Nokia n900 as an email device
So i have been using the nokia n900 for about 2 months now and have been putting it through it’s paces. This mini review will cover my thoughts on the device as my main email tool for both personal and professional use.
Set-up
All of the major email providers are supported with Nokia providing all the pertinent application settings. Just put in your user information and it all gets set up automaitically for you. Cool. Its also has a SUPER smart logic that senses when certain cell companies require you to use their smtp server to send mail. For example with at&t, they require you to use cmwx.com as the smtp server, or your mail will not send. Well the settings database in the n900 knows that, and so if you have the AT&T sim card in it will use that smtp server to send your mail. But the really cool thing is that it will automatically use that server when you are on the cell data connection but the standard server when on wifi. Very very smart.
Settings & Flexibility
You can easily adjust the settings for the frequency that it retrieves mail (5 minutes is the most requent), but you can not easily set the size of the messages that it recieves. It has its own set of rules. It fetches all of the message text but does not fetch images unless told, and attachments also have to be manually fetched. This is a bummer because if you are like myself now and on a plane you have to remember to both open the messages and request the images and attachments. Not smart, and not practical if you have lots of messages.
Personal Use
For personal email use the n900 is sufficient. Google, yahoo, aol, all work and co exist together. There is nothing special or remarkable about the experience but it works great for casual email.
Business Use
Most of us have a lot higher demands for business email devices. We have to link to corporate servers and integrate with existing IT policies. We have to be able to forward, reply, save and add attachments, and work offline and online. The list of requirements becomes significantly more taxing. We need a bullet proof device that just works and dissappears. This is where the n900 fails horribly down and i am actually shocked at how poorly it performs.
IT Infrastructure Compatibility
The first major issue is compatibility. I work for a large multinational corporation (Fortune 100) that has tens of thousands of employees around the world. Like most large companies we run a microsoft exchange server and a blackberry enterprise server. Also like most large companies it’s data integrity and security are paramount, so they enforce encryption and security settings. If all of that sounds like your situation, the n900 is not going to work in your work environment. It does not support encrypted communication and the enforcement of security policies on the device. You can go to Maemo.org and search and read the huundreds of posts on the subject. The lastest firmware update brought compatibility for Exchange 2003 in addition to 2007 but the big caveat is that your IT admin can not require secuirty policies (like lock codes and auto wipe) on the device. Right now Nokia’s stance seems to be that those policies conflict with the open source principles or some crap like that and to go to your admin and ask to have the policy changed. That’s completely not an option, as my email data IS extremely sensitive and there is no way my IT dept is going to go for it. This is a huge problem. For those that have use the Mail For Exchange program on other Nokia devices particurlarly the E Series. This a departure for Nokia. All of the previous E Series devices and most of the most current N Series devices (e.g. n86) have supported security policies with Exchange servers. But if your exchange does not require security policies then you ARE compatible and push email works very well.
If your company has moved to the google platform for its email, then you are able to get to your email just fine. But other PIM sync functions will still be missing (more on that later in another post)
Business use in action…
So assuming you can actually get it synced with your corporate email, how does it stack up for business use? Overall there are some particular issues you should be aware off. First there is no efficient search function for mail boxes and folder support is not well implemented. On the search function, this is not an issue for me as i normally only keep the last couple of days of email on my device so its not hard to find what i need in my inbox. If you are used to keeping a larger inventory or are accustomed to that behavior then that could be a deal breaker for you. The next issue is folder support. Currently Mail For Exchange doesnt natively support multiple folders. So you have to pick a single folder for it to sync, and its not partical to open up the settings change that often as it can take quite some time to sync. So if you are used to using multiple folders this will be a deal breaker. The third limitation is that if you are using a regular IMAP account you can not tell the device to retrieve ALL of the message. So offline working is not efficient. This a huge problem for me. I do a huge volume of email on planes. And need access to attachments and images in my emails. If you are primarily reading text then you wont have a problem.
Soooo.. Is it good or what?
For light personal email use the N900 is sufficient. The keyboard is great and the email client is reasonably fast. For business use the n900 is not ready for prime time and you should carefully look at your IT dept requirements and also how you work to ensure you can work within it’s limitations at this time. I fully expect this will change with future firmware updates from Nokia. But its important to note this MUST be fixed by Nokia as Microsoft’s Exchange protocol is not a open platform and is licensed.
