Email delivery may be the deal breaker

[gapost]

I am coming from my Pre2 (loved it) and trying the Trophy. On my Pre, I could set my work email (imap or pop) to come in as items arrive. I know that on WP, the shortest time for pull is 15 min. I'm just not sure I can live with this.

I have tried using Gmail and Hotmail to pull in that account, but it just doesn't reliably push the email quickly. Sometimes it will come in in a minute or two, but sometimes it takes five or ten. I know Gmail checks your pop accounts based on how much email you get and the more you get the quicker it will pull it in.

So, does anyone have any ideas how I can work this? I love the phone, but guess I am spoiled by instant email. (Yes, I know that Exchange would work best, but we don't have that at work right now.)

 

[Winterfang]

Seems like you need a Blackberry my friend. They offer instant email.

 

[cdook]

Is there an "As Items Arrive" sync option for that Mailbox? Or is that only available for Hotmail and Gmail?

 

[Speebs]

Seems like you need a Blackberry my friend. They offer instant email.

Or, Microsoft could do the smart thing and not push people away from their platform. I'm not sure why they feel the need to dictate how often my phone can check for mail.... seems unnecessary.

 

[CHIP72]

Or, Microsoft could do the smart thing and not push people away from their platform. I'm not sure why they feel the need to dictate how often my phone can check for mail.... seems unnecessary.

To be fair, from what I've seen just about every mobile OS manufacturer dictates how e-mail is delivered in some way; with POP accounts it seems like just about everybody except Google (with Android OS) has a minimum 15 minute fetch interval (and I have webOS devices as well - my Comcast and Hotmail accounts e-mail on my TouchPad and Pre 2 can't come through any more frequently than a 15 5 minute interval unless I do a manual sync). With iOS devices, Gmail is also on a Fetch schedule (of my 3 e-mail accounts, only my Hotmail account can be set to Push on my iPhone 4). With Blackberry QNX OS (i.e. the OS on the Playbook), POP accounts (or at least my Comcast account) have a minimum 15 minute fetch interval.

The problem with Windows Phone OS e-mail isn't a lack of settings, it's that push e-mail reliability is inconsistent even if you have your settings set to "as items arrive" for accounts where that is available. This has been by far my biggest issue with Windows Phone OS, which I really love otherwise. I've had problems with this on my Hotmail account on my Trophy, though it seems like it has been working better over the last week or so (even though I haven't rebooted the phone during that time).

EDIT: I just took a look at the TouchPad e-mail settings, and as gapost noted the minimum e-mail delivery setting for a POP account is 5 minutes. In the case of webOS devices, this applies to both Hotmail and other POP accounts, such as my Comcast e-mail account.

 

[ilsonfan]

I have my email set to "As Items Arrive" for my work's Exchange account and that comes in within seconds. I've not noticed any particular delay with my Hotmail account either.

 

[gapost]

I looked at my Pre and found that you can set pop accounts to a minimum of 5 minutes, but you can set imap accounts to get mail as it arrives. Apparently, WebOS distinguishes a difference between pop and imap. I wouldn't mind even paying for a service that would push email to my phone. I looked at mail2web and even was going to do a trial, but after signing up, they wanted me to send copies of my ID and credit card because they could "not authenticate my information."

So anyhow, I will keep looking and let you all know what I find. No, I don't want a BB, I was just hoping to get the same functionality at my WebOS phone.

 

[paulm187]

15 minutes polling a POP3 account seems to be the sweet spot and anything less than 5 minutes could cause issues especially with large attachments. Its a shame there isn't a 5 minute and 10 minute option but from past experiance on Windows Mobile this impacted battery life quite a bit. Changing from 5 minutes to 15 minutes gave me as much as 20% more battery life.

I also tried Hotmai'sl other account polling but it only polls the pop3 account every 15 minutes therefore the benefits of instant mail is lost. The only other option is to migrate to Hotmail or Gmail.

However if you don't mind paying you could take up a 3rd party solution like NuevaSync. You can setup an account and for $30 a year it can poll your POP3/IMAP mail and provide synch service instant mail to your phone. I don't know what the polling interval is like as I havn't tried it out yet but they have a free trial on offer.

NuevaSync - Smartphone Cloud Services

I'm also considering Microsoft's Exchange Online plan for ?3.25 per user per month. You will have business class e-mail, calendar, contacts - instant e-mail to your phone and also OWA. For 0.75 more you can have the whole Office 365 experiance.

Buy Exchange Online - Hosted in the Cloud

 

[paulm187]

I have my email set to "As Items Arrive" for my work's Exchange account and that comes in within seconds. I've not noticed any particular delay with my Hotmail account either.

The issue here is to do with POP3 and IMAP accounts. With hotmail & exchange you get instant mail.

 

[gapost]

That NuevaSync looks pretty good. Maybe just what I was looking for. I'll check it out. Thanks!

