How to set up email on the S500i

The email application of the Sony Ericsson S500i means that you can send, receive and compose emails directly from your handset.

After mobile email was introduced by BlackBerry, virtually all other mobile phone manufacturers have brought in their own POP3 functionality.

POP3 is a little different from Push email services that are found in many smartphones, because it allows you to choose when to log on and receive your email instead of having an always-on connection. That means you can keep data costs to minimum as well.

POP3 technology lets users retrieve emails remotely from systems not directly connected to their device or network.

You’ll need to refer to your email provider to see whether it offers POP3 functionality, but currently a lot of web-based email providers offer the service, although in some cases it is only part of the premium service and not available to standard users.

Currently Gmail is one of the free email providers to offer POP3 functionality for free, while Hotmail users will have to upgrade to a premium subscription. Yahoo Mail users can, at the time of writing, still activate POP3 as part of the free service, although that may be subject to change.

If you’re using a web-hosting package with mail forwarding, you’re almost certain to have POP3 email. If you’re using an office email system and want remote access to your mail, you’ll need to contact your IT department and ask if the system is configured for POP3.

You will need some information from your email provider in order to begin the set up process. You’ll also need to make sure that POP3 is available and activated – you can usually find this in your email settings. Check your provider’s settings and/or help pages and find out the following:

Email address - this is your email address, natch.

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

Incoming (POP3) server - If it's not in the table below, your email provider will be able to supply this and you'll usually find their details on their website

Outgoing (SMTP) server - This will depend on which mobile phone network you use. See the table below for details.

Note: your email provider's POP3 settings will also contain details of the Outgoing (SMTP) server. You don’t need this to receive email on and can be added later on.

1. Once you have this information, setting it up is easy. First press the centre button to enter the main menu. Highlight the Messaging icon and press Select (Figure 1)
2. Scroll down and select Email (Figure 2)
3. Scroll all the way down to Accounts and press Select again (Figure 3)
4. By default, you may have some email settings provided by you network provider, but ignore them for now – you can always find them again later. Highlight New account and press Add (Figure 4)
5. First enter an account name, for example type ‘Gmail’. Now press OK
6. Now you’ll neeed those details you found earlier on. Highlight Email address and press Edit. Enter your full email address for this account. Press OK (Figure 5)
7. Highlight Connect using and press Edit (Figure 6)
8. Select your mobile network provider from the list and press Select (Figure 7). If you are unsure of which is the right one, contact your network provider, but normally you should be looking for the same option as you use to connect to the web, for example: Vodafone GPRS should already be set to POP3 by default, but if not, press Edit, highlight POP3 and press Select (Figure 8)
9. Highlight Incoming server and press Edit. Enter the Incoming server address you found earlier. It should look similar to a website address (Figure 9)
10. Highlight Username and press Edit. Enter the username provided by your email provider and press OK (Figure 10)
11. Highlight Password and press Edit. Enter your usual email password and press OK (Figure 11)

1. To set up outgoing emails, highlight Outgoing server and press Edit
2. Enter the outgoing server address given to you by your mobile phone network provider and press OK (Figure 12)
3. Highlight Advanced settings and press Edit (Figure 13)
4. You can choose to enter a name to appear on the recipient’s inbox by highlighting Your name and pressing Edit. Type your name and press OK. If you leave this blank, only your outgoing email address will appear in the recipient’s inbox (Figure 14).
5. You can also add a signature by highlighting Signature and pressing Edit. Add some text to appear at the bottom of outgoing emails and press OK
6. Highlight Download S&R and press Edit. This lets you decide how much of your email will be downloaded. By default it should be set to Up to size limit, but to save more money on data fees, you can highlight Subjects only and press Select (Figure 15)
7. Highlight Check interval and press Edit. This lets you choose whether you want the phone to automatically check for new emails at regular intervals of 5 minutes, half an hour, an hour… all the way up to every 12 hours. Or you can leave it set to Off, allowing you to do it manually and save on data fees. Make your choice and press Select to return to the Account settings menu (Figure 16)
8. Some email providers may use encryption, so you can set this up by highlighting Encryption and pressing Edit. Choose the type of encryption your email provider requires for both incoming and outgoing mail and press Select. Normally, you’ll need to select SSL for each, although it may vary between providers. If in doubt, leave blank or check with your email provider. Press the Back button when you’ve set incoming and outgoing securities (Figure 17)
9. Highlight Outgoing username and press Edit. Type your email username and click OK
10. Highlight Outgoing password and press Edit. Enter your regular email password
11. Highlight Incoming port and press Edit. By default this should be set to 110, but different email providers may require different port settings. If in doubt, check with your email provider. Press OK
12. Highlight Outgoing port and press Edit. By default this should be set to 25, but different email providers may require different port settings. If in doubt, check with your email provider. Press OK (Figure 18)
13. Press the Back button twice to return to account settings. Highlight your email account name and press Select

Congratulations. You should now set up and ready to receive emails on your phone. To test it out, press Back once, scroll up to Inbox and press Select. This is where your emails will arrive. Press Send&rec to make the phone connect with your email provider. If you have set it all correctly you should soon see a message saying server found.

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