Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

Hi All,

I've posted an entry of my blog (see here) showing screenshots of Google mail and Calender on the n800 - the summary is that I was pretty impressed, opening attachments (even office documents) via HTML semi works (excel didn't come out so well, but the word stuff came out brilliantly), and its a pretty painless experience to manage mail and calendar items in Google on the n800.

Hope it helps someone.

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

Also, if anyone has any feedback on this or my previous "review" I'd love to hear it... are they a waste of time? Too many screenshots? Not enough screenshots?

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

I disagree. I think gmail loads too slow. I dont get it. Its written in php. That is a server based script. Dont get me wrong, wen it loads it looks great.

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

calendar hardly works on mine.

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

Hmmm curious, I don't have either of these problems ... well no worse than my normal desktop PC anyway!

I'll do some more testing of both these things!

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

also, while the "old" version of gmail was barely useable, the new one is impossibly slow on the n800. I had to turn off javascript to use the no-javascript version.

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

I tried relying on the web based google calendar and gmail for a few weeks but ultimately found them too slow. I've switched to gpe calendar/erminig and claws mail to make local use of google's excellent web functionality. GPE calendar lets us share a calendar via google's calendar when sync'd with erminig. And Claws mail grabbing data from gmail via imap is very slick. I route all my pop accounts to gmail to take advantage of their amazing spam filtering and backup, and fetch it to one folder in claws. I can still send mail via any account using only the accounts smtp side. Also, the claws mail rss reader has replaced google reader/mini reader on my n800. Claws takes some getting into but is totally worth the time.

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

OK, this if off topic, but seems to fit - has anyone used the IT to access comcast email? I plan on getting an 800 RNSR (real soon now....really :).

Thanks

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

Although I'm not having these issues, maybe it performs the same but its not a problem for me (I'm not on email/calendar all day, every day). I've done some more testing today and don't really notice it being too slow but maybe its just me! I'll update my article to reflect the fact that it seems to slow for all day every day use for some people.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

Admira : It's not necessarily the speed of the web app loading and navigating that was an issue for me. It was the speed with which I could navigate within the mail and calendar apps. Marking a bunch of emails meant zooming in and clicking the check boxes, zooming out, re-navigating to the archive or delete buttons, perhaps even zooming in again to hit one of them.

But as you said, for casually checking emaill and dates the web apps may be fine. I'm trying the N800 as a laptop replacement and expect a more fluid experience than the Google apps can allow.

With Claws and GPE I can leave the stylus in the slot and interact with Google information in a more intuitive Maemo native way.

Thanks for adding to the growing body of NIT journalism with your blog and this post. Kudos.

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

For the people finding regular Gmail (Ajax based) too slow, try these two Gmail addresses in your browser:
html: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html
mobile: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=mobile

Re: Review: Google Mail and Calendar on the n800
 

I know this is contrary to what many users report, but I want to add the report that since the new firmware, I have actually enjoyed using my Gmail and Calendar on the web. In fact, using Greasemonkey plugins made it possible to customize the calendar to an even-easier-to-read full screen mode.

Google docs does take a bit more time to load, and can be quirky still, but for the most part I am quite pleased with the ability of the google apps to run on the mozilla engine on the N800.

BTW I don't even use a local email client as it would simply mean more time spent organizing email...I do it all on gmail and I always know where it is! The 30 second load time is much less than the 20 minutes of organization/filing/sorting time I would likely spend in a local email client.

I do use a local calendar app, GPE, because data entry is much easier and because I can use the brilliantly elegant Erminig to sync it with my
Gcalendar when I'm conveniently in a wireless hotspot.