As one of Sony Ericsson's portfolio of Cyber-shot branded handsets, the 5-megapixel camera-packing Sony Ericsson C903 is set up for a high quality mobile imaging performance.

But this HSDPA-enabled 3G phone is also well equipped to handle messaging, with email capability and instant messaging support alongside regular texting and MMS picture messages.

The C903 has an email client pre-loaded which enables users to receive email from their usual POP3 and IMAP4 email accounts, including popular web-based email and accounts from internet service providers. Multiple accounts can be set up and used on the phone.

As well as reading email messages, users can receive and view attachments received in emails, reply to emails, forward messages and compose new emails directly on the handset.

Whether you want to keep up to date regularly with your emails or simply have the facility to check now and then, it's a useful tool to have on a mobile phone. And it's easy to set up and use too.

An email wizard enables users to set up their email accounts by simply tapping in a few bits of basic account information (address, account name, user name, password), with the phone remotely interrogating Sony Ericsson's database to download appropriate email server details to the phone. If you want to use the Sony Ericsson C903 with your corporate email, you may need to get the POP3 settings from your IT department. 

Once set up - it takes just a few seconds once you've tapped in your details - you can download and manage their emails like on a desktop PC. There are a host of settings adjustments ton manipulate too - so you can set up the email polling frequency and other settings to match your own preferences.

Whether you set up one or more email accounts, the procedure is similar - just repeat the set up instructions outlined below. You can easily switch between accounts in the Messaging menu.

If for some reason your email provider's details are not automatically loaded using the set up wizard, you can install them manually, or download details over the air from www.sonyericsson.com/support.

Email set-up details
You will need the following details:

Email address – Your full email address.

Username – This is usually the part before the ‘@’ in your email address, although it does vary between providers; check the settings page of your email account or ask your provider if you’re unsure.

Password - Your usual email password

Once you have these to hand, follow these instructions to set up email...

Setting up email accounts

1. From standby, press Menu (Figure 1).
2. Highlight Messaging. Press Select (Figure 2).
3. Scroll down to highlight Email. Press Select (Figure 3).
4. If you have no email account set up, the email wizard begins automatically. In the 'Your name' panel, type in your name (in this example we've used 'Know Your Mobile') (Figure 4).
5. Click down a line to the 'Email address' panel. Type in the full email address you want to access. Press Continue (Figure 5).
6. In the 'Username' panel, type in your username - usually the bit of your email address before the '@'. Edit it appropriately if your full email address is shown in this box (Figure 6).
7. Click down to the 'Password' panel. Enter your password - it will be shown as a row of asterisks once you've selected a character (Figure 7). Press Continue.
8. A pop-up message appears onscreen to ask if you'd like to connect to the internet to check for email settings. Press Yes (Figure 8). This will take several seconds while the phone connects and interrogates the remote settings database.
9. A message will appear when settings have been found: Email setup completed. Update inbox? Press Yes (Figure 9).
10. The phone will now connect to the remote email server to download any emails waiting in that account. It will show how many messages have been received. Press OK to see your inbox (Figure 10).

If there are any downloaded messages in your email inbox, you can see them listed (Figure 11).

• To view emails in full, scroll down the list of message subject headers in your inbox, and press View to get the full email onscreen (Figure 12).
• If there is an attachment or message bigger than the automatic size limit, you can download it to view. Press Options, highlight Download, and press Select.

Setting up additional email accounts
You can add additional email accounts, and switch between them in the Messaging menu. Set-up, using the email wizard, is similar, though the procedure to activate it is slightly different for extra accounts.

1. From standby, press Menu (Figure 1).
2. Highlight Messaging. Press Select (Figure 2).
3. Scroll down to highlight Email. Press Select (Figure 3).
4. Scroll down to highlight Accounts. Press Select (Figure 13).
5. Highlight New account. Press Add (Figure 14).
6. The email wizard begins. Follow the same procedure for set up outlined above from Figure 4 onwards.

You can switch between different email accounts you've stored by going into the Accounts menu. Highlight the one you want to use and press Select.

Sending and receiving emails

Having set up your email account you should now be set up and ready to send and receive emails on your phone.

1. From standby, press Menu (Figure 1).
2. Scroll to highlight Messaging (Figure 2). Press Select.
3. Scroll to highlight Email (Figure 3). Press Select.
4. Here you can see a familiar set of email options (Figure 15). You can click on Write new to compose and send a message (Figure 16), or Inbox to look at received emails.
5. To get new emails, if your Inbox is empty, simply click on Check mail. Alternatively, in the Inbox press Options, highlight Check new email and press Select (Figure 17). The phone will connect with your remote email server and download new emails.

Getting automatic email updates and push email
You can set the C903 to receive email at regular intervals - from every 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 2 hours, 4 hours, 12 hours or every 24 hours.

• To set this, go into the Email application as above.
• Scroll down to highlight Settings. Press Select (Figure 18)
• Scroll down to Check interval. Press Select (Figure 19).
• Scroll down to highlight the interval you want for checking email. Press Select (Figure 20). You will get a warning about traffic rates. Press OK. This will now be set.

If your network supports it, you may also be able to set up push email, so you can receive messages automatically as they're received. The push email option is in the same menu list as the the Check interval settings (Figure 19).

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