Facebook and contacts question

[carlos31820]

Ok, my Droid X will be here in a few days so I've been doing a lot of reading and learning about this phone. I'm coming to the Droid X from a Blackberry Storm 1 but I already use Gmail on my Storm.

From what I gather, a lot of people don't like to use the built-in blur facebook widget because it imports all your facebook friends into the phone contacts. Here are my questions:

1- After the widget adds the facebook contact entries, are these same entries then synced with my Google contacts? I don't think I want a few hundred facebook contacts show up in my gmail contacts.

2- Is there a way to have the widget only sync existing contacts? I read some posts suggesting this is possible but I keep finding posts where people say the widget always adds all the facebook contacts to the phone contacts.

3- Slighty related question here. Does the phone keep separate contact groups? (facebook, gmail, etc). If so, if I add a contact to the phone, do I have to do anything special to get that contact to sync with gmail contacts? On my Blackberry, any time I add a contact, it just shows up in the google contacts.

Sorry for the newbie questions but I've searched a few different forums for hours and don't really understand if I really need to avoid the built-in facebook widget as many posts are suggesting.

 

[seanubis]

1- After the widget adds the facebook contact entries, are these same entries then synced with my Google contacts? I don't think I want a few hundred facebook contacts show up in my gmail contacts.

If a FB contact and a Google contact have the same name (or possibly the same email address or phone number) then they'll be linked in the Contacts app.

They won't "show up in your Gmail contacts" - they'll be in a separate group on the phone. More on that below.

2- Is there a way to have the widget only sync existing contacts? I read some posts suggesting this is possible but I keep finding posts where people say the widget always adds all the facebook contacts to the phone contacts.

The official Facebook app on vanilla Android has the option to only sync existing contacts.

The official Facebook app on Droid X does not have the option to sync contacts at all.

The Moto social networking app syncs all of your FB contacts. If you add your FB account as an account on your Droid X, then all of your FB contacts will show up on your phone.

3- Slighty related question here. Does the phone keep separate contact groups? (facebook, gmail, etc). If so, if I add a contact to the phone, do I have to do anything special to get that contact to sync with gmail contacts? On my Blackberry, any time I add a contact, it just shows up in the google contacts.

Yes, the phone does keep separate contact groups - but when you use the contacts app it seems to default to "All Contacts", which is a merged view of everything. Tapping the bar at the top of the contact list will let you pick an individual group to view.

Sorry for the newbie questions but I've searched a few different forums for hours and don't really understand if I really need to avoid the built-in facebook widget as many posts are suggesting.

All good questions, IMO. I really tried to like the way that Motorola chose to do contact sync, but in the end the lack of control over sync options (particularly the ability to sync only with existing contacts) led me to remove my FB and Twitter accounts from the Moto app, ditch the Blur widgets, and go back to using the official FB and Twitter apps and their respective widgets.

 

[moosc]

it really sucks the Droid had the option select how you wanted your contacts to sync and this one doesnt boo

 

[carlos31820]

Seanubis, thank you for the detailed response. And thanks for everyone elses input.

I think I will pass on the Moto widget for now. Sounds like its more trouble than its worth.

 

[gnarlygianni]

Not all my fb contacts are showing up how do i fix this?