account I don't use except as spambait, but I just pointed my android phone's standard "email" app at my work account's imap and smtp servers. Works fine.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:23 AM on September 21, 2011