VersaMail Doesn't Seem to Do a Great Job with IMAP
I've been using VersaMail 3.0 since I got my Treo 650 eight days ago. I'm always hesitant to make conclusive statements without backing them up with significant research, but I want to warn people who are just starting to use the Treo 650 or are considering purchasing it: VersaMail doesn't seem to work too well as an IMAP mail client, at least with respect to the way I manage my IMAP mailboxes.
I have three separate IMAP mailboxes, one each for:
- operationgadget.com (mail about this blog),
- ctdata.com (corporate mail), and
- weblogimprovement.com (mail regarding weblog engineering that I do for clients).
These mailboxes each have between several hundred and two thousand messages in their Inboxes. I have virtually unlimited storage capability for each of these IMAP mailboxes because I manage my own mailservers.
The perfect mobile IMAP client for me would provide windows into my three mailboxes, using as much bandwidth on the Cingular EDGE network as necessary. The way VersaMail appears to work is to download at least a portion of each message onto my Treo, as if I was trying to conserve bandwidth.
I'm not saying that this is definitely how VersaMail works because I haven't read all the documentation. I think I am safe in making this judgement, however, because my Treo 650 has become more sluggish as VersaMail has collected and displayed more email in each IMAP mailbox. Further evidence is the steady increase in the amount of time it takes to sync to the PC I use, refered to elsewhere on Operation Gadget as my blogging workstation.
I'm now attempting to sync my Palm to my PC. Once I complete this task, I'm probably going to remove VersaMail and try one of the third party email clients that works with the Treo 650. The ones I want to try the most are SnapperMail and ChatterEmail.
I'm planning to take a look at both of these programs and provide some details on how they differ from VersaMail. Once I've determined which one of the three best meets my needs, I will try to review it in detail here on Operation Gadget.
Comments
It's obviously personal choice, but Chatter is the clear winner for a variety of reasons. First, it's super fast. Second, since it runs asynchronously you don't need the app to be active or even have the screen on to be sending and receiving new mail.
The latest betas do POP as well if you have that need (Gmail or Yahoo) and it's just a damn nice mail client.
I use it for a variety of IMAP and POP accounts and have been actually since around September of last year. Snapper has a more sophisticated UI in some respects, but you simply cannot touch the technical prowess of Chatter.
Posted by: Jonathan Greene | April 8, 2005 10:30 PM
Jonathan:
I was trying to decide which email client I would try next when I saw your comment. After reading it, I decided to try Chatter first.
Dave Aiello
Editor
Operation Gadget
Posted by: Dave Aiello | April 9, 2005 12:24 AM
Dave, I also would highly recommend Chatter. I tried Snapper last summer and found it really slow to download messages. Not only does Chatter download much faster, but you also get "push" functionality similar to a Blackberry. It's the program that I use most on my Treo hands down.
Posted by: Levi Wallach | April 9, 2005 9:05 AM
I have both and use ChatterEmail. I have written my thoughts at http://kevintsurutome.blogspot.com/2005/03/versamail-snappermail-chatteremail-and.html
Posted by: Kevin Tsurutome | April 19, 2005 11:48 AM