Is anyone else disappointed with ActiveSync?

gobadgrs · 05-02-05, 08:28 AM

I mean, look at all of this critical stuff it cant do!

1) Activesync does not allow you to create partnerships with more than 2 Personal Computers.

2) Activesync cannot synchronize more than ONE mail account inbox. So you will need to decide on which PC to synchronize the inbox and if you are creating a partnership first on the PC with which you do NOT want to synchronize the inbox make sure you do not tick the box to synchronize this.

3) Activesync is UNABLE to synchronize data with another PIM software (including Outlook Express). It can only synchronize with Outlook itself.

4) Activesync can only synchronize data in the main Tasks, Contacts and Notes directories and not sub-directories. It is advisable to use “Categories” to classify and sort your data as Activesync can synchronize this information.

5) Activesync cannot synchronize data/ files to any memory other than the main memory of your device.

6) Activesync cannot create a partnership using WIFI.

One of my biggest beefs is that I need to use Outlook to sync any contacts info. When I had a palm it had all of that stuff included in the desktop. I also hate how everytime you hard reset your Axim, you have to create a new partnership. Palm would let you select which account you wanted to use. Anyone else think MS could have done a lot better job with this software?

05-03-05, 03:24 AM

Not to mention the lack of multiple calendars from an exchange server.

Yes, activesync sucks. It did not get the name Active STINK by mistake.

G M Fude · 05-03-05, 04:52 AM

Plus it hangs, and seems to have trouble resolving items periodically. I've had to delete contacts then re-enter them. The software that should be the most robust and absolutely bullet-proof if we are to have 100% confidence in these devices is the synchronisation conduit.

Activestink it is....

psionandy · 05-03-05, 05:01 AM

But is it anyworse than Hotsync, Psiwin or Intellisync Lite?... It seems that nobody is capable of selling a handheld and selling a syncing solution with it

G M Fude · 05-03-05, 05:29 AM

Originally Posted by psionandy

But is it anyworse than Hotsync, Psiwin or Intellisync Lite?... It seems that nobody is capable of selling a handheld and selling a syncing solution with it

I can't comment on the others, but I used Palms for 6 years and only ever had Hotsync fail once. Once in 6 years; and it was because I was stupidly using an unsupported conduit for Fugawi (it was a Windows 98 problem).

The second day I had my Axim the ActiveSync froze requiring the PDA to be disconnected from the cradle and the ActiveSync on the desktop to be shut down via WinXP's Task Manager (i.e. Ctrl+Alt+Del).

Plus Hotsync is way faster than ActiveSync.

Adrian Knack · 05-03-05, 05:33 AM

Maybe Dell should make AximSync??...

psionandy · 05-03-05, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by G M Fude

I can't comment on the others, but I used Palms for 6 years and only ever had Hotsync fail once..

Hotsync was pretty stable... but the problem i had was it was

1) the time it takes to sync all of my doc to go files etc... At the end of the day i want to go home... not wait 10 mins while it finishes syncing.... (I love activesync going all the time in the background) and my X50V does a full sync far quicker than my T2 ever did

2) The inability to set profiles for all those conduits.. I have to sync Everyting or nothing. And with a lot of Docs to Go files it takes ages.

3) on the couple of occasions that it did fall over it gave me no clue how to fix it... only reseting the device and re-installing (but then again its pretty like Activesync)

Why can't someone get it right?

tmn72 · 05-03-05, 08:29 AM

I like Activesync MUCH more than I liked the Palm Hotsync. First, it is always ready to go. I can just pick up my PPC and know my data is already there. Second, I could never simply browse my Palm contents like I can on my desktop through Activesync.
The biggest thing I HATE about Hotsync? When you try to cancel it. It always says Canceling... and then it never does! I had to pull the Palm and reset it, then use task manager to kill hotsync. What a pain.
Activesyn really out-shines hotsync when updating items, like a word doc, making saves and then not having to hot sync over and over again.
Have you ever installed a game or two, been excited to try it, and then have to wait 10 minutes for the Hotsync because you forgot to tell it to only sync the game? Yeesh.

I'm quite happy with Activesync. Won't complain if they improve it, but I would not go back to Hotsync.

ahcheetham · 05-03-05, 08:39 AM

I am a fairly new user of the X50V and absolutely agree that ActiveSync is very poor.

A couple of times now calendar sync has failed with some 6 digit error code on Outlook which I havent bothered to look up. Even when I deleted the entry in my PC Outlook it still refused to resolve. Pah !

