Google Contacts can't import Pictures! No Android phone for me?

Hi,

I would really like an Android based phone (probably the HTC Hero) but am unsure because its hard to tell "how connected" you need to be (as I just want GSM and no data plan) and what features are available disconnected. You have to be in the secret society to tell what most of the available applications are and what these will cost (you need to commit yourself by buying have a google phone and go to the market place to find out).

Anyway the above issue aside I had a look at the Google Contacts Application online and it looks like it would suit my needs and contacts can be members of multiple groups (unfortunately you can't nest groups). I decided to give the import feature a go.

The import reads the vCard file and seems to create contacts OK but all without the contact's picture. I have confirmed that the vcards do have the picture (it contains "PHOTO;JPEG;BASE64") so the issue would appear to be google's.

Unless someone tells me I'm wrong then I have to assume that Google contacts is what the google phone will sync to and if it doesn't want to accept photos then you have to wonder what they were thinking when they created the import (and from some searching the export) feature. Surely I can't be the only one who doesn't want to spend untold hours to upload and attach about 100 photos...

My other main alternatives are the iPhone and Palm Pre, which I'll now be spending more time looking at.