I’ve recently written a few posts on my experience with the new Android-based phone HTC Hero, as well as its integration with Google’s Gmail/Contacts and Calendar applications.

Below is a summary of issues, from the business user perspective. I think that anybody who is seriously considering a switch to Android/Google and wants to save some time needs to consider these points.

So there we go, the summary of biggest PIM-related issues in Google online/mobile systems in my opinion is as follows (if you want to read more about each item see my previous posts):

- You can’t view your Gmail Contacts on the desktop when you’re offline (poor Gears support in Gmail)

- You can’t add/edit events to Google Calendar on the desktop when offline (again, poor Gears support)

- Lack of support for multiple time zones in Google Calendar

- No good free tool (that I know of) to accurately sync contacts between Gmail and Outlook. (The two paid apps that I tested caused problems, I haven’t checked Google’s premium service.)

- You can’t import all your data to Gmail Contacts from Outlook or other PIM software - Gmail won’t take birth/anniversary dates

- Gmail creates contacts automatically from the e-mail addresses you send messages to. Then, they get synced to your phone, even if you don’t want it. (See a post below about it, there is a remedy for this.)

- In the Hero’s Phone application, contacts that only have Organization filled in (no first and last name) show up blank on the list (only phone numbers), you have to open them up to see the company they’re associated with (that hurts!)

- What’s worse, you can’t fully search your contacts using HTC Hero’s native applications - it will only let you search by full name & phone number. (This one is a bummer. I was ready to return the phone until I found a 3rd party app that’d do this, see post below.)

-  Poor calendar visualization. The day view just has a list of upcoming events, I think it’s much more effective to use blocks of time in a more visual form. Not to mention that there are only two calendar views: month view and day view. It also takes quite a bit of time to add an event. (No way to highlight a spot and type in event’s name.)

- Calendar app does  not highlight phone numbers which is a real pain. There is also no way that I know of to copy the number from the calendar screen and then paste into the phone application to call it.

- Lack of good notes taking application.

To sum up, even though I had many problems along the way, I still kind of like this new setup. I’ve learned to live with most of these issues, and I’m quite impressed by HTC Hero itself. (Primarily due to its useful widgets and social features.) Android with HTC enhancements seems to be more usable than Windows Mobile, a bit harder to use than the iPhone, and slower, but you get this feeling that you can do much more with it. Not to say that I wouldn’t have bought the new Palm Pre had they released the GSM version. It looks like Pre would a better choice for business use.