The PhoneBoy Blog

Nokia Email Beta 3: Still Needs Work

11 Oct 2008

After all the fits and starts over the weekend with their backend server upgrade, my comrades in the Software and Services at Nokia got Nokia Email Beta 3 rolled out. It’s certainly an improvement, but it’s also got some room for improvement as well. I installed it both on my shiny new Nokia N96 and the trusty Nokia E61i to give it a workout.

From a functionality standpoint, it seems about the same, though they did add support for S60 3rd Edition FP2 devices and add the ability to support up to 6 different email accounts! I can confirm that both handsets handle Mail for Exchange and Nokia Email together, though I did find a bug with that support that be summed up in the following screenshot:

However, the Nokia Email service still has some issues. One usability thing I noticed right away on both the N96 and the E61i was the amount of time it took to actually enter the inbox on both handsets. Huge FAIL and work should be done to optimize that.

The other thing which I find absolutely irritating is there is no support for Access Point Groups either that existed in the older E series devices or in the new FP2 devices! Considering I roam between WiFi access points and the mobile phone network frequently, I’d like the service to use Access Point Groups. (Mail for Exchange also needs this support, to)

Ok, one more thing: There is no middle ground between syncing once an hour and always. At least Mail for Exchange allows me to sync every 15 minutes. Can we get support for more frequently syncing (short of always-on push) into Nokia Email?

One can always grouse about lack of enterprise mailbox support as well. Perhaps that can be a feature that will be charged for in the future?