 

[gapost]

YES. NuevaSync WORKS!! Once you set up your imap account into NuevaSync, you set up an Outlook Exchange account on WP. I had to look at the Gmail and Iphone settings to get the right server/domain because they had the old Window activesync showing for Windows Phone. But now my imap email is working like my Pre2 and is almost instant.

I can 't believe no one else has done this but I think it is best for imap, which can't be set up on WP. It won't work for pop email and I guess imap is not that popular anymore. I want to get my business set up on Exchange, but we just have not had the money.

Thanks so much Paulm. Now if we could just get the led to blink for emails and texts, haha.

 

[paulm187]

Glad it worked out for you!!

 

[11B1P]

I am coming from my Pre2 (loved it) and trying the Trophy. On my Pre, I could set my work email (imap or pop) to come in as items arrive. I know that on WP, the shortest time for pull is 15 min. I'm just not sure I can live with this.

Really? You can't go for 15 mins between emails? I would be pulling my hair out if I had to be was checking my email every 15 mins. I have more important things in life than seeing work email every 15 mins. Thankfully I don't get work email on my phone.

 

[jimski]

Interesting. I have read three threads talking about slow delivery of push email, and all three conversations included a Trophy. So maybe its the carrier (or model) and not the OS. My push messages are always nearly instant (less than a minute). And btw, when did email turn into instantmail. Thought that's what Messaging was for.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[selfcreation]

e-mail hub -> . . . (3dots ) -> settings -> Sync Settings -->Download new content --> *as items Arrive*

and done! ( when i send e-mails to my self , i get them with in 20sec )

 

[paulm187]

OP is inquiring about POP e-mails, the minimum is 15 minutes, if you subscribe to push e-mail like hotmail, exchange etc then you can set "as items arrive."

 

[doublebullout]

You can enable "as items arrive" for Gmail at m.google.com/sync. You can also enable syncing multiple Google calendars for WP too.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Speebs]

To be fair, from what I've seen just about every mobile OS manufacturer dictates how e-mail is delivered in some way; with POP accounts it seems like just about everybody except Google (with Android OS) has a minimum 15 minute fetch interval (and I have webOS devices as well - my Comcast and Hotmail accounts e-mail on my TouchPad and Pre 2 can't come through any more frequently than a 15 5 minute interval unless I do a manual sync). With iOS devices, Gmail is also on a Fetch schedule (of my 3 e-mail accounts, only my Hotmail account can be set to Push on my iPhone 4). With Blackberry QNX OS (i.e. the OS on the Playbook), POP accounts (or at least my Comcast account) have a minimum 15 minute fetch interval.

The problem with Windows Phone OS e-mail isn't a lack of settings, it's that push e-mail reliability is inconsistent even if you have your settings set to "as items arrive" for accounts where that is available. This has been by far my biggest issue with Windows Phone OS, which I really love otherwise. I've had problems with this on my Hotmail account on my Trophy, though it seems like it has been working better over the last week or so (even though I haven't rebooted the phone during that time).

EDIT: I just took a look at the TouchPad e-mail settings, and as gapost noted the minimum e-mail delivery setting for a POP account is 5 minutes. In the case of webOS devices, this applies to both Hotmail and other POP accounts, such as my Comcast e-mail account.

That's POP, but what about IMAP? I though IMAP supported push email.

 

[Rodolfo#WP]

The best that WP7 can do with my Comcast (POP3) mail is 15-minute intervals, though I have it set for hourly, or every 2 hours on weekends. I only count on my phone for Comcast mail when I am not running Outlook at home, because, in that case, Outlook is downloading mail every minute and emptying the server. Hotmail messages, which I check only on the phone, are set to be synced as they arrive, and this works very well.

My more compulsive associates will text anyway, and often I'm available.

 

[gapost]

Yes, the Internet mails can sync "as items arrive" because they are using push/imap. Pop accounts will only sync every 15 minutes minimum. It is the way WP was designed but it could be as low as 5 minutes (or less I guess). However, with pop, having to check for emails more often will, of course, use more battery.

What I was focused on was IMAP email, which is kind of between Exchange and pop. Imap can push, however, WP does not have a specific way to set up a personal or business imap account. However, as I said above, NuevaSync is a perfect way to set up push imap in WP. It won't work for pop because theoretically, pop cannot be pushed.

And of course, many people, myself included, don't need push email and can live with fetching mail every 15 or more minutes, particularly for personal emails. However, in a business and with IT responsibilities, it's pretty important to get push emails, if nothing else, to keep up with the BB's, haha.

Oh, and yes, you can fetch your pop emails and send them through an Internet mail like Google or Hotmail. But the fetching done by Google or Hotmail is not consistent and reliable. For example, they may fetch your pop emails every couple of minutes and then may not fetch for 10 or 15. So you can't really rely on consistent push of your POP accounts from Google or Hotmail.