My Fascinate became the phone I wanted it to be when...

[RunSilent23]

...I migrated my email to Gmail.

Coming from the Blackberry Storm, the Fascinate is superior in every way except when it comes to email. Exchange and Gmail work well on the Fascinate, but my experience with other POP email is mixed. In my case, my MSN email account would take hours or days to load. This was problematic since I relied on my MSN account to field questions from my clients. I also had trouble deleting email. It had a habit of raising from the dead (showing back up in my in-box after being deleted). To say I second-guessed my decision to move from Blackberry to Android would be accurate.

However, I realized that if I wanted the best of Android, I needed to adapt to Google's way of operating. And that meant Gmail was a big part of getting the best out of my Fascinate. First, I created a Gmail account for my clients and migrated my online log-ins and subscriptions to the new account. I then linked my old MSN account to flow to my new Gmail account. Guess what? I get everything immediately and I can phase-out my old account on my timeline.

My observation is this. Most of the users who are frustrated by changing to Android are still trying to do things the way they used to. Sometimes you need to change to get the best out of a system. You can argue that switching to Android shouldn't make you change but if you want the best out of the ecosystem, you'll want to change.

I now love my Fascinate. It is everything I wanted it to be. Now about that Froyo update...

 

[voghan]

When you go all in google, android does shine. Calendar, gmail and contacts sync great on android.

 

[big_limits]

I now love my Fascinate. It is everything I wanted it to be. Now about that Froyo update...

It's there go get it....really.
Read,re-read the instructions, then re-read a few more times for good measure then dive in. You'll love your phone a 1000 times more than u do now. If u have a little mechanical/ technical aptitude and can read and follow instructions you'll be fine. Where people fail is u must read a set of instruction completely and understand them before you ever pick up a tool. From your post it doesn't
Sound like you'll have a problem.

Verizon Fascinate Rooting, ROMs, and Hacks - Android Forums

 

[tchabalie]

How did you link your MSN account to the Gmail account? I'd like to try that with my AOL account.

 

[Sta11i0n]

How did you link your MSN account to the Gmail account? I'd like to try that with my AOL account.

If you log into your gmail account via webmail there are options in the settings to import and poll other mail accounts or send from or forward your gmail to another email address.

 

[joebob2000]

I have deep pity for anyone using a Storm without Gmail... LOL. I figured that one out after about my first week; the only way calendaring and contact management was going to be practical was by using Gmail, its the only thing on BB comparable to being on a full blown BES. Now that I have a Fascinate, I actually rely on Google less thanks to their pretty darn good OWA client built into the stock email app. It feels good not having to worry about Google sync freaking out and creating 4 duplicates of every appointment.

 

[RunSilent23]

Now that I have a Fascinate, I actually rely on Google less thanks to their pretty darn good OWA client built into the stock email app.

I echo your sentiment about OWA. As I mentioned, my experience with Exchange and Gmail were excellent. However, I was keeping my outside consulting business messaging separate with my MSN account. THAT'S when I ran into issues. The default email client on my Fascinate would take hours and sometimes days to download my MSN messages (even though I had it set to check for email every 5 minutes.)

If you read through the Android forums, you'll find that I am not the only one that has this issue. I didn't want a client to be upset that I wasn't responsive, so my choices were to go back to Blackberry or find another solution. I didn't want to go back to Blackberry so I elected to download MailDroid. This worked excellent for about a half an hour. My MSN email was coming in timely when all of a sudden, the stock email client started crashing the phone. It got so bad that I had to do a hard reset.

After that, I decided to link my MSN email with a Gmail account. This turned out to be the best solution of all. I only have one caveat: I can't send email from my MSN account using the Gmail app on the Fascinate like I can through my laptop. Since I am phasing this email account out, this isn't that big of a deal.