[Christopher]

Here's my take on your questions:

Originally Posted by renthead74

Hello Chris,

Thanks for this post. I am very excited to buy my Treo 650 right after the New Year and have been lurking on Everything Treo and other forum websites. I rely heavily on my gmail account and wanted to make sure I wouldn't have any problems. A few questions arose while I read this post:

- What are the pros and cons of using versamail as opposed to the mobile link that Google just created for gmail? Pros: 1) You can work with the messages offline, storing a draft of a reply you are working on, or a message for later review without having to access the internet. 2) You won't be interrupted by a phone call. Yesterday while I was replying to a message using the m.gmail.com site, I got a phone call and lost the reply that I was working on. A little annoying, but not that big a deal really.
Cons: Versamail sometimes seems to have a hard time interacting with Gmail; for example, it will want to download a large amount of messages that you have previously downloaded. I once had Versamail trying to get over 400 messages. The workaround is to go in to Gmail and reset the POP mail settings to "only download messages received from now on." That solves the problem; however, I like to have access to ALL my email wherever I am, as I often need for work purposes to go back and find old messages, even from several months earlier. The mobile site allows me to do that. The other "con" - and this is very minor - is that your ability to write large messages is somewhat limited, and the feature are also limited on the web site - e.g., no automatic capitalization after a period like the Treo does elsewhere. Very minor, but a little irksome until you get used to it.

- will the google mobile link allow for messages to appear as they come to my inbox or is there a delay? The delay is longer than on a regular computer on gmail, which seems to refresh quite often automatically, but for me I haven't noticed it. I don't want to be constantly bothered by chimes and vibrations from new emails. I want to deal with it all at once. As soon as you've processed one message (i.e., replied, archived, etc.) any new messages will show up. Or you can just hit "refresh" from time to time. It's working quite well for me. If you're wanting to know if you have new email every 5 minutes, then the mobile link is not the solution for you.

- I keep hearing praises for chattermail and snappermail. What are their advantages over versamail and the google mobile link when it comes to downloading gmail? I haven't used them, but everybody seems to praise them. I'm going to investigate chattermail after the new year, as that may be better. What I really want is to be able to have all my email in three places: work computer, on the web to access from home and elsewhere, and on my Treo (at least until I delete it). I haven't been able to get Versamail to properly sync with Outlook at work, but that may be my own incompetence.

- Do versamail, chattermail and snappermail enable me to use the archiving and labeling functions that I have come to rely on in the gmail interface? With Versamail, a resounding "no." With the others, again, I have no experience, but I seriously doubt it. However, you can set your Treo to leave the message on the server, and then archive or label from the full web site once you're at a computer. That's what I'm doing. Although, you can archive from the mobile link. Google has done a good job of breaking down the messages to be easy to interface with from your Treo (and, I suspect, even from a regular cell phone).

- If I use any of these applications, will I still be able to access my gmail account on my computer web browser (i.e., will the messages still be in the google server)? Yes. Make sure to set it to "leave message on server." However, I've discovered that once I've downloaded (POP) on my Treo, then it won't download the same message again on my work computer to Outlook. No biggie though. It's still on the web.

Thanks in advance for sending the rest of the materials/screenshots you mentioned.

Happy Holidays,

Mark