Well there is my problem, most of my contacts are in my outlook contacts. I assume there is a way to export from outlook to gmail...I am guessing I will need to do that on my pc.
Thanks
Doing it on your PC is probably the easiest way, though some Android devices (like those using HTC Sense) support exporting/importing to/from a vCard file (.vcs). If you're going to export from Outlook on the desktop, then you'll need to export to a Comma Separated Values (.csv) file.
GMail/Google Contacts (on the desktop) will import from .csv or .vcs files. The only problem is that contact photos won't transfer. You'll have to reassign them from your photo gallery on the phone (or via GMail/Google Contacts on the desktop).
The transfer works, but not all fields directly translate between Outlook and Google Contacts (If you've customized any fields, those you'll likely have trouble with).
The following is for general background knowledge to help out anyone else that might have issues or not understand cloud storage of contacts:
I've seen it on the message boards plenty of times. People wonder why their voice calling/texting, contact searching, 3rd-party contact managers, etc. don't work right. It's because they don't have their contacts in Google's ecosystem. They also run into problems (losing contacts) when they try to switch phones. GMail/Google Contacts works great (when people actually use it), but many newcomers to Android (and smartphones in general) don't understand the relationship (or lack thereof) between contacts stored in the cloud versus those stored on local databases on their phone.
When you save a contact using your phone, you have to ensure that it is saved to the "Google" account (i.e. the account tied to your GMail email address). Don't save it to "Android" (or whatever "Phone" account may exist). If you don't save it to the associated Google/GMail account, then it's not saved in the cloud and if your phone is lost/stolen/broken or replaced, whatever contacts you had on that phone will be lost. Most phones will allow you to set the default account to save contacts to (or will default to whatever account you last saved a contact to). So be careful to look at which account to which you're saving a new contact.
Contacts that are saved in the cloud are still accessible on your phone regardless of coverage or airplane mode, etc. (a locally cached copy is always maintained). Any changes you make locally will be synced the next time your phone gets online.
You can access your contacts from your desktop via GMail (mail.google.com -- then choose Contacts from the red "GMail" dropdown menu) or via the Google Contacts web interface (
www.google.com/contacts). Both access the same contacts information.
All of this applies to Calendar, too (
www.google.com/calendar).