Will iPhone 5 play nice with Outlook/PC?

[TwIce]

I'm about to take the plunge from my ancient Blackberry to an iPhone 5. My biggest concern is how well I can synch contact data, calendar data and emails back and forth between Outlook and my device. Say what you like about Blackberry, synching between Outlook and a Blackberry is handled immaculately. I need to be sure that -- NOT wirelessly but via a cable -- I can synch my contacts, emails and calendar between my new iPhone 5 and Outlook without fuss. Can anyone advise? Many thanks in anticipation.

[vertices]

No one uses cables anymore so it's hard to answer specifically, it's been YEARS since I've done that. Why not use ActiveSync with your provider? If your provider doesn't offer ActiveSync you can host your own domain for free at Outlook.com or use the outlook.com domain.

[TwIce]

Thank you. I've not encountered Active Synch in any documentation or discussions with my provider. It appears there are two ways to do it with the iPhone: through the Cloud, which I find cumbersome, hinky and basically a work-in-progress, and via iTunes, both wired and wirelessly. One shockingly illogical thing about "wireless" synching via iTunes is that the device must be plugged in, if not to the computer, then to the power supply. That is not my definition of wireless synching.

My tech-savvy 15 year-old somehow got my wife's iPhone to synch wirelessly but the option appeared unavailable to me and may well have been about her connection to her remote office VPN setup.

I'm happy plugging the iPhone into my PC, as, in one fell swoop, iTunes will synch Contacts and Calendar from a variety of sources, as well as email from multiple addresses (I do not need to do this), music, iBooks, apps, tones, blah, blah. All I really need is the first two, and for the process to be robust and accurate, which it has been so far. And it will synch "wirelessly" if the device and the PC are on the same home wireless network, if the phone is not asleep, if iTunes is running...and if the iPhone is plugged into either the computer or the wall!