One of the downfalls of all Nokia S60 handsets has surprisingly been the lack of a real good email application. Sure there are a few solutions such as Emoze, Seven, Profimail, and of course the built-in email application - but none of them have been extremely reliable for me. I need an application that I don't have to wait for. One that gets my mail immediately with no BS (bullshit). This is where the new Nokia Email beta application comes in. I'm currently using it on my Nokia E71 & N82 and loving it. There are a few downfalls (that I will talk about), but so far the positives outweigh the negatives.
Right now Nokia Email is in testing mode but anyone can try it out. At first the application wasn't very stable but the latest version so far has been great. My email comes through instantly and I don't have to wait for the full email to download. If there is anything I hate the most it's waiting for emails to download. Eventually Nokia hopes that this service will be a better solution than Blackberry Connect. I've seen a few comments around the web from long time BB Connect fans saying this new Nokia service is heading in the right direction.
Pros:
• Email Arrives Instantly, in some cases faster than Blackberry Connect.
• Full messages are downloaded so you don't have to wait when you go to check them.
• Slick user interface that is very face and intuitive.
• Ability to make local folders to move emails on your phone's inbox. Gmail will simply archive these messages that you move.
• Easy to turn on/off email retrieval & sync your email.
• Search emails.
• Copy/Pase emails, links, phone numbers to clipboard.
• Select any text in an email to copy/paste to clipboard.
• Flag Messages
• Number pad shortcuts (something I've been dying for) - From the inbox, you can make use of the follow shortcuts...
Cons:
• Can't view html emails, only basic text.
• Don't get "read new email" shortcut on Nseries phones.
• Can't sync folders/labels.
• Can't have multiple email accounts.
• Application doesn't follow your phone's theme.
• I don't like the handling of attachments, although it does work.
• Can't adjust text size.
• Can't star emails for Gmail.
Check out a few screenshots I took from my Nokia N82.
Good news is Nokia has informed us that some of the negatives I mentioned will be added/fixed in future versions of the Nokia Email application. Html email, sync folders/labels, multiple email accounts, and text size are all on the list of features to be added.
What email accounts are supported? I know for sure that Gmail is supported. According to Nokia's FAQ page you need an email account that supports the POP or IMAP protocol. I guess you can give your email provider a shot with this service and see if it works.
I also want to give some brief reasons why other solutions haven't really done what I need as far as an true email experience goes. Keep in mind I'm using Gmail as my email provider.
Built-in S60 Email Application: If you are willing to wait for your mail to arrive then this solution is just for you. Using the IMAP protocol you can keep your real Gmail inbox and your S60's inbox in perfect sync. However, I don't like some aspects of this application.
You have to manually download your messages. Only headers are retrieved. Over an Edge connection this can be painfully slow. Copy/Paste Is not easy. After you write a message and push send, you can't do anything until the message is completely send. More wasted time. It's a pain to turn on/off automatic retrieval. Sometimes the connection is dropped without telling you and no mail comes through.
Seven beta Email Application: The mail comes through instantly, and the full email is automatically downloaded so you don't have to wait for it to load when you go to check it. I highly recommend this solution for Eseries handsets, but for some reason it really slows down ALL aspects of the Nseries phones.
Emoze Email Application: I can't get the Gmail inbox and Emoze inbox to sync. The mail comes through fast but I need my read emails on my phone to show as read when I go to my computer. Seems as though POP is being used for Gmail instead of IMAP.
I am so happy that there is finally an email application that I really enjoy. Great thing is it's still in beta and we can leave our feedback at the popular Nokia Beta Labs. Click here to read more about it or go straight to email.nokia.com to get started signing up and downloading this application.
P.S. I'd also like to mention that this application is NOT currently supported for the Nokia N82, but I'm using the N95 version and it works just fine.
Let me know if you've tried this out what you think about it.
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if the cons are fixed, this will be a great alternative to the built in email application. two thumbs up with the number pad shortcuts.
Nokia is still living Ice ages where they think they have invented a miracle. But nokia email features and design is a pathetic one compared with windows and blackberry. I dont understand why they have not yet fired their Design & Product head. They have come up with an email client which is like a black & White TV in 2008. There are hundreds of things that goes wrong this these all Nokia/Symbian emails. They are a bare minimum life support. They are not suited for business email users. I have been using many windows mobile(Samsung i780) and other blackberry. Nokia fails following -
1. Lousiest processor and very time consuming to switch emails account.
2. Hundreds of unnecessary system messages putting phone in modal mode(cant do anything else). Eg.. every time you switch account .. a message comes. (a)"Do you want to Connect?". if said yes, it shows a big progress bar and one cant do anything. In windows Mobile, such idiotic operations are done in background. One can set few mails to download and still go and read other mail. Nokia you just cant., (b)"another message"Retriving mails"... another annoying.
