I use scheduleworld right now to sync my contacts between my desktop computer, my mobile phone and my 2 tablets.

There's two problems now: scheduleworld will charge a fee of ~$25 per year in the future and, more important, it doesn't work reliably and has a really bad web interface full of unnecessary scripting nonsense that makes most of my browsers crash or at least freeze for minutes.

So I would like to change to a SyncML service that is not more expensive than scheduleworld will be, but has a history of being reliable and has a fast, lightweight web interface. (An addidtional requirement is that in must not be a Google service or run by a company that is controlled by Google. I don't want to expose details of people I know to this company.)
I don't need the other gimmicks offered at scheduleworld: LDAP never worked for Evolution, anyway, I don't use the calendar, nor do I use IMAP. Sync my contacts and quickly look them up via a web interface, thats all I want.

I would have loved to use Ovi sync for this (it's the most obvious choice, isn't it? 3 of the 4 devices to be synced are made by Nokia), but they managed to make it completely unusable:
It's not compatible to generic SyncML clients (such as syncevolution, which is what I use on the tablets and on the desktop), because as a user you never get a password.
Also, it has bugs (see this one that I'm experiencing) that Nokia support keeps ignoring... (I'm waiting for a reply for 1 month now)

So... do any of you have experiences with SyncML services out in the wild? I'm be interested in both recommendations and warnings...

Personally I use Zimbra groupware server together with the Funambol syncml server. The problem is, that you need to make your own install

Maybe this post helps:
http://www.mobileroyale.co.cc/applic...to-the-server/
It looks like the "winner" was: http://o-sync.com

thanks... as you probably guessed, i don't want to install anything myself and take care of it.... i want a running service, and i'll pay for it if it's worth it.

i'll have a look at those discussed in the thread you linked to. - would be cool if anyone had used one of these services so I could learn from people's mistakes.

im using mobical.net

The funambol people themselves have a free service, called myfunambol.com portal.