I think it is really stupid that you cant create a partnership using Wifi but you can subsequently sync using Wifi if you set up the partnership by another means. Why not for goodness sake ???

I have only had the Axim a couple of weeks and I have already pretty much given up syncing stuff. My docs are all on my SD card which ActiveSync wont sync to so I manually sync the files myself. I really only use ActiveSync to download software, that's all.

I wonder if ActiveSync 4 for PPC 2005 will also work with PPC 2003 SE. If so maybe MS have fixed most of our issues ?

05-03-05, 01:15 PM

Maybe the leaked reviews just didn't focus on it but I haven't seen mention of AS4 really. Which is a damn shame.

Yes - there are some things people mentioned that AS does well. The always sync is nice. The sync is generally fast. Being able to browse the file system is a big plus (I never liked how things were just ... "there" in palm land). However, Im sure we have all had times where we said "DOH! I didn't want to sync THAT!"

Axim User · 05-03-05, 01:29 PM

I used HotSync It always crashed when I synced and it destroyed my old PDA only removing the battery could get it back and I could not restore any of my backups!

rev_brykins · 05-03-05, 02:14 PM

Overall, I find Activesync pretty good - never had a hang-up or crash and only a couple of occasions when it's not been able to sync something, and then a quick soft-reset of the Axim seemed to cure that.

Only real problem I have with it is it's inability to open two AS connections at once...I'd like to have my Axim and my smartphone plugged in at the same time and have them both sync'd with each other and the desktop.

I think that there could be a *HUGE* market for a "multisync" suite of applications. A version would be available for the desktop, Windows Mobile, smartphones, PalmOS devices and even Symbian and it would provide a way for all of these devices to talk to each other and stay in sync no matter how many of them were connected and no matter how they were connected. To be able to have the Axim on the cradle attached to my PC and sync'd, while at the same time it's syncing to my wifes PC via the network, her Palm via bluetooth and my smartphone via bluetooth....any change on any of them is automagically sync'd with all the others instantly.

That'd be perfect and needn't be a Microsoft package - I'd pay a tenner per device for it and I have five devices it could be used on!

05-04-05, 12:02 AM

As I wrote the list for what AS can and can't do for the AS guide that the list in the first post was just copied from - I will give my comments:

1) Activesync does not allow you to create partnerships with more than 2 Personal Computers.
The practicalities of syncing to more than two computers is quite difficult. AS assumes that your PDA is THE conduit between the two PC's - which makes sense. There is a freeware application available which allows you to sync to more than two PC's but each time you need to select which of the Partnerships is the 'main' one and the data from that partnership is used to sync with the current partnership. If you change a document on Partnership 1, and then another document on Partnership 2 sync'ing to partnership 3 becomes a very difficult excercise with quite a lot of user intervention - can you imagine the problems this would cause for 'newbies' and overwritten files.

2) Activesync cannot synchronize more than ONE mail account inbox.
The logistics of this is difficult to manage using the current sync'ing premise that AS uses ie) make everything the same on each computer.
I would love to have a separate account facility, and not just for the inbox. It would also be great if you could sync to a work PC and a home PC and choose which information is combined and which is kept separate. IMHO this is the main feature missing from AS.

3) Activesync is UNABLE to synchronize data with another PIM software (including Outlook Express). It can only synchronize with Outlook itself.
From a practicality position I understand this one. Writing a conduit for every piece of software out there would be almost impossible. Remember on Palms you had to use the desktop. Also MS 'gives' you Outlook which I think is better than Desktop to be able to do this.

4) Activesync can only synchronize data in the main Tasks, Contacts and Notes directories and not sub-directories.
Not sure why this feature couldn't be added fairly easily - after all you can already sync sub-directories of the inbox

5) Activesync cannot synchronize data/ files to any memory other than the main memory of your device.
This is a practicallity issue - and IMHO is taken as a 'saftey first' measure. What happens if you choose to sync to SD card and the next time you sync the card isn't in your device

6) Activesync cannot create a partnership using WIFI.
This may be due to the age of the underlying architecture within AS. I am sure at some time on the future this will be added.

I think AS does what it does very well and most users have no issues with it, but as I said I think MS has taken a 'saftey first' approach to AS, which can be annoying if you are a user who wants to have every option customisable.

05-04-05, 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by rev_brykins

I think that there could be a *HUGE* market for a "multisync" suite of applications.

Isn't there something like this in OS X?

05-04-05, 04:32 AM

I agree with tmn...Activesync is miles better than Hotsync. I'm not complaining about Activesync at all, it fits my uses perfectly. The worst hiccups simply required a disconnect/reconnect.