How to sync phone contacts with PC?

iPhone, Mac and PC calendar and contact sync

• I just switched to an iPhone 5 after years with an Android phone. My carefully constructed sync setup between my work Win 7 PC, my home Mac and my phone is no longer as useful. Details of my current setup within. I've been using Google Calendar/Contacts/Tasks as the intermediary between my computers and my phone. Android syncs out of the box with Google so it was a no-brainer to use it. I set up calendar and contact sync with iCal and Contacts on the Mac. On my PC, I use gSyncit to sync Outlook with Google. A little clumsy, but it worked well enough. At least I could set a calendar event on the phone and it would eventually appear on both computers. But now I have an iPhone. I set up sync with the Mac via iTunes, so at least I have the calendar and contacts on my iPhone. I set up iCloud on my PC but instead of using my existing Outlook calendar and contacts, it creates its own calendars (Work, Home) and contacts which are separate from my main Outlook ones. So right now, if I create an event on my PC and don't put it in one of the iCloud-created calendars, I need to be home and sync with iTunes for it to appear on my iPhone. I can deal with a separate Home and Work calendar but if so, I really would like the Work calendar to be my Outlook calendar. Is there any way to do this? Same for contacts.

• Answer:

  You don't need to do any syncing via pc. Setup google on your phone as an exchange account and it will automatically take care of contacts, calendars and email. Also, turn on photo stream, and get iTunes Match. You'll never need to plug your phone in again.