e-ignite: Tech

A while back, I was looking into a number of different email solutions on my Nokia E71. The built in client simply isn’t powerful enough for my needs, so I investigated Nokia Messaging, Nokia Mail For Exchange, RoadSync, ProfiMail and the Gmail Java app.  Here’s how they stacked up:

First and foremost, I’m using Google Apps (aka Gmail for your domain) which integrates all the Google applications such as Mail, Calendar, Wave etc with your own domain.  This means that the Gmail Java app works with it directly, but it also offers push mail (via Microsoft Exchange) and POP/IMAP.

First: The Gmail Java App (Free)

The Gmail Java App is actually very good, but also very basic. This doesn’t offer Push mail of any kind – it automatically polls your email approximately every ten minutes and vibrates the phone if a message is received. The vibration is quite easy to miss, however, and there’s no audio or screen-based alert. There is also virtually no support for attachments – the app allows you read only access to certain images, and will display plain text from some attachments such as Microsoft Word documents.

I found the Gmail app to be useful especially when roaming abroad because it uses minimal data and allows you to choose what emails you want to read and downloads them on request rather than automatically.  The downside is that I found the formatting of outgoing messages a bit strange since line breaks are added at strange places, meaning it looks strange when you view the email on your computer. It sends and displays email in plain text only, there’s absolutely no html support. The upside is that it works fast and gives you full access to all your Gmail labels and contacts.

In summary, a good basic mail app with certain applications. Better than the built in E71 mail app but only if you use Gmail.

Next: Gmail Push with Nokia Mail For Exchange (MfE) (Free)

The Gmail Push service operates using the Microsoft Exchange protocol and this requires an Exchange-capable client – this is where Nokia MfE comes in. You can configure MfE to connect at certain times so that your email is only pushed to your device when needed, and you can also set it to sync your calendar and contacts with a Gmail or Google Apps account.

In terms of email push, I found this to be reasonably reliable – there was the odd time where email was not pushed out to my E71 immediately, but it usually got there in the end. This had the benefit of giving you free push email integrated into the phone’s OS, but the major dis-benefit was that you had to use the E71′s built-in mail application. This didn’t display html emails, but gave you all the html code with it. Long emails were occasionally truncated and it was not a straightforward process to go online and check your email, then come offline again. While it was useful for the push email, I found the poor user interface (the fault of the Nokia E71 software, not MfE) to be a major disadvantage.

RoadSync ($49.99 / £8.00 GBP from the Ovi Store directly)

After the issues I experienced with the MfE / Nokia E71 email software, I found RoadSync which offered a completely new user interface for email and boasted good integration with Gmail and Google Apps, and most importantly it supports html email. It was basically a direct replacement for MfE, offering the ability to sync your email, contacts and calendar but with a better user interface.

I installed it and configured it for my handset and I made a bit of an error – I told it to do a full new sync of my calendar which deleted the existing entries (as expected) then tried to re-sync all the data from my Google Calendar. Unfortunately, it only seemed to pick up the recurring events in my calendar, didn’t sync past events and left me having to restore all my calendar data from a backup. Not the best start.

After that, things seemed to be ok – the html email was a massive improvement on the built in E71 email system, but I found that the email just stopped being pushed to the phone. Over several days I tested the software and found that around 2-3 out of every 10 emails were actually pushed to my phone, and the others didn’t arrive unless I manually synced. I tried adjusting the settings but found no solution to the problem. I was quite disappointed because RoadSync was an app I really liked and would have spent the money on it (it’s much cheaper on the Ovi store than it is direct from dataviz.com) but in my experience, it was nowhere near as reliable as MfE and the calendar and email sync didn’t “just work” as it should. I therefore can’t recommend RoadSync.

Nokia Messaging (Currently Free – will charge in future)

Nokia Messaging allows you to configure up to ten email accounts which are checked by the Nokia Server and are then pushed out to your phone. The Nokia servers connect via IMAP Idle, meaning that they check your mail accounts every 15 minutes and any email received in between checks should be received by the Nokia servers immediately.

Fundamentally, I didn’t like this arrangement – this means that you need to turn over your email account password to Nokia to enable them to access your email account. As described by another blogger, this seems like one big man-in-the-middle attack. However, I tested the service.

While the email was regularly checked by the Nokia server, I found that push times could vary – often, email was pushed out immediately and the software on the phone was quite slick and integrated well with the homescreen. I didn’t like that the homescreen integration showed the subjects of the latest three emails in your inbox – I’d rather just have had a simple unread mail count. Nokia Messaging also supports full html emails. Other than that, the software was very polished and felt “premium” although the bottom line in a compose window always hung half off the bottom of the screen when I was typing a long email, making it difficult to read exactly what I had typed. Which was irritating.

Despite the occasional service glitch (and slow to receive email), I found Nokia Email worked well. The fact that it is currently free “on a trial basis” is a worry, and as I said, I was not comfortable with handing out my password to Nokia so I felt that this wasn’t the correct email solution for me.

ProfiMail ($27.99)

ProfiMail is a POP/IMAP client for Symbian and Windows Mobile devices that offers IMAP Idle functionality. This means that while it isn’t strictly “push” email, it only connects to the mail server at regular intervals, and any email received between these times is “pushed” out to your phone as required. It is highly configurable to do what you need it to, and it integrates its address book with the phone, giving you access to any email addresses you have stored. ProfiMail also flashes the LED and displays an on-screen notification when new email is received.

For my usage, I’ve found it very easy to launch and check email at individual times where necessary, and it’s also possible to leave the program running in the background for as long as you like, either checking at regular intervals, or running in “push” mode (IMAP Idle – I know it’s not true push, but it works). ProfiMail also has a number of visual styles and colours to choose from, and I’ve had absolutely no problems getting it to work. It supports full html email and attachment support including Word documents etc. Admittedly, it is a little expensive at $27.99, but it’s available at handago.com which often runs discount promotions – either sign up for their email newsletter or search for a discount code online and you could quite easily save around 25% of this cost.

Summary

In summary, if you need push email but don’t want to pay for it and you are a light user, Gmail / Google Apps push with Nokia Mail For Exchange is actually a good enough solution. The interface is clunky, and if you’re a heavy user, I have no doubt that this won’t be good enough however.

Nokia Messaging is a good solution, but security concerns would certainly rule this out for corporate use.

The Gmail Java App is very good and I would recommend it. Again, this should be more suited to the light user, or if you simply use your mobile to read email rather than to compose long replies.

In my opinion, the hands-down winner of this test is ProfiMail. It is highly configurable, supports IMAP Idle, and is well suited to the heavy email user. I agree that it is expensive, but it is also worth the extra.

Note: Any push email system requires your phone to be constantly connected to your data network. This means that you could run up increased data charges, and will absolutely result in a reduction in the battery life of your device.

Did you find this helpful? Can you suggest any other email solutions for your E71 or other Symbian device? Please feel free to use the comments section below.