Can Pre import Treo contacts?

[womanhattan]

I have a Treo, and plan to replace it with a Pre, assuming that I can import the data on my Treo 700P (which is synced with Entourage, the Mac equivalent of Outlook. Can this be done? If I have to do a CSV import, I'm sticking with my old Treo. I did that kind of import to gmail contacts when I bought the G1 and the contacts did not import properly. No one at customer support or on forums could help fix it and I had to return the G1 and go back to my Treo.

I am also disappointed that it appears from the Pre user guide that Palm has made scant to zero innovations or improvements in personal data management. After all, Palm is one of the pioneers in personal data management. I guess they are so focused on being an iPhone killer that they didn't zero in on the basics. In January I wrote some thoughts on how a smartphone should work here:
"Why Are Smartphones So Dumb?"
http://womanhattan.com/daily/?p=23#more-23

• Just one small example: It appears from the user guide that you still can't customize labels for phone numbers, e.g. "tech support," and "billing," or "beach house" and "city" instead of just the restrictive "home," "mobile," "work," and "fax." Palm should have fixed this years ago
• The only innovation appears to be the ability to link potential duplicates of a contact (e.g. two Jane Does in your address book). However, linking an appointment or note to a contact...still not possible as far as I can tell.

I'll still buy it (assuming I can import personal data without glitches) and I won't sell my Palm stock (which has tripled since I bought it) but I am still disappointed.

[Lynx]

this is taken from the users manual which you can go read here...

If you previously synchronized data from a Palm smartphone—such as contacts or calendar events—with a desktop organizer such as Palm Desktop ® software by ACCESS or Microsoft Outlook
®, Address Book, or iCal, you can do a one-way transfer of that data from the desktop organizer to your Pre phone.

Notice it says one way transfer and not sync... once you transfer the palm desktop data to your Pre, I would suggest syncing it with Google contacts & Calander...

I just saw that you use Mac and Entourage... I would suggest to install Palm desktop and do a one time sync with your 700p to ensure that your PIM data is completely transfered, but there may be more help on the Entourage site about using Entourage to transfer PIM data to Pre...

[womanhattan]

Hi Lynx,

Thanks for responding.

I originally had Palm Desktop for Mac. When Palm purchased Palm Desktop for Mac from Claris (where it was called Claris Organizer), they added the HotSync feature, and that was it. No maintenance or upgrades of the software. No fixing of the numerous glitches. Eventually it became so glitch-ridden that it froze my phone and I couldn't access my personal data. After many hours of conversations with Palm tech support, I exported my data to Entourage, a traumatic event. As I said on my blog post why are smartphones so dumb? "It was like someone had gone to my physical file cabinet, removed all the paper clips and staples on my files, and dumped everything on the floor."

I can't anticipate what glitches will result from syncing my personal data with Palm Desktop again. But I can imagine based on prior experience. And what I imagine is very ugly.

If I can't sync my Microsoft Entourage data with the Palm Pre, no pre for me. Guess I'm still stuck with my Treo.

[womanhattan]

I wrote:
"If I can't sync my Microsoft Entourage data with the Palm Pre, no pre for me. Guess I'm still stuck with my Treo."

Note: A one-time import may be sufficient, assuming I can then sync my Pre with a good cloud app. But if I have to sync my phone with Palm Desktop again, it's a no go.