By Mark Yeong

In our busy society the line between work and personal life starts to draw a blur and some would even have to juggle between two or more email and instant messaging accounts. In some companies, employees are even required to have access to emails delivered “instantly” to their mobile handsets. With the development of push email services, Blackberry users have been tied to their devices and gained access to their emails anywhere, anytime. However, not everyone likes to use a Blackberry unless the situation requires them to do so.

With the Nokia Messaging application, your Symbian S60 device will gain such capabilities. Nokia Messaging will mobilize consumer email and consumer instant messaging (IM) solutions on Nokia devices. This will give users access to email and IM accounts from Yahoo! Mail® and Yahoo! Messenger®, Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail and Google Talk, and AOL Mail as well as email solutions from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Company.

Currently Nokia Messaging push email is available as a free limited-beta trial; however there is no word on any charges for this service.

Acquiring the software

Downloading the software is rather easy; just access the following site using your Internet browser https://email.nokia.com/

Step 1:

Select the phone model which you are currently using from the approved list above. Do note that if you are using a device that’s not listed above, there’s still a slight chance that you might be able to use it. I know, because I’m testing it on my Nokia E65 which isn’t in the list, though I used a similar model to download the software.

Step 2:

A prompt will be given to enter an email address and this will become the default account User Name and Password. My personal advice: use something which will remain rather permanent, like your personal email address, as I guess you would still like to use this service even after changing organizations or jobs.

Step 3 (final step):

The final step will be to input your name (this will appear as the name when mails are sent from Nokia Messaging). An SMS will then be sent to the phone number specified and the required software can be downloaded to your mobile phone.

Setting up the software

After the software has been downloaded you can access the setup utility from the phone installations folder.

After establishing an online connection, you can then specify the email address which you would like to add and access on your Nokia device. Only the email address is required, the software will make the necessary configurations to allow the mobile phone to connect to the specified email service.

Entering the password will authenticate the account and add it into the list of accounts available. Currently, Nokia Messaging allows up to 10 different email accounts to be simultaneously accessed on your Nokia device.

Using Nokia Messaging

If your phone has the active standby feature your emails will be displayed on the main screen. Else, you can access the application email in the installations folder.

All basic email functions are available from the application (Reply, Forward, Attach, Compose etc.)

The difference with this email client is the availability of push capabilities, where emails are automatically pushed into your Nokia device as and when it comes in. Additional settings are available to specify when the application should perform synchronization with the email server so whenever you get a new e-mail a little chime ringtone will inform you of your new mail.

Adding Accounts

There are two ways to add more accounts to Nokia Messaging, the first would be via the mobile phone directly and the second via the Nokia Messaging site (https://email.nokia.com/account/loginUI.action). Login user name and password are the same as the one you first used to register on the website.

Method 1 (via phone):

Select add mailbox and the application will run you through the setup program to establish another account to sync. The only different is that the application will prompt if you would like this account to be automatically synced (tagged together with initial email setup on the phone).

Selecting yes will sync this additional account automatically; if not a manual sync would be required to download emails to the phone.

Method 2 (via website):

Login to the account you will be presented with your personal account page, here you will be able to:

1.    Add / Remove / Setup email accounts

2.    Change password

3.    Manage subscriptions (probably charges after the trial)

To add an account you need to provide you email address, password and the name used when sending the email.

Data Charges

Currently charges will be incurred for data transmission (When synchronizing emails over the telephone network). Thus a data plan would be advisable if you want to make use of the messaging service. Users without a data plan can also define the access point to be utilized when synchronization takes place to ensure that no additional data charges are made to the service plan.

Conclusion

I would recommend this application to the business men, sales personnel and CEOs who are looking for a Blackberry alternative. With the torrent of Symbian S60 devices, users will be spoilt for choice. My personal recommendation would be the Nokia E71 or Nokia E90. In fact, if you’re on the hunt for a new business-centric Nokia device, consider the Nokia E75 with its slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Furthermore, the new Nokia E75 also comes with Nokia Messaging pre-loaded on the device. While there is no official word on the price for this service, an affordable cost is much desired especially when data charges are not factored into the service cost. For now, just enjoy the ride. As and when the trial is over, you’ll probably receive an email from and you can choose to continue with the push mail service should you find it indispensable to your daily life.