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Android 2.0 Email vs K-9

I'm about to have a G1 soon. Just would like to know, how does the built-in email app in 2.0 compares to K-9...? Which one is better in your opinions?
Thanks in advance.

I use Gmail for my personal use as it pushes the email out as soon as it arrives.
I use K-9 Mail for my work email account - there is no push - K-9 Mail can be set to check the mail at different intervals.
They both are free and they both have a few different features.
My advice - use them both for awhile and then get rid of whatever one you like the least.

Unless you're using a half-complete Eclair rom, you won't be getting 2.0 email until HTC updates their drivers.
But if you're looking for push email, Seven is a good one. It's in beta, so you have to register (but it's automatic, no waiting), but the client isn't that bad. It pushes through their servers like Google does for Gmail, and it also works for other email services like Hotmail, Yahoo, Aol, etc.

K-9 does do Push. If you connect to an IMAP server, K-9 uses the IMAP IDLE command to quietly wait for mail notification. I get notified on my phone as fast as running Thunderbird on my PC.

tdusen said:
K-9 does do Push. If you connect to an IMAP server, K-9 uses the IMAP IDLE command to quietly wait for mail notification. I get notified on my phone as fast as running Thunderbird on my PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thunderbird isn't push
But the OP was wondering about the Android 2.0 E-mail app if I am not mistaken, not the Gmail app.

Yep. It's my understanding that in 2.0 the Gmail app has been integrated into the Email app, correct?
I'm getting a G1, probably will install Cyan on it. But I don't like 2 email apps. So I wonder if there's a compelling reason to use a half-baked 2.0 on it.
Thanks to all.

tekkitan said:
Thunderbird isn't push
But the OP was wondering about the Android 2.0 E-mail app if I am not mistaken, not the Gmail app.
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I guess it depends on your definition of push.
Most people think of Push email as Instant notification. Thunderbird connected to an IMAP server provides instant notification by using the IMAP IDLE command. This does require a permanent connection to the IMAP server.
Find out more about Thunderbird and IMAP here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP
And this paper compares various methods of "Push" notifications: http://www.isode.com/whitepapers/imap-idle.html
K-9 Supports IMAP IDLE and so gives instant notification of new mail.
(I'm not the developer, just a fan)

tdusen said:
I guess it depends on your definition of push.
Most people think of Push email as Instant notification. Thunderbird connected to an IMAP server provides instant notification by using the IMAP IDLE command. This does require a permanent connection to the IMAP server.
Find out more about Thunderbird and IMAP here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP
And this paper compares various methods of "Push" notifications: http://www.isode.com/whitepapers/imap-idle.html
K-9 Supports IMAP IDLE and so gives instant notification of new mail.
(I'm not the developer, just a fan)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't aware Thunderbird did that, I don't use it as such, not really a big fan of it. I point all my personal domains e-mail to Gmail
edit: I also tried k-9 for another one of my accounts. Didn't like it that much. The interface was mostly annoying to me.

My phone was out of storage so anytime I wanted to install a new program, I had to uninstall an old one. I installed Diskusage to see what was causing it and K9 mail was taking 95MB. I deleted all messages from the trash and inbox folder and it was the same. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and it is now normal. Any ideas why K9 mail was taking so much storage?

[Q] Stock Email App and Activesync Push

I have 3 email accounts setup on my SGS (Bell, 2.1): 1 exchange activesync using the stock email client set on push, and 2 gmail using the stock gmail app. I have been getting very bad idle battery drain, it can be over 5%/hour while idle, and have also had my activesync 'stall' and stop retrieving new messages after a period of time. Using the 'other usage' page in battery history I found that the phone was not sleeping very much (at least 65% running) and on the 'partial wake' page the culprit was identified as "Email". When I switched my exchange account from push to 10min poll the running stat dropped below 20%, but email remains the highest partial wake usage. It seems that the stock email activesync push is having a hard time keeping the push connection running and this is both killing my battery and not retrieving my emails.
I have 2 questions:
1) What does the "Email" entry on the partial wake screen of battery history cover? Is it just the stock email app, or does it also include the gmail app?
2) I have also read from many people that push from an exchange server works great and is light on the battery. Could there be something about the particular exchange server I am using that is causing my activesync woes? Several iphones use push from this server with no apparent issues.
Thanks.

To follow up my original post, I have found some new information on this. I shut off my exchange/activesync syncing completely and my battery life went through the roof. My idle battery usage went from 3-10%/hour to under 0.5%/hour and I still had 2 gmail accounts syncing via push. The 'running' at idle went from 20%+ to about 1.5%, and the partial wake usage of 'email' went down to 0. From this I have drawn 2 conclusions: 1) The 'email' entry on the partial wake history does not include gmail. 2) The stock email app uses a ridiculous amount of time and power to sync email via activesync, i get between 6x and 20x the battery life when I am not using activesync. Has anyone else seen results like this? I am still wondering if this is a peculiarity of my exchange server or if activesycn is this bad in general?
Thanks.

Google & Microsoft
This is exactly what Google wants you to think.
Activesync is bad, so let me switch to Google, etc...
Google is playing with fire, in my opinion. People simply love outlook and exchange.
it's a million times easier for them to dump google phones and switch to a large available mobile OS's like iphone, Microsoft, Symbian, etc... instead of dumping outlook.
it's true Android is very attractive to users being on many devices and by many vendors but outlook is more precious and the alternatives google is offering are ridiculous compared to outlook.
after trying and searching right and left, i concluded that i have to sell both my Android phones back to iphone or Windows phone 7. Exchange Activesync is a red line.

