On the verge ....

[yellowcake]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and at present am a BlackBerry user - but I'm on the cusp of making the jump!

However, the main reason for me having a smartphone is email. I'm a journalist and am often away from the office. I receive somewhere in the region of 100 press releases a day (often with high res images attached). The BB basically handles this brilliantly. It syncs to our exchange server at work (via Outlook Web Access) and I receive everything that I get in my inbox at work on my phone. Not only that but if I delete an email on my phone, I have the option of deleting it from the server.

Many of the emails I received have high res images attached. I don't want to view those on the phone and the BB strips those off.

On the BB each of my email accounts has it's own icon and it works fine. I certainly DON'T want all my emails lobbed into a single account. I have to keep accounts separate. Push email is absolutely essential.

The problem is however that email is just about the only thing I like about the BB! It's really bad at web browing and it just feels well outdated.

I'm looking at the Samsung Galaxy S2 but the deal breaker for Android phones could well be the way they handle emails. I've done loads of research and can't quite feel convinced that the G2 will handle emails the way I want. In all other aspects I'm ready to make the jump but if this doesn't tick all the boxes, whether I want to move or not, I simply won't be able to.

Much of the stuff I've read implies that the default email apps on Android phones aren't that great. I've heard about 3rd party apps like K9.

Can any of you kind souls offer any advice? I just need some reassurance here otherwise I'll be forced to stay in BlackBerry land (which I definitely don't want to do)!

Thanks
YC

 

[cds0699]

What carrier are you with? Most of the US carriers offer a certain time period to try out the device. For example, Sprint has a 30 day time period to try out the device, and return it if it isn't what you want. Perhaps actually putting the phone through its paces would help you get a better idea? You could always keep your blackberry and go back if needed.

 

[yellowcake]

I'm in the UK but you make a good point. My provider will be Vodafone and I'm sure they offer something similar.

I would however be interested in any comments.

Thanks

 

[cds0699]

I wish I could offer you more help on the GS2, I am still waiting for mine though, coming on the 16th!

I'm sure someone will be able to offer more insight.

 

[Gman420]

Hi,

I was never a blackberry user for very long. I started life out in symbian land with my sony satio (bought for the camera, which turned out to be its only redeeming feature) but when that finally broke Vodafone gave me a blackberry pearl. I wasnt impressed and did some research on what other phones were out there, not wanting to become another iphone user (incompatibility issues with my PC's, laptops, etc.) and I found Android.

My first Android phone was the HTC Desire HD with 2.2 (froyo), but then after I discovered the wonders of Android I gave that to my father and upgraded to the HTC Sensation 2.3.3 (gingerbread)

The web browsing on Android is as close to a desktop pc as you could want, with flash support, pdf reading, etc. and the touchscreen movement and "Pinch-to-zoom" is brilliant; you can even open multiple pages and switch between them.

The stock HTC email app is great. I have 3 email accounts that I access from my phone, a gmail and two hotmail accounts. The app gives you the option of using one account at a time or opening ALL INBOX where all your emails are grouped and colour coded according to what address they are associated. I have red, yellow and green tabs next to my emails which tells me which address received them. You could also use the HTC mail widget and devote a homescreen to each account if you wanted to truely seperate each account. I can make one of the accounts the default for sending emails, or send from the address that I received the email. I havent tried it with an exchange server yet, but the ability is there in the settings menu.

Its perhaps worth mentioning (just for interests sake) that when I first synced my accounts with either phone, ALL my mail (even deleted items!?!??!) from YEARS back came flooding down, it was a good thing that I had set it up to fetch the email headers only and I was connected through wifi at the time! I had to use the select all and mark as read so that my phone did not say I have 99+ emails to be read.

There are two schedules with the email function, peak and off peak, so you can set it to fetch your emails more quickly (every 15 mins?) during the day for example, and after 8pm only fetch them once an hour. You can also delete from the server using the phone (at least when fetching using IMAP or POP3, Im pretty sure Exchange servers would be the same).

Hope this gives you one idea of what Android (and HTC) phones are like at handling email and helps you make the leap of faith. I wasnt dissapointed and ended up loving my Android so much I have even started developing my own apps and selling them in the Android Market! so in a sense, it paid for itself, lol.

 

[yellowcake]

Thanks. I understand you've had some joy with HTC phones but after researching for the last few months I'm drawn towards the Samsung. I'm wondering what the native email app is like on that or indeed if K9 would be better?

My main concern is syncing with Microsoft Exchange with emails. Quite literally my job depends on this so I need to get it right.

I think as an earlier poster remarked, I can always try the phone for a week or so but hearing other people's experiences is really helpful. Keep 'em coming!

YC

 

[chanchan05]

Im using a Samsung Galaxy SL, and while I dont sync to an exchange server, the stock email app handles mail very well, its just not its not push email (except for the GMail app which has its own app if you want). The stock email app handles all my 3 accounts (GMail, Hotmail and Ovi) without problems.

 

[cds0699]

I don't know if this helps you at all, but I did look up the specs on PhoneArena and they list the Galaxy S2 as supporting Microsoft exchange email.

Samsung Galaxy S II specs

• E-mail: Yes (IMAP, POP3, SMTP, Microsoft Exchange)