Messaging on the move: mobile email

Not too long ago picking up email on their phone was a luxury that only the most sophisticated (or the most geeky) of phone users could enjoy. These days though it’s par for the course, especially with the introduction of all-you-can-eat data plans. Even without one, occasionally, it’s very useful to pick up your email on your phone, and you don’t necessarily need a state-of-the-art smartphone to do it on.

We compare eight different phone platforms to see what each is like for picking up email. We looked at handsets from all the major manufacturers and platforms - Android, Blackberry, iPhone, LG, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Windows Mobile.

Setting up email
Android is built by Google, so it’s no surprise that setting up email, particularly a Gmail account is a doddle with the clear interface and full keyboard and scroll wheel makes it easy to enter in your details. You simply have to folow the instructions when you first turn the phone on, entering your Google user name and password.

On a Blackberry, your account will be set up as a Blackberry Internet Service, with an email address. However, you can this collect up to 10 POP3 or IMAP accounts set up as true push email. Adding an account is a case of logging into your Blackberry account and adding details. This has to be done from your online account, using the phone’s browser or from a desktop PC. On a typical Blackberry moving between fields is easy and the ubiquitous keyboard is a benefit too.

There's a large icon on the iPhone for Yahoo Mail, Gmail, .Mac and AOL. Using the large, responsive screen and keyboard it’s not hard to enter in all the details. For these accounts it will pick up the settings automatically, but again it’s not hard to set things up manually for any other web-based or POP3/IMAP accounts.

The LG KF600 phone is relatively fiddly to enter details via a smaller keyboard, but it’s logically laid out. Getting to the email setup takes several steps – select the messaging envelope icon on the front of the display, scroll down to the Settings option -then the Email option, and then Email account and the ‘New’ button will enable you to setup.

On the Samsung Steel, icons look a little cheap, but the keypad can be used for quicker menu access. Pressing the left directional pad brings up the messaging options - from there select ‘Email inbox’, then the Options soft key and then choose the ‘Create account’ option. This then brings up a wizard, which takes you through the setup process in a logical step by step process. You’ll also need to go back in to find the advanced settings to add in details such as ports. Disappointingly, the Samsung downloaded 400 old emails from my account, and there's no way of ordering the messages by date either.

Sony Ericsson's interface s a cut above when it comes to email setup. It uses a wizard to enter info, although you have to battle with the T9 if it doesn’t predict your account name. However from therein, the OS letter selection and keypad layout combine to make it simple. The phone then asks if it can try and pick up the settings automatically – which it couldn’t do with a Gmail account, making me wonder what type of account it could pick up automatically. Despite the wizard to connect to Gmail using IMAP you need to go back manually through the settings and select SSL.

At least on Sony Ericsson devices email setup is accessible directly from the messaging inbox, so you don’t have to back out to the main menu to make minor adjustments.

Nokia is still one of the the most popular handset manufacturers. Once the Nokia N96 was fired up, it proved long winded to find the email setup from the menu (Messaging from the left soft key, then ‘Options’ – scroll down to settings – scroll down to email – choose Mailbox – choose options – choose New Mailbox). The wizard is clear and easy to understand, making it easier to enter the info you need – it pre-fills the username field with your already entered email address. The Nokia picked up Gmail’s port settings automatically and pulled down IMAP email quickly and simply.

Windows Mobile may not be pretty but if you’re more business orientated it does make sense, especially on a touch screen with a stylus. Our test device also picked up Gmail settings automatically, so we were setup in a trice.

Viewing email
On the Sony Ericsson W705, as each email header is downloaded, the subject line appears on the display along with the size of the email. There’s no room for the time, date or size of email on the main screen, though it does expand to show the sender information when a mail is selected. Unusually, the Sony Ericsson shows the subject rather the sender as the similarly smaller screened Samsung and LG do.

Nokia has room for both, while the big boys, the iPhone, Windows Mobile, G1 and Blackberry have room on screen for the received date too. These are clearly the best for viewing email thanks to their high res screens with the iPhone and G1 being particularly good.

Searching for specific emails
On the G1, the primary Gmail account is fully searchable, just as it is online and you can also add Gmail specific labels such as stars.

Windows Mobile’s search feature is pretty strong – just start typing and all mails with that letter combination appear, and it filters as you add more letters. The iPhone lack of search is disappointing, but that’s being addressed with the recently announced iPhone 3.0 OS.

The non-smartphones naturally lack any kind of searching facility, so you’ll have to switch to a web based access and use the cloud to search your email if that’s what you need.

HTML and attachments
The iPhone, G1, and Windows Mobile devices plus the Symbian S60 powered Nokia N96 can comfortably display HTML emails. On the others it’s text versions only, thanks to low resolution screens and simplified browsers.

As for attachments, the G1 lets you save and view files – but only in the primary account – the secondary account displays the attachment icon but you can’t do anything with it.

S60 Nokia devices such as the N96 feature a built-in viewer for the popular office documents - as does the iPhone, but you can’t save attachments to the device on the Apple phone – you have to view them using the email, which is an annoyance.

Blackberrys and Windows Mobile phones are also very capable when it comes it viewing documents and picture attachments, and the latter enables you to create new documents if you’re using Windows Mobile Professional.

Accessing webmail
As an alternative to the built-in client you can try and access your email via the browser. This very much depends on the quality of your browser and how well your service optimises for smaller screens. Fortunately, the major ones, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, all do a good job even with smaller-screened phoned.

That said, Gmail looks very restricted on the LG KF600 and the Samsung – though it is perfectly readable. The Sony Ericsson is surprisingly usable, mainly due to the quality of the design of the handset, while the Symbian powered N96 makes light work of navigating the page – one annoyance though was a message asking if it’s OK to leave a secure web page every time you log-in.

The Big Four – Blackberry, iPhone, HTC and G1 are all consummate phones for browsing email via the webmail.

Another alternative is using a dedicated Java based client and Google has a downloadable application for Gmail on the Blackberry, which works well. This can be downloaded from m.google.com/mail, and has the advantage that you can read you downloaded mail when offline.

Overview
The smartphones are clearly the crème-del-la crème for handling email, which is what you'd expect from a business-based mobile phone. Blackberrys are the winner for keyboard fans but the iPhone is still supreme for ease of setup and use. The G1 has some great features search as built in email search while Windows Mobile is unloved but usable.
Of the Java-based devices, only the Sony Ericsson OS was great for email. The LG was poor, but it’s the Samsung that gets the wooden spoon.

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