Gmail ... or not ?

[Matus]

Hello,

I am about to get my first smartphone - most probably a Desire HD.

I fully understand that this is a Google phone and so a google account is a necessity. That is OK.

However - I would like to use a different email provider than Google. The question is - how is then syncing of my mails - if I access them once from the phone, the other time from my laptop (MacBook).

The same question goes with calendar. I would like to keep using the iCal and have the events synced with the phone.

1) So - how to do that?

2) Would you advice me to convert to google mail/calendar/ etc?

3) Do I need some particular application to achieve this if I do (or do not) not use the Google stuff?

thanks. M..

 

[shawnshack]

I don't know about the iCal, but using a different email account is no problem.

First of all, what do you currently use for an email account? K9 is the email app of choice for most people using non-gmail accounts. You can do multiple accounts. If you are using an email provider that has IMAP and that's how you use it with your computer then your phone, computer, and web mail will all sync together.

 

[fangorious]

When you first use the phone it will prompt you for your email address and password to start syncing gmail/calendar/contacts/gtalk. You should be able to hit a skip button. This part will only support either a gmail address or a Google Apps hosted address. You can access any standard POP/IMAP email account using either the standard Email app but it isn't very good. The K9 app is better. Note tat only the GMail app (and thus GMail or Google Apps hosted email) are pushed. Anything via POP/IMAP with any other email app will have to be configured to periodically query the server. You can sync iCal with Google Calendar, but you'll need to setup with a GMail or Google Apps host email for the stock Calendar app on the phone to sync.

You could configure your non-gmail address to forward to a new gmail, and setup gmail to send as your non-gmail address, thereby not having to tell people a new email address. Google should have options to import old email into gmail too.

My personal opinion is that using the full suite gives you the optimum intended experience. If your non-gmail address is your own domain, consider switching it to Google Apps. You get to keep your own address and get the full experience (I have my domain setup with Google Apps and pretty much everything works just the same as an @gmail.com address).