Is there a better email client?

[Virtual69]

Hello...I'm just coming from an iPhone 3G to the Captivate. I'm having a few frustrating issues that I can't seem to get resolved....I'll start with the email client...

1) There seems to be a DNS flushing issue when the Captivate moves from WIFI to 3G. I run a split DNS with the WIFI on a RFC1918 network and of course a routed IP when connected to 3G.

The problem seems to be that as the Cap moves on and off WIFI as I move in and out of range of the WIFI signal and the Cap acquires it's new IP address, it does not expire the DNS cache and there when it tries to contact the IMAP server when going from WIFI -> 3G, it's doing so via the RFC1918 address and therefore doesn't work.

Has anyon else seen that?

2) I have the email client set to get new email every 5 minutes. But it sometimes never updates the inbox until I actually go in to that inbox, then it updates.

3) It doesn't seem to keep a history of email addresses I've used for fast completion. For example, if I email Bob@accountemps, every time I send Bob an email, it doesn't remember that I've sent Bob an email before, and I have to type the entire address again.

My primary use of the smart phone is an email client, and these issues are really frustrating to me. Thanks for any help!

 

[Jack45]

I'm just going to reply to the title of your post. No, at least in my experience. Tried K-9 and MailDroid and neither did any better than the default client.

 

[trant01]

try touchdown.

 

[gtg465x]

My main problem is that I get new notifications for items that are deleted and moved to my Trash folder. Very annoying.

 

[tamanaco]

I use K-9... Not perfect, but better than the native mail client.

 

[Usernamer]

I like K-9 better than the default email client, too, but I found that the recent 29xx builds from the Google code development site work better for me and are more feature-rich than the 28xx build currently available on the official Android market. Specifically, there are bug fixes that resolved some of my previous issues and there are several new settings, including one to "keep messages locally when using POP, even when they are deleted on the server," behavior which had been annoying me to no end with the 28xx Android market version.

One caveat: I've been using the Android Sideload Wonder Machine to install the K-9 development build on my non-rooted Captivate and it works, um ... wonderfully. What doesn't work is "upgrading" from dev build to dev build using that tool (gives me an install failure error indicating the application already exists), so when I want to move to the next incremental build I have to first uninstall it from my phone (losing anything in my Sent folder) and then install fresh from the new .apk. Still, this works for me for now and isn't yet that big of a deal.

 

[maildroiddev]

I'm just going to reply to the title of your post. No, at least in my experience. Tried K-9 and MailDroid and neither did any better than the default client.

What issue did you have with MailDroid?

 

[Jack45]

What issue did you have with MailDroid?

I wanted to see if it would speed up the retrieval of emails and it didn't. That's not to say that there isn't a problem elsewhere in the loop - I don't know - but in the event that it was the mail client I figured I'd give it a try. There may have been one or two other "issues" I had with the interface, but I'd need to reinstall it to be precise in my reply. Thanks for asking (in light of your user name).

 

[maildroiddev]

I wanted to see if it would speed up the retrieval of emails and it didn't. That's not to say that there isn't a problem elsewhere in the loop - I don't know - but in the event that it was the mail client I figured I'd give it a try. There may have been one or two other "issues" I had with the interface, but I'd need to reinstall it to be precise in my reply. Thanks for asking (in light of your user name).

I would tell you that if you want to install it again, wait till next week. There are some performance issues which have been solved. Just adding a few more features before I release it.

 

[Jack45]

I would tell you that if you want to install it again, wait till next week. There are some performance issues which have been solved. Just adding a few more features before I release it.

Thank you. If you remember, either reply again to this thread or send me a PM to let me know of its availability.

BTW - is the sometimes slow retrieval of email a client-side issue or a system issue?

 

[sonorous]

Is the stock Captivate email client an base Android client or a custom Samsung client?

 

[Virtual69]

Thanks for all the responses....I downloaded maildroid, and it's made all the difference in the world! Between that and LauncherPro, I just may keep the Cap.

However, there are a few issues with Maildroid that need addressing, I realize it's still in Beta, but I'll mention them here in case the developer is still reading...

1) MD seems to dump the contents of the inbox for some reason, (it can't connect?) and then needs to reload everything. If you can't connect, you should cache the current contents so the user can read/reply to what's in the cache. This brings up issue #2...

2) MD doesn't not pay attention to the IMAP servers mail directory, instead it starts at the root of the account's homedir and goes down from there...I have a very large home dir, so this is extremely painful.

3) MD should have an option to only load the most recent XX number of emails, instead of the entire inbox.

4) Instead of a * for new mail, it should show the number of unread mails for each box.

5) When going to Compose a new email, I should be able to start typing into the To box without having to select it.

6) When in the To box, pushing Next does not go to the Next field. It doesn't seem to do anything?

I love the almost instant notification of new mail, the ability to turn off alerts at night automatically.

Now...How do I completely kill the stock email client so that it never starts up on boot?

Thanks all!