Nokia N900 Review of Email

October 19th, 2009 • Mark Guim • Filed Under •

Email is a very important feature for me and it works pretty well on the Nokia N900… for the most part. I’ll show you how it looks on the pre-production Nokia N900 from setup, to reading the inbox, replying, and creating emails. In this post, I use my Nokia Messaging account to push my emails from Gmail.

The Nokia N900 referred to this post is running software version 1.2009.41-10.

Video Overview

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Setup

During the setup, there’s a pre-loaded list of service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, or Exchange. The list makes it easier for you to just log in and start using email. Most of the other info like ports, server addresses, etc. are no longer needed. For advanced options, select ‘Others’ to manually fill out all the credentials.

Multiple email accounts are supported. There’s no option to combine the accounts into one inbox, but you can choose from a dropdown which account you’d like to send your new emails from.

Nokia messaging

For some weird reason, Nokia Messaging does not show up in the list when I’m using a SIM card from AT&T or T-mobile here in US. It is available when I insert my European Vodafone SIM.

Inbox

Browsing through the inbox is fairly easy. Flick your finger up or down to see the list of emails. Those in white mean already read, while the ones in color are still not read. Long-press on an email activates a popup while blurring the background. You can mark the email as read or delete it from there.

Inbox

Search is currently missing. You will not be able to look for certain emails.

Reading Emails

HTML email is supported by the Nokia N900. Images do not load automatically, so you’ll have to press the load image button at the bottom of the screen. If there’s an option to load images automatically, I haven’t found it yet. Other options while reading an email include the usual reply, reply all, and forward. It’s very straightforward.

Read mail

Writing Emails

As I previously mentioned, you can select in a drop down which account you are sending the email from. You can also use the bottom panel options to change the font, size, format, and color. More options are available by pressing the status bar panel. This includes attachments, CC, and BCC. Attaching images is pretty straightforward as well.

Writing

Finishing Thoughts

Email on the Nokia N900 is simple and easy to use. Many users will be happy with it. However, it is not exactly perfect yet.

Issues. There are some issues on this pre-production Nokia N900’s email experience that hopefully gets resolved before hitting the shelves.

1. If I login using the Gmail account, the app becomes too slow. I will often get a “not responding” warning and force quit the application. I think it is trying to download all my emails since a couple of years ago, but I could be wrong.

2. Google Sync for Email is not fully supported. It can download some emails, but will not display the content or recipient.

3. Nokia Messaging is not in the preloaded list if I am using an American SIM card. It shows up when I have my Vodafone SIM card from Netherlands.

4. If I am using Nokia Messaging as an email account AND use Exchange for Google Sync, I can read emails but cannot send emails. Mike from Nokia Conversations has the same setup, but told me he is able to send emails.

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  • Suhel Desai
    i am not getting any option of nokia messagin in service providers list. Read many forums seems this is a problem with many ppl. Anyone knows what to do? i am in india and i use nokia messaging on nokia 5230. But in n900 i am not gettin that option. Tried removing the sim as well still the option never shows up as shown in ur screen shots. Pls Help !
  • don worry, u will be blessed if u get this phone, this phone will show u the right path.
  • Mehul
    does NMS works in any other country other than USA
  • logan
    ok love the new look, it's very simple and i like that. I have a nokia N97 right now and i like it but things bother me about it, i love the keyboard but the touch screen isn't my favorite. anyways i'm probably going to move up with my tax returns. i'm looking at gsmallover.com or ebay, don't know yet lots of idiots on the internet. anyways excited for my next phone it's been 18 months with this one. anyone have an opinion on n97 or n900???
  • Doouble
    i use Nokia masseging for my hotmail account
    but evry time i receive an emai it dosn't load the full email just half of it
    while if i use my hotmail account directly form hotmail service it loads the full messege but it replace the words with quastion marks ..
    and another problame .... how can i import my hotmail contacts ???
    can someone please help me ....
  • thomcherryhomes
    the mail client is not usable for me at all. I have been a gMail user since 2003, and it takes forever to refresh the inbox and to select items in it to read, often leading to "App not responding" errors. I hope they fix this, because it seems like a good email client... very strange.....
  • SmoothGirlieGirl
    Yeah, well, I hope U reply. I want 2 know if the Nokia N900 features the possibility of having 100 different phone contacts and, for each one, allowing me 2 set up a different ringtone.

    I mean, I use the Nokia 1100 (which I love) and it gives me this choice but the other phone I have, Nokia 1680c, doesn't. If I'm looking 2 upgrade to just one phone, I'd like it to have this feature included. How do I know if N900 has this????????????
  • Jesper
    I'm curious.. Does it support IMAP folders? How about GPG? Can you disable HTML support (for security and performance)? Can you read and reply to emails while offline, then send and recieve when you get online?
  • khertan
    E-mail

    * Synchronize Email: No (currently not supported by Google Sync)
  • MJ
    Can the e-mail app work in portrait mode? All your screenshots as well as the video only show it in landscape orientation...
  • qhorse
    only the phone can work in portrait mode at this stage... Developpers will surely fix this in the future though !
  • qhorse
    Hi Mark,

    Do you know if MfE on the N900 supports the flagging of email for follow-ups (and possibly with reminders) ?

    Tx a lot !
  • priyaank
    Its an awesome mobile !! i am going to buy this mobile soon !!
  • I forwarded everything to an ovi email and then set all replies with the corresponding email SMTP settings. So, I can keep my google mail accounts and work accounts still receiving pop. Works really great.

    What I can't do is get the mail for exchange to finish first sync. Any ideas? I also get a PC suite issue and I have no idea how to turn it off.
  • For the issues you see here, tickets in bugs.maemo.org are welcome.
  • I have Exchange setup for Google Contacts/Calendar sync and Gmail setup for email as a separate profile and I'm able to easily send email. Also, I've noticed that the email part isn't slow, but rather the contacts/calendar syncing that doesn't work all the time.
  • Google Sync is not supported by Maemo Mail For Exchange client CURRENTLY. If it works, it works just because you are lucky.
  • I can send emails fine when I have that setup too. It's when I have Nokia Messaging + Google Sync (exchange) combo that I can't send.

    I'm also not sure why using Gmail is slow and Nokia Messaging is fast. They're both using the same email address... just different services.
  • Gorgonesh
    On the N810 connecting to Gmail was done via IMAP and it loaded ALL your email with no option to tell it how many messages to sync. It could really slow down the loading a lot. Nokia Messaging only syncs 3 days worth of emails so that's likely the difference.
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