Blackberry vs Windows Mobile

[AmithS]

When you download emails to your phone do you download the entire message or do you have a setting to get only the headers or first 20KB kinda thing like in WinMo ?

[AmithS]

Hi irneb,

Quick Q, how much of data do you use on your Android phone & what sort of data bundle do you have ?

Also what sort of 3G services you use e.g. email, social networking, etc...

Thanks,

[irneb]

When you download emails to your phone do you download the entire message or do you have a setting to get only the headers or first 20KB kinda thing like in WinMo ?

Sorry, for some reason my (office) internet seemed dead last week, and I was too busy to be bothered . Anyhow, It appears that the default method for the Android mail client is to only download the headers of each message. Only when you open the message does it download the body. And that works in IMAP as well as POP3. I'm unsure how to change this so it downloads the entire message at the start - but I think for a phone this is the "best" method, since you'll only rarely do all of your email on the phone.

Hi irneb,

Quick Q, how much of data do you use on your Android phone & what sort of data bundle do you have ?

Also what sort of 3G services you use e.g. email, social networking, etc...

Thanks,

Generally: emails, some web browsing (forums mostly), GPS (I prefer Waze instead of Google Maps), a bit of Facebook (but I'm not hooked - maybe once a week). I refuse to sign a contract with any of the Cell-monopolies, I'm on a prepaid Vodacom at present. Don't phone out that much (perhaps 2 or 3 calls a week). Do much more SMS & Email.

I buy myself a MyMeg 600 bundle every 2 months or so - so it seems about 300MB per month works for me (but it varies a lot from say 50MB to 3GB). But that includes me plugging the phone into my laptop for use as a modem - in which case there's quite a lot of extra stuff I do: Much more emails, a lot more web based research, using SVN for an open source project of mine, and many more forum posts than I do through the phone. I don't have much of a hankering for downloading video and music, if you do (e.g. YouTube, Streaming, etc.) you're probably going to need a much larger capping per month. Even if you are on contract you should be able to adjust the data bundle as you see you either run out or don't use it fully (i.e. at worst you waste one month's capping).

But that's another reason I like the prepaid option: If I'm on holiday and don't use it at all, I simply don't buy any (e.g. I bought one in November last year and then one in Jan. Had a lot of stuff to do through Feb so I bought another when it ran down to 20MB left. Still on that lot - would probably need another in a week or so). And with Vodahell the prepaid / contract data bundles are as close as dammit (a cent here or there) to each other in price, so it doesn't matter whatever the sales-quack in the shop tries to spin!

[AmithS]

Thanks for that info, helps alot.

I have a cellc data package for my pc.

I will use my phone mostly for quick email replies & quick browsing.

Nothing heavy, i dont do big downloads & streaming.

I was just abit worried as some people say they use over a gig on there android phones !!!

Thanks

[irneb]

I was just abit worried as some people say they use over a gig on there android phones !!!

That means they watch lots of streaming video / download music / etc.

If not then, only if your emails contain lots of attachments would you start looking at GBs. It depends on your usage, the phone / OS itself doesn't use much on its own (mainly checking for updates and sync-ing contacts / calendar / etc. - which uses very little bandwidth).

[irneb]

I've been testing K9 Mail. All I can say: "That old mail app isn't seeing me again!" It's all I can think a phone's mail app should be. Works well with IMAP, but even POP3 works as needed (by default). You can set it to download the entire message to the phone instead of just the headers, but it's not the default. Has a nice Combined Inbox & All Mail folders. Your different accounts are colour coded so you can quickly see which message came from which account. And replying allows you to choose a different account to send through.

But just as I'm getting used to it, my Milestone's just informed me there's an update available. So I'm now on Android 2.2.1 (Froyo). Though I'm not even going to try those standard Mail apps. It would be nice if I could even uninstall them, although in such a case I suppose the only way would be to root the phone and install some other Android than the official one from Motorola. BTW some have already installed 2.3 (Gingerbread) on this phone: http://modmymobile.com/forums/564-mo...rbread-os.html

If you want to be on the bleeding edge, then you'd probably want to check that site. They've got several modified Androids for install on most phones.

[irneb]

I was just abit worried as some people say they use over a gig on there android phones !!!

Thanks

Oh! If this is still something you're worried about, install an app called APNDroid from the Android Market (it's free). You can then place a single button Widget on any of your screens which turns on/off data connection, so you can ensure for yourself that there's absolutely nothing doing something in the background if you don't want it to.

[AmithS]

Hi irneb,

Thanks for that info, very useful. Will monitor data usage and if it gets our of hand will definitely use APNDroid. (Although it might also be a good function to switch of email function after business hours ) From what i have read they say you can do reply from different accounts and stuff with android 2.3 but i also know that alot of people rave about K9 mail.

My contract is up for renewal this month. So im busy checking out the market. Vodacom doesn't seem to have as good deals with the latest Android phones though. So hopefully they will have a good special soon with their new red marketing

[irneb]

Just an update on this. I was kayaking on the Orange over Easter. Needless to say the rains made for some serious rapids and I got dumped once. The phone was inside a zip-lock inside one of the (supposedly) waterproof compartments of the kayak, but the zip-lock got filled with water. Phone-dead .... opened and left to dry in the sun, still wouldn't turn on.

Once I got back to civilization I plugged it into a charger and it turned on. But as soon as I disconnected the charger it died. Even if it was on charge for 24h. So I assumed the battery got hosed in that dunking.

Went to a few shops here in JHB. Everyone tells me: "We don't have stock of that phone's batteries, it's too new." At which stage I tell them: "But! It's discontinued overseas! How can it be 'TOO NEW' here?"

Anyhow, one guy told me to try the Motorola head office in Midrand. So going there it looked a bit suspicious - just a receptionist at the desk, not displays or anything like that. After telling her about my probs, she goes upstairs to one of the "managers". Comes back down and tells me: "Here. the manager's battery for free. Sorry our public shop's not opened yet!"

So here's a +1 for Motorola at least. Even though they've not got the facilities they make up for it with their customer relations! Just wish they'd bring their new phones to the backwaters of Africa sooner ... I was starting to look at their Works-under-water, dust-proof & shock absorbent Defy model after my experience. But that's probably only going to be available some time like 2015!!! When we can get the over manufacture spill-off from the EU.