Help Push email... what exactly is it

[aebranton]

a few questions.

What is push email? Does it drain battery..?

I use gmail, but i have sync turned off on my phone to save battery and data. If i have sync on can i set it just for gmail? I want email updates but dont want a battery drain.

Thanks

Also.. if i turn sync on for everything is that a big drain on data and battery?

 

[Kibbster]

Push is the opposite from pull or polling.
With Push your device ignores the account until the account says there's an email and sends it through.
Polling or pull means your phone goes and refreshes the account at a set time even if there's no new mail.
Push is better for battery (unless you have constant mails all day you check.)

Think of push working like txts, they arrive whenever they are sent and you don't have to go out and check for them yourself.

The syncing drain depends on how often and what you are syncing.
If you are syncing data every hour it will drain the battery quicker than syncing every 3 hours.
You have to balance how up to date you want the data with how quickly you want the battery to drain.
A lot of apps allow you to specify the times so worth doing some tweaking if you have a lot of accounts that need to sync or ones that you don't need to check very often.

 

[aebranton]

So is K9 Push on gmail? I had it but my BetterBatteryStats said it had my phone wakelocked which i dont like.

I guess basically what im asking is whats a good app/setup (because i dont know how to do it... searched in gmail for update setings but i couldnt find it) to keep battery efficiency and not be updating the email app every 60 seconds, but still get a decent update time. Because i know with the default email app onb my samsung updates come something like every 15mins or maybe 30.. not sure, but its pretty quick... and it never wakelocked or drained battery. I just HATE it because text selection in that app is awful.

Push is the opposite from pull or polling.
With Push your device ignores the account until the account says there's an email and sends it through.
Polling or pull means your phone goes and refreshes the account at a set time even if there's no new mail.
Push is better for battery (unless you have constant mails all day you check.)

Think of push working like txts, they arrive whenever they are sent and you don't have to go out and check for them yourself.

The syncing drain depends on how often and what you are syncing.
If you are syncing data every hour it will drain the battery quicker than syncing every 3 hours.
You have to balance how up to date you want the data with how quickly you want the battery to drain.
A lot of apps allow you to specify the times so worth doing some tweaking if you have a lot of accounts that need to sync or ones that you don't need to check very often.

 

[Kibbster]

As far as I know the only push Gmail app is the Gmail app itself.
Although you can set up a Gmail account in Samsung Social hub as a premium account and that sort of works as push.
Samsung's servers collect the mail then push it to your phone, so it's not as quite as native push but close.
I think Gmail is push only, if Gmail is draining your battery, you are getting a lot of mails

The way I have mine setup is all my accounts (Gmail and Exchange) are setup in Social hub/ Samsung mail client, that provides Push support for Gmail and a combined inbox.
K9 is a great app but can't push Gmails and doesn't support activesync for Exchange.
Gmail app has the best Gmail support but is horrible to use (IMHO.)
I like all my mail in one app so Samsung mail client for all it's weaknesses is my best option (especially now it supports folders yay!)