trying to understand "push or pull" email facilities

pennymakespounds

i'm not pretending to know what i'm talking about !!.. hence the reason i again come here to ask for help.

Wonder if there's a website that explains this sort of question .. or if anyone can point me in right direction ,

I have a nokia 3310 ! .. with just calls & texts on an o2 normal tariff (but get most of it cashback etc)

Seperately i have a blackberry which has an o2 .. business ... data only tariff ... which i only use to receive and reply to emails .. which my business depends on . did the job i needed and at £15 a month been brilliant value for me . had this tariff about 5 years ..
I believe this works on "push" ie handset vibrates/rings as soon as an email hits my aol inbox .

As both my tariffs run out in a few months ... i want to see if i can get it all together .... one tariff ,which has calls + texts + data on it .. which i presume i use the blackberry for .

When i enquired once before in a shop i was told that the problem with that is it would only work on "pull technology" ie i'd have to keep logging on to system and checking if there is any emails .

This is no good to me .. must be "push"

Help / advice please .

thanks

stunno

Some providers (Tmobile, I think) charge £5 for 'Blackberry Mail', but, presumably if you set a normal email programme, say, Gmail on an android phone, to check every minute or less then it will be almost the same as 'push'.

grumbler

stunno wrote: »

...presumably if you set a normal email programme, say, Gmail on an android phone, to check every minute or less then it will be almost the same as 'push'.

This may be correct for blackberry/nokia (not sure), but not for andoid *I think*:
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=113746

Push email. You'll see new messages in your inbox as they arrive - without having to refresh or check mail.

Quenastoise

It looks like you like the Blackberry, it does provide you with instant email notifications, it has lots of apps and features that would probably be useful for your business, do you really need to keep the Nokia ?

Toe-Jam

You can get any blackberry free, 500 mins free o2 to o2 calls unlimited sms and 500 data for £25 on O2 at the moment.

diamonds

Blackberry is "pushed" & "securely", thats why business use them along with Blackberry Messenger - PUSH, compressed & secure data -EVEN from the network delivering the private data connection to Blackberry, many drug dealers use them now....what does that tell you !

Lum

You don't have to manually log on if you use push email. You can set the app to, say, log in and check every 5 minutes.

The downside to this is up to 5 minutes delay and increased battery use.

If you have the right kind of email account (IMAP4) then you can use something called IMAP Idle which is virtually the same as push. Your email program basically logs in and says "hey, let me know if you get anything". The connection stays open but no data is transmitted so the battery use is not affected.

Also, Nokia offer a proper push messaging system, called simply "Nokia Messaging". It works the same as the Blackberry BIS system and suffers from the same flaws.

pennymakespounds

thanks for all the answers ... most of them make a bit sense to me but do leave me even more confused !!.. things like Gmail .... Android phones .....Imap idle just mean nothing unfortunately ., so i'm not actually any further forward of knowing what to do ?
ie is there a provider / tariff that i could move to ?

I must keep my aol email address and i must keep my existing mobile phone number .

Quenastoise .. yes i'm expecting to stop using the nokia and just use blackberry .. would like to stick with my old fashioned 7290 ........

Stunno ... having a phone automatically checking every minute for me is fine .. as long as the handset then vibrates/rings to tell me there's a new message .

Toe-Jam and i don't understand the "500 " etc figures that are used for data use .
I don't need to surf online .. just read and answer about 30 emails a day is my only need .

Which brings me back to my original question of ..... can i get what i need on one provider / handset / tariff ??
which of course like a good MSE i'd need to buy on a huge cashback deal !! .. quite happy to port my number around if necessary .. even via a pay as you go temporarily . I'd like to be ideally with o2 or t mob, third choice voda
*******************

Lum

GMail is simply google's email service. Most people access it through their web browser. Similar services are Hotmail from Microsoft and Yahoo Mail from, well Yahoo.

As for IMAP. For starters who is providing your email currently, and how do you access it? (eg. Outlook Express) that will help answer the question about how to achieve what you want.

grumbler

Lum wrote: »

...For starters who is providing your email currently, ...

pennymakespounds wrote: »

...
I must keep my aol email address ...

..............

Lum

Good spot! Missed that.

Apparently AOL do support IMAP Idle, so an Android phone with the free K9 Mail app would give you push email. The iPhone will also work, as will Nokia's phones.


To answer your earlier question Android is the operating system that many phones are coming with these days. Same as you run Windows on your home computer, or OSX if you buy from Apple. Most modern smartphones from HTC, Motorola, Sony and othersare coming with Android, unless you buy from Apple (in which case you get iOS) or Nokia (in which case you mostly get Symbian).

Since Android is (mostly) the same on any device that runs it, you just pick based on the price and hardware features you want (eg. camera, keyboard etc.)

What I would suggest you do now is find a phone store that isn't run by !!!!!! (difficult I know) and try to get them to demonstrate all three OSes, see which one you like.

Then buy online using Martin's guide