K9 IMAP IDLE and battery usage

Ok, so firstly when you search this site for this topic, most posts are strangly in their respective users' phone forum, rather than somewhere more general, so I have done this same...
From K9
What is the difference between pushing and polling?
K-9 may support either push or poll for fetching new mail (see Account settings > Fetching mail). Polling refers to the mail client periodically asking the mail server for new mail, on some configured time increment. Pushing refers to the mail client keeping an open connection to the mail server, so that the server can inform the client of new mail as soon as it is received. Pushing typically uses more battery for a few reasons. First, when you have any account configured to push, this keeps an Android service running at all times. This service keeps 1 open connection to the mail server for each folder configured to push (which also uses battery power). And lastly, pushing will typically lead to more frequent communications between the client and the server.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This REALLY suprised me for a couple of reasons:
many people (maybe not informed) often say that polling is worse than push
true push mail (eg Blackberry, SMS or Gmail) takes almost no battery usage (does anyone switch their SMS service off?
So is there are email solution that makes better use of "GCM / C2DM", or some other technology that is far power effecient?
It also means that you would not need a specific app running for the phone to get the message and if needs be wake the app
Furthermore, in the case of K9, looking at the battery screen, it reports that K9 has a not insigificant "stay awake" time. I assume this is linked to the implimentation of IMAP IDLE.

[Q] Builtin Mail App - No Gmail Push / IMAP IDLE Support

Am I missing something huge here or what? In the sense mail app, I don't see a way to setup PUSH (using IMAP-IDLE) for google apps or gmail. There is only the "smart-sync", manual, or timed checking. Smart-sync sucks, mails are delayed anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes. I don't really get a lot of mail, but when I do, I need very fast notification. What gives? Please tell me I'm just missing something...

[Q] mail sync

I am using the simple email app included, Gmail is disabled. Using arhd 10.1 but this problem was here long before with original stock.
I guess I have already tried all possible combinations to have the mail sync, maybe someone else has an idea on how this works if at all.
In settings I tried the smart sync, then each number of minutes, whatever I put in there, the only way to have the mail query the server is to manually open the application. For instance, I send myself an email from desktop, my ipad picks it up in a matter of seconds, I mean the fu$#er is in sleep mode, cover on, then I almost instantly hear that notification sound. The One however, I could wait all day, no sign it knows about it.
I have 2 email accounts configured, yahoo and Gmail, I also tried to add one at a time, nothing seems to help.
Thanks for any idea on how to make it work or any suggestions on a third party app?
Sent from a pizza

Smartsync takes time to build a database of data about your usage and when to check for email. For Gmail the best bet is the Gmail app, which will get almost instant push notifications.

cschmitt said:
Smartsync takes time to build a database of data about your usage and when to check for email. For Gmail the best bet is the Gmail app, which will get almost instant push notifications.
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Click to collapse
I'd rather be using only one app for my email accounts - - the stock mail for instance.
It's just that no sync mode seems to work, be it smart or not
Sent from a pizza

millicent said:
I'd rather be using only one app for my email accounts - - the stock mail for instance.
It's just that no sync mode seems to work, be it smart or not
Sent from a pizza
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
like the guy said above. smart sync needs to build a repour before it will know when to check. its not having information pushed to it like the gmail app is. your best bet is to use the 2 separate apps since each individual app has the ability to push emails immediately while HTC's smart sync or manual sync is just basically timed sync-ing. its just that smart sync is timed to how the phone learns your usage?

syaoran68 said:
like the guy said above. smart sync needs to build a repour before it will know when to check. its not having information pushed to it like the gmail app is. your best bet is to use the 2 separate apps since each individual app has the ability to push emails immediately while HTC's smart sync or manual sync is just basically timed sync-ing. its just that smart sync is timed to how the phone learns your usage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said the manual mode doesn't work either.
I am going to try k9 for now..
Sent from a pizza

Okay, I think the problem might be elsewhere: the k9,same as mail doesn't seem to sync either. I have tried this over wifi and data, in power settings the sleep mode is disabled, I even disabled power saver.
Does email synchronization works for anyone excepting gmail users?
I am going to enable gmail, see how that behaves with sync..
Sent from a pizza

Manual mode as in your in the mail app and request it to refresh? And the email still doesn't come through? Not sure then.. I used smart sync for a while then I found it to not update fast enough for my needs. But it did always work.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

The mail app syncs over wifi, I found out. Yes, it took a while (set it up to check at 5 minutes.). However, it still doesn't work when screen is off.
While on data only, the whole sync is very conservative. Unless I open up myself the mail thing it doesn't bother to refresh. In fact, the only thing synchronizing over data is weather from BW widget, but even then I am afraid it only refreshes itself when opening the screen. Ah, and Google play, I get notifications over mobile data as well.
I mean I used to want this conservative data behavior when on 100mb data plan, however now I have 3gb to spend and having trouble with email notifications?
I suspect there might be a misbehaving app will try reinstalling everything and one app at a time..
Sent from a pizza

Does this help?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2267281
penultimate post.