Hi techyv,
I know each one would have overall positive and negative qualities but the mainly purpose is the Microsoft office package  in particular Microsoft outlook 2010 portable.Â
What is the best Smartphone to use for my purpose?
I was leaning towards some type of blackberry but I am more than open to suggestions.
Â
What’s the best smartphone to use with Microsoft outlook 2010 portable?
Hello Timothy!
It's pretty hard to choose only one phone that syncs perfectly with Outlook, because there is no such thing. Basically, Android phones sync with Outlook using Google, Windows phones sync through Live/Hotmail and iPhones use iTunes.
However, many users say that Windows phones are not a good bet, especially the Nokia ones. With them you can only sync Outlook through outlook.com and there is absolutely no syncing for tasks.
On Samsung phones it is also pretty hard to perfectly sync, although there are a lot of applications that claim to do this in Outlook. It has been reported that MyPhoneExplorer application is pretty bad since it hijacks the status bar and does a lot of stuff without asking for any permission. Moreover, it syncs just a part of the Outlook data, leaving the rest aside.
I tend to think that your suggestion is correct, Blackberries are the best in syncing, since they support multiple calendar and contact folders sync, that's if you use the software for desktop that comes together with the phone. However, it doesn't support activesync, that most of the iPhones or Android phones do. This is a function that works for Hotmail addresses and exchange mailboxes, so if you don't use one of these it's okay.
My best advice would be to decide on a couple of phones, taking into account other criteria you have for them too, and then try and see which one syncs better with Outlook. Trial and error method never fails and it's the only one that will guarantee you what you want to have.
Good luck!