Picking up my phone tomorrow after a long wait for my contract to be up. I'm planning on jailbreaking it but I just had one question...will doing this wipe out my contact list or is it somehow backed up before the jailbreaking process? Thanks!
You usually don't need to completely wipe out everything. Just make sure you backup though iTunes, so if anything does get deleted, all you need to do is sync it with your computer.
doesn't take long to sync your contacts. If you have a mac and already have them ready to add to the phone just wait until after you jailbreak. If not, don't input them til you're done. It's be quite the waste of time to do it twice.
you can backup in iTunes before jailbreak and restore you backed up data after jailbreak
you can also sign up for a trial Mobile Me account and all your contacts (as well as calender etc.) will be sync'ed over the air. after you jailbreak and get your MobileMe account setting back on the phone, all the contacts just reappear automatically