I transferred my Outlook contacts to my Gmaill account (via a CSV file import) and all works fine.
I then synched my Gmail account with my Gmail app on a Samsung GII phone, and my contacts appeared on the phone, no problem.

Here's the wacky part : when I try to send an email from my phone, I tap "new message" and am prompted to enter the address. I begin with the first few letters (for example johnd... for my friend John Doe) and the phone automatically completes the entry with :

"DOE, John," <johndoe@gmail.com SMTP John Doe (johndoe@gmail.com)>

This long string invariably means that the email does not get delivered, and I get a mailerdeamon error message in return. Happens with almost all of my contacts.
I'm not sure but I suspect it may only happen with those contacts that have 2 or more email addresses associated with the same contact name.

Why doesn't the app simply complete the address line with ?? Does anyone have a work-around ??