I can't find a phone. Please help.

Question

Seem to be spinning my wheels here.
I re-upped my cell phone plan on Saturday and bought an LG Xenon. The hoops I have to jump through to sync with my data on my Mac are too much. I need to exchange it, but I've spent hours on the web and the phone between my carrier, apple, manufacturers, plug-in coders and everyone's sister and can't find the phone that suits my needs. Anyone who's been here that can help would be greatly appreciated. Here are my parameters:
Carrier: AT&T
Must be able to easily sync with Apple's iSync.
I can't afford the extra $30/mo for the Data Service (don't need to have internet on my cell) which leaves out the iPhone and many others.
BUT I did up my plan to cover texting, so having a phone with a QWERTY keypad is desired, but not 100% necessary.
<$50 with new contract which I already did.
Any insight? thanks!

Answer 1

Apple should have a more updated list of iSync compatible phones on this site (note that not a single phone on your list is on their most current list from March?!?).
The list that Apple provides is 100% up-to-date as of the current version of iSync. Apple haven't added any new phones to iSync since October 2007.
As explained in the other thread, Apple's list only contains the phones supported by iSync natively "out-of-the-box". It does not include the hundreds of additional models supported by manufacturer and third-party iSync Plugins.
Unfortunately, there is no "master list" of native, manufacturer and third-party supported phones. Apple does provide links to a number of third-party iSync Plugin providers web-sites here, but that is by no means all providers.
Manufacturers stray from standards all too often, seemingly for proprietary sake.
Nokia and Sony Ericsson include SyncML in almost all their phones (except for the most basic ones). Samsung have started including SyncML in a lot of their phones now. LG included SyncML in 3 of their recent models.
AT&T should offer a better variety and be more consistent and current across their distribution channels.
That's definately true. From what I've seen, most US network operators offer a very limited range of phones, and in some cases even cripple the standard features (Bluetooth, syncing etc.). Here in the UK (and the rest of Europe) there are literally dozens of iSync compatible phones on sale in every mobile phone store, for every network - so you've always got a choice. It's a shame the same isn't true in the US.
P.S. I'm in hopes that some of the plug-in coders will be making one for this phone soon. please reply here if you see anything.
If the phone has SyncML then its quite possible a plugin will appear at some point, but often with less mainstream models, it's an end user who takes that task on and perhaps posts the plugin to their own web-site. But it could be weeks, months or never before a plugin appears.