3. Nokia still belives that the whole world is hidden in their revolutionalry "Options" menu,. they think they are still living in 1995. Most of important information and actions are hidden in this options menu. They are 10 clicks away.. eg.. attachments are all hiden. As if they are not important. Creating new mails in 10 click process. Options>message>email>exchange email> new....What a phathetich design.
4. There is no way to search the emails in the email list. WindowsMobile does this beautifully by just thying either name of person or subject line in email list view, .. all matching emails are filtered in runtime.. like the contact filter. Nokia thinnks its not important and most people have not more then 5mails in their mail box. I have 400 emails in 5 emails accounts. Its a hell job
5) The moment you enter an email box, by default nokia takes you to the unread mails, no mattter its sitting on 51th level. But i dont want this. I want to read the latest mail. So i have to keep scrolling.. or make sure that i have read all my past 100 mails. Or nokia will punish me eveytime...
6)There is no email suggested like in window smobile. I have to click "To", then go to contacts, then select a name(nokia dont show email id), then after selecting nokia tell there are more emails to this name, so select one.. then i come back to email.. Such a big process. Why dant they just copy other emails. in Outlook/WindowMobile, you just start tying email and the list appears below.
7) No HTML view. Nokia have decided in this work, no one needs to see html mails. They think we are caveman. Because of this most of the emails show blank body. I dont know why.. it just cant read those htmls. Whereas other mobile platforms do it beautifully.
8)If you choose imap, then you cant have option to download emails by KB size. This is weird..
9) the folder view is a nonsense... it shows all folder, then again i have to select inbox. This i have to do every time. They cant set inbox as default and have folder to swithch by options. Everything in nokia is many clicks away..
10) do not use the qwert keybord as shortcuts. No button is mapped. Every thing is by shortcuts
11) bad actions assigned to many place. Eg. in an calender view, if i get an calender invite, and i click the center button, i should get the options to accept, reject, postpone.. but instead it starts calling the person. They forget that i am in calender view and the center button should be mapped to the applications. The green call key is already there for calling. Then why do such mistakes.
12) the auto suggest of spelling is a failure for qwert keybord users. Such users(me) done look at the screen, they start using keyborad fast... Now with spellchecker on, it start tying wrong words. Anyway,.. if i want to just do spell check at the end of email, there is no potions.
13) for N71, the hard button mapped to voice command,may not be used by 95% of users. They should have kept this button configurable.
Looking at all this, nokia should not call them self as emailing phone. They are a toy maker in emailing business...
More nokia failures later ...
Sameer Chavan
Thanks for the comments Sameer, but it seems as though you are talking about the built-in email application, not this new Nokia Messaging application. Try it if you haven't already.
email.nokia.com
It certainly seems that Nokia's email abilities are quite some way behind those of Palm (see excellent Snapperfish) or even Windows Mobile 6.1 (which I have, but find so-so: there are no strong email applications in WM6.1 amazingly?).
The great marketing hype in callíng Nokia E-series as a phone for "messaging" seems highly overrated, and these are pretty basic features we are talking about. I was thinking of switching from WM 6.1 (TyTN II) largely for better email-keyboard handling, but the above detailed email worries me considerably.
Sameer - I disagree with most of your points.
The only issue I have with Nokia is that the email is not instant. Most messages take up to 10 mins to come through.
ie. Great for personal emails but not business.
I actually think the email interface and useability of the application rocks over blackberry. Blackberry puts sent and received messages all on the one page - now that is insane. As semeer would say - they are still living in 1995!
If I was you Sameer I'd be looking for an email application with a better spell checker. Do you work for RIM or were you being rimmed when you wrote your post?
I would have to agree I would say he was being rimmed for sure.
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Thanks for the review!
Have you had a chance to test on Nokia E71 this Nokia Email Beta Application over SymVPN? It could be interesting to see if this New Email client from Nokia can support PPTP VPN that can be used to access many Windows based Email Exchange servers.
Agree with Sameer. I switched from nokia e61i to a blackberry and never looked back. Nokia email is probably good but they are way too late!
Bought 5730XM about 3 weeks now. I am spending more and more time on Nokia email. The mail just come in almost instantaneously.
Seems that I wouldn't need to use Windows Live mail client on my notebook anymore except when there is large image or document attached to it.
On the other hand, the attachment handling of Nokia email still not up to my expectation.
BTW, 5730XM is great phone. I just luv it.
Cheers.
Briefly used Nokia e71x. These things are cellphones w/ qwerty keyboards.
You do get email right away, but the whole redundancy of having icons for functions that exist w/in the application is useless, stupi & a waste of space. Overall, email on a palm treo 680 is easier & more functional...
I really want to use a Nokia, but as I said, they're cellphones, not pdas.
You'll need a separate email client for work email. You can't just add work email as a separate acct w/ in the nokia email.