emoze by Emblaze Ltd.
I’ve been waiting for a long time for Emblaze to release an S60 3rd version of emoze. For those who don’t know, emoze is a free system that allows you to sync emails, contacts and calendar events between Outlook/Lotus Notes and your mobile device. That’s right, it syncs with your PC app rather than a server so security issues with Exchange go out the window!
As anyone who has ever spoken to me knows, the one thing I hate most about my precious N80IE is the absurdly awful battery life. Because of that I can pretty much forget about running any decent java app on my device. Up until now, emoze was one of the few apps that I honestly missed having on my phone. Well my ‘prayers’ (complaints actually, I suppose) have finally been answered and emoze is now available - for free - as an s60 3rd app. Rejoice!
emoze is fast, easy to use, and very configurable. I use it exclusively for my Exchange email so I have not tested any PIM functionality but from what I’ve read PIM syncing works just as well.
First things first. Go to the emoze site and download the appropriate PC Connector software and Symbian app (the Symbian installer is included in the PC Connector download package). Installation on your PC is a breeze and once the installation is complete you are even pointed to the folder on your hard drive containing the Symbian installer files. Pick the appropriate one and send it to your phone with the Application Installer in PC Suite.
I won’t go through the entire setup but once you’ve logged into your account (that you created using the PC Connector software) it will sync by itself in accordance with the setting you’ve configured in Options -> Account -> [Your Account]. Adjust these settings and Options -> Settings -> Rules before you login and sync for the first time.
Now that you know how much I hate the pitiful battery life of my N80, you can probably tell that one of my favorite features is pictured in the second image above. You guessed it - Power saving mode! Here in Options -> Account -> [Your Account] -> Power saving mode, you can choose to either stay in true ‘Push’ mode and receive your emails/PIM instantly or sync at intervals ranging from once every minute to once every 24 hours. I use push mode only when I need to, otherwise I let emoze sync every 15-30 minutes and the drain on my battery isn’t as bad as I expected.
I should note that in push mode, emoze receives emails on my N80 before they even show up in Outlook on my PC! No wonder they beat Blackberry in their push email showdown!
Some more items that I’ll note is the way that emoze gives you access to your email. Inbox items are stored in your Messaging Inbox rather than in an email account within Messaging as they are with the integrated email app, but they are wisely separated from SMS and MMS in a special “emoze Inbox” folder. There is an emoze email entry in the Messaging menu (as you can see below on the left) but this is used exclusively for outgoing emails.
There are a few areas that can be improved in emoze, as there are with all apps. The one main complaint I have is with new email notifications. Your default notification sound is played (or vibration) but because messages are stored in a subfolder in your inbox, there is no visual notification. If you miss the initial sound then you won’t catch your new email until another one comes that you notice, or until you check the app (which displays a new email notification) or your inbox. This should be an easy fix so I look forward to the next version.
I’ve been through Mail for Exchange, Always-On Mail, and some other options and for me personally, emoze trumps them all - and it’s FREE! I should also note that unlike some apps that keep your GPRS/EDGE data connection live, other apps on my device have no problem connecting and utilizing GPRS/EDGE while emoze is running. Using emoze for my corporate email and ProfiMail for my personal POP/IMAP accounts, I feel that all of the gaps on my phone with regards to email have finally been filled.
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