i have an IMAP problem which sony refuses to help with. My IMAP client on the P800 does not synch read and unread mails. Hence, even if my IMAP inbox emails are all READ, they show up on the P800 as all UNREAD, ie always saying i have 100 new msgs et al. Very very annoying. I have a very early test version of the P800. Is this a widespread problem that has since been fixed, or something inherent in the design? Also is there a better email client that can be downloaded anywhere? Thanks!
p800 IMAP client problems
Are you sure it is not because they are showing on a new device, so it is the P800 saying they are unread rather than your mail server? Obviously this shouldnt be right, but you did say you had an early device.
Yes, it's a real problem. Sony's software for IMAP is a bit of a kludge - it basically doesn't perform the real functions of IMAP.
As you've noticed it doesn't show the status of an email (read, unread, replied-to, forwarded and others), and the P800 software also doesn't synchronise the mailbox. If you delete a mail on the server, it doesn't disappear from the list on the P800... in fact they stay there forever.
All IMAP is doing on the P800 is working like POP. Very poor in my opinion since the headers it downloads for the "Subject" and "Sender" and "Size" etc include the message flag (read, unread etc) and an ID which is used to synchronise the folder. Very, very poor.
Hopefully it will be revised, but since POP is by FAR the dominent protocol it will be a while I suspect. IMAP tends to be used in corporations for access to Exchange servers, or for mail to be accessible on the desktop and via the web.
Pity, IMAP is by far the superior protocol.
Another issue with the IMAP client is that when you view a message, it downloads all of the attachments, rather than only downloading attachments if you attempt to download them. This behaviour is unlike any other IMAP client I've ever used.
This is a problem when I get billed as much for GPRS as I do, and want to read the 1K of textual data and not the 1MB attachment hooked to it.
While I agree that the IMAP client is rather restricted, when I read an email it asks me whether I want to d/l the attachments as well. If I don't I just say no.
I also agree that IMAP is superior to POP3 but I don't think the built-in email client is up to much whichever protocol you use.
If anyone's looking for a decent development project, how about a half way decent email client?