[solo12002]

I have a 30 day sim on o2 and currently using a Nokia E51 with Nokia email which works ok, a bit slow but fine.

Given that orange or other networks may get the older iPhone and that there are a number of them on x bay. I wonder what choices I have on the iphone for push email. I know of mobile me, but I dont have a mac at all and Im not sure I want to pay £60 a year for push email and calander access.

Any thoughts?

Also I of to Poland in two weeks, do orange do the iphone there and if I got one work it work?

[Ben]

*moved to own thread*

The iPhone supports Yahoo! push email. I think that's your only real choice other than MobileMe or Exchange.

As for availability in Poland: http://www.apple.com/pl/iphone/buy/

I have no idea whether a Polish iPhone would work here WRT network locks.

[miffed]

I have used http://mail2web.com/ in the past for free push mail (I even had it syncing Contacts too on Windows Mobile ) - not sure if they still offer the free service , but worth a look - I had my Gmail account forwarding to my Mail2web address , and it worked amazingly well ! - Mails would arrive on my phone instantly , despite having to hop from Gmail to mail2web !
The only problem is that you can only sync to one exchange server at a time - so if (like me) you want to sync your Google contacts and calender , you have to live without push mail :(

[getti]

try nokia messaging. acts like push email and is free

[@NickyColman]

Yahoo! Mail is purported to offer PUSH on iPhone however, i have seen forums littered with threads about how it just doesnt work.

I've tried it myself and found it extremely rare to actually get it to actually push an email to me.

[Ben]

You so want MobileMe :D Use Safari on your PC and then you can at least sync your bookmarks! ;)

[@NickyColman]

Amen Ben!

MobileMe is by the far the most reliable, solid, slick email solution ive ever used! The website itself is fantastic!!

Yes, totally biased!

[Ben]

Hehe :D Me.com actually hates me, I can't get on with using it for mail at all! It's always disconnecting me for some reason and forcing me to refresh it. But the push email works great for me these days, can't remember the last time it didn't.

Don't forget Find my iPhone and Remote Wipe, too - nice features.

I'll admit, though, that it's much better value if you can use *all* of the features. Still, you can buy it on eBay for less than Apple charge, I believe.

[@NickyColman]

I wouldnt be without it now. I have yet to have a problem with the Me.com site, although most of my stuff is accessed through my iMac which syncs everything to Mail, iCal etc.

Im quite surprised Google or Microsoft have launched GoogleMail + or WindowsLive Plus (although im sure there was an MSN Plus a number of years ago)

[gorilla]

I have the iPhone check for mail (google apps mail) every 15 minutes - not push but perfectly reasonable. It works very well. As for MobileMe, don't get it :D it's not worth the money IMO.

I use xmarks to sync my bookmarks across firefox at work, firefox at home, safari at home and then every now and again, I resync the bookmarks to the iphone. I'm not a prolific bookmarker, so this works well for me.
With google you can sync contacts and calendar (which can operate as push using the exhange settings on the iPhone).

As bluebean states above, yahoo push is flaky at best. I tried to use it previously and hated it.

[3g-g]

I have the iPhone check for mail (google apps mail) every 15 minutes - not push but perfectly reasonable. It works very well. As for MobileMe, don't get it :D it's not worth the money IMO.

I'm in the same boat as you gorilla, there's never a "personal" email that can't wait 15 minutes to get to me... i chat with my brother (who's in Japan) regularly via email. Albeit his, and every Japanese phone, receives instant email, as SMS is here just now, the 15 minute delay is absolutely manageable.

I configured my iPhone to do my work push email via exchange, and I found it just ate my battery up, which was more annoying than the extra burden of waiting 15 minutes to get an email from some obscure department that was completely irrelevant to me in most cases anyway!

Unless you absolutely have to reply to email within seconds/minutes of it arriving, the iPhones 15 minute fetch facility is suffice enough.

[Ben]

I configured my iPhone to do my work push email via exchange, and I found it just ate my battery up, which was more annoying than the extra burden of waiting 15 minutes to get an email from some obscure department that was completely irrelevant to me in most cases anyway!
How bad was the battery drain? I've always used MobileMe push, so I wouldn't know the difference, but I usually end the day above 40%.

[miffed]

See , I've backed myself into a corner here , Much as I'd like to give Mobileme and some of the new features a go , I am now pretty tied to Google Calender , as are the rest of my family
If I could find some way to "Double sync" google calender and Mobileme, then I'd have a go , but for me I feel google calender offers the best product to suit my needs ATM - Having tried Mobileme in the past , I'd rather Google added more features (push mail etc) , then mess around with mobileme again . If the iPhone was able to sync with multiple exchange servers I'd probably even take on an account simply for the puch mail , but as you are tied to using one at a time, but given the choice of mail OR calender , I have to admit I find push calender more useful.

[Ben]

See I use multiple calendars with MobileMe ;) Four to be precise!

[MrBriz]

...I configured my iPhone to do my work push email via exchange, and I found it just ate my battery up...

I have both exchange and MobileMe push on my iPhone and I don't find it that bad at all. If I don't really use my phine during the day I can come to the end of the day with about 80% - 90%! But that never usually happens and I tend to end the day nearer 20% :D

[Ben]

I have both exchange and MobileMe push on my iPhone and I don't find it that bad at all. If I don't really use my phine during the day I can come to the end of the day with about 80% - 90%! But that never usually happens and I tend to end the day nearer 20% :D
See, I'm of the opinion that if I can make it to the end of the day without worrying about battery life then that's acceptable. If the battery is getting hammered then, so long as it doesn't die on me, so be it :D

[3g-g]

I'd of said it was down below the 20%, definitely the first warning about power levels being low. That's using the phone from 7am through 'till 8pm... now I suppose the fact the battery lasts all day is good, maybe I'm just too used to phones going for days... and without exchange enabled, the iPhone manages that.

[MrBriz]

My Mrs can get a good two days worth out of her iPhone 3G with just MobileMe push, but then she doesn't really use it all that much and doesn't get may emails.

I usually get about 16 hrs standby and 5 1/2 hrs useage out of mine every day.