[FirstAlan]

I'm curently using a Blackberry Pearl.  I have an old N70, which I love.  I had pop mail set up with my N70, but it only checked my email when I clicked on "Connect".  Does the E71 function the same way, do I need to constantly check my email, or when someone sends me an email, do I get it automatically?

I currently use Gmail and two different work accounts, one IMAP and one POP.  Will it replace my blackberry and be as easy to use? Will it alert me when someone sends me an email, or do I need to constantly check??

Thanks,

Alan

[sanderxpander]

The feature you are looking for is called "push email". It means that when a new email arrives for you on the server, the server notifies your phone and "pushes" the email to your phone, so that it seems to arrive directly, without having to "synchronize" or "check email". While Blackberry was the first (?) or at least the most succesful company implementing this service on phones, Nokia now for all intents and purposes also supports it. When you get your E71 (or E72, or any other E-series phone) you spend a few minutes setting up your email and it creates a "Nokia Messaging"  account for you that automatically forwards any new emails to your phone, from both POP and IMAP accounts. The service is usually free for the life of the device by the way, unlike most Blackberry deals.

[shohratshankar]

Well I agree with sanderxpander; however, E71 or 72 are still some way away from being as reliable for Email as the Blackberry.

I had an E71 and now have an E72. I had hoped for the E72 to be more reliable and better than the E71- it is not much of an upgrade in terms of reliability, though in look and feel it is much better than the E71.

Nokia has been talking about challenging blackberry in the 'push mail' space for over a year now and is still a long way off from providing the functionality and customisation that a blackberry has.

Though in terms of Value for Money ...... it is a no brainer. an E72 or 71 comes fully loaded and a lot cheaper than an equivalent BB.

:-)

I'm sure they'll catch up with the email bit soon enough.

[sanderxpander]

Really? What's the difference in reliability then? I have used my E51 for about a year and now the E72 for a few weeks with zero issues whatsoever. I only have three email accounts but two are POP and one IMAP and they all work fine. The only times I couldn't get mail delivered was when the server of my email-host was actually down, and even then I got a message from Nokia saying there was an error trying to get the mail, so I should be aware I might be missing mail.

[sanjaymehta]

Setting up IMAP (especially with gmail) is trivial. The new versions of Nokia Messaging actually work well. I personally prefer the older client. You can configure imap to pull email automatically every so many minutes.

I don't use POP, but I suspect that with this protocol you will have to pull your mail manually.

I have the E71 configured both with a regular gmail account (i.e. username@gmail.com) , and one hosted on Google's service  for a custom domain.

Finally, the E71 is no replacement for a Blackberry per se as Nokia never supported the Blackberry Connect client on this phone. The last time I checked, BBC was available for the 9300i, E90 and some candy bar form factor phones.

[sanderxpander]

Insofar as I've understood the functionality of the "new" Nokia Messaging versions, they actually continuously check your email accounts online and then the service forwards the mail to your phone. So your phone is not actually doing the checking.

It seems to work pretty well. When I'm sitting in front of my computer, often my mail arrives first on my phone and then on my computer (which checks the pop accounts every 5 minutes or so).

Also, the initial question was whether the phone would offer similar services to the Blackberry in the sense of instantly arriving email. Whether that email comes through the Blackberry servers (via Blackberry Connect) or through the Nokia servers is in this case completely irrelevant for the end-user, I think.

[shohratshankar]

When I pointed to the reliability and functionality of NM (nokia messaging) I did so because of the following-

I have 2 accounts configured on my E72- Google Apps and Gmail. They have the following problems on NM using IMAP

• For Push mail I can only view 3 days mails excluding the present day
• If I use Pull mail (not NM) then sometimes the client just doesn't connect and I miss mails for hours until I manually reconnect. However I can store mails as per my choice. 
• when using NM sometimes the mails are faster than on my laptop and at other times it completely misses out on some mail.
• NM at times shows that it is connecte; however, refuses to sync- manually or automatically
• Sync of calendar keeps creating problems through MFE.
• For HTML mail there is no option of having HTML as the default option. Need to click on 'view in HTML' and then wait till it downloads.... sometimes it doesn't
• There are other little issues which I keep getting. so for now I am using Seven on my E72. I hope Nokia makes the NM client as smooth as a blackberry so that I can then use the E72 for what it is meant.

[sanderxpander]

Strange, I don't have any of those sync issues and I've been using it for nearly a year now. Also with GMail. By the way, you can change the three day thing through settings/gmail/account settings/what to synchronize/inbox. Goes up to a month, though it would indeed be nice to be able to store indefinitely. Then again, I can always go to the browser or the gmail app if I need an attachment from a year ago. I personally don't mind the html setting so much, but it does make sense to be able to set it globally.

[sanderxpander]

By the way, I just remembered, I think that for GMail you need to actually go to your gmail internet page and go to the settings and enable IMAP somewhere, for it to work properly. Works flawlessly for me.