InfoTart

We just got the sexy new Sony-Ericsson W960i at the office. In case you haven’t seen it before, it’s the new Walkman branded smartphone with a whopping 8 GB of memory! So of course I’m “borrowing” it for awhile…

Last night I loaded up the phone with a bunch of music from my iTunes, a few pictures, and a bunch of fun videos from my DVD collection (Invader Zim, Rick & Steve, South Park, Happy Tree Friends, etc.). (Yes, I know that’s a bunch of cartoons, but 22 min. cartoons are great viewing on the go!)

By the way… Not only does the W960 play music exceptionally well, but it plays videos really well, too! I think I’m going to enjoy this…

Anyway, so as long as I’m “borrowing” the phone for a few weeks — and since I have an unlimited data plan with AT&T — I figured I might as well put my email on the phone. I have 3 accounts, so it can be hard keeping track of them! It turns out that the UIQ-based smartphones (such as the P1i and the W960) have a pretty good built-in email client. (And goodness knows that even an old rock would be better than Pocket Outlook which ships on Windows Mobile devices…)

The bad news is that Google doesn’t offer any UIQ-specific advice on how to set up Gmail on UIQ phones. The good news is that after lots of trial and error and explorations of Gmail Help documenation, I figured out how to set it up! Although it’s true that you can download and install the Java version directly from Google (I tried that also), I’m just not fond of that Java client on UIQ.

1. Go to the main UIQ menu. Click on Messaging.
2. In the bottom Command Bar, click on More > Settings > Email accounts.
3. On the Email Accounts screen, Click on More > New account.
4. In the new email account setup screen, there are 3 tabs. Let’s review each one individually.

Basic Tab

• Account Name: Gmail (or whatever you want to call your account)
• Your Name: Clark Gable
• Email address: clark.gable@gmail.com (Yes, put your full email address here.)
• Connection Type: IMAP

Inbox Tab

• Incoming Server Address: imap.gmail.com
• Username: clark.gable (Don’t add the @gmail.com here)
• Password: ******
• On the rest of the tab, optionally choose your download restrictions (I set mine to download anything smaller than 200 kb) and choose how many emails to store on the device. (I don’t get too many via Gmail and its spam filter is very good, so I’m just storing the last 30.)
• Receive using group: You can also choose which data access point to use. I have chosen the default group, which I’ve separately set up to try my home WiFi, my work WiFi, and otherwise the AT&T data network.

Outbox Tab

• Outgoing server address: smtp.gmail.com
• Use SMTP Authentication: Check this
• Use Inbox Login Details: Check this, too
• Send using group: Again, make sure your preferred access point is selected.

5. You’re almost done! But first, we have to set some advanced settings. So in the Command Bar, click on More > Advanced. The advanced settings dialog has two more tabs:

Advanced - Incoming Tab

• Secure Connection: Choose SSL
• Incoming Mail Port: 993

Advanced - Outgoing Tab

• Secure Connection: Choose TLS
• Outgoing Mail Port: 587
• Use MIME Encoding: Check this

That ought to do it, so enjoy! These settings ought to work for any UIQ3 phone, such as the P1i, M600i, W960i, P990i, and probably the Motorola MOTORIZR Z8, too!

Update (March 14, 2008)

Steve Litchfield, over at All About Symbian, wrote a great article yesterday on how to put Gmail on your Nokia Symbian-based S60 phone. In addition, he noted that you can set the phone to automatically check for new messages every few minutes (the duration is configurable). By setting it to, say, every 5 minutes, you effectively get “push” email just like a BlackBerry! That’s pretty nice, especially for “prosumers” who rely on email but may be often away from the office, such as real estate agents or people who work in small offices without formal IT departments.

All About Symbian: How to Get Push Gmail for Free 

The same feature can be enabled on UIQ3 phones!

1. Launch the Messaging application.
2. Click More > Settings > Email Accounts.
3. Select your Gmail account from among those listed.
4. Next, you’ll see the Gmail account settings dialog with 3 tabs at the top: Basic, Inbox, Outbox. Good! You’re at the right place.
5. Click More > Sched. downl.
6. Check the box, “Schedule download,” to enable all of the settings!

Choose the amount of time between downloads, such as every 5 min. as Steve Litchfield described. You can also set the time of day during which the phone should automatically check for new emails. (This way, it’s not checking for new emails in the middle of the night!) By default, it was 9 am to 5 pm for me. But I would probably reset it to 8 am until 10 pm given my lifestyle!