I’ve been using VersaMail 3.0 since I got my Treo 650 eight days ago. I’m always hesitant to make conclusive statements without backing them up with significant research, but I want to warn people who are just starting to use the Treo 650 or are considering purchasing it: VersaMail doesn’t seem to work too well as an IMAP mail client, at least with respect to the way I manage my IMAP mailboxes.
I have three separate IMAP mailboxes, one each for:
- operationgadget.com (mail about this blog),
- ctdata.com (corporate mail), and
- weblogimprovement.com (mail regarding weblog engineering that I do for clients).
These mailboxes each have between several hundred and two thousand messages in their Inboxes. I have virtually unlimited storage capability for each of these IMAP mailboxes because I manage my own mailservers.
The perfect mobile IMAP client for me would provide windows into my three mailboxes, using as much bandwidth on the Cingular EDGE network as necessary. The way VersaMail appears to work is to download at least a portion of each message onto my Treo, as if I was trying to conserve bandwidth.
I’m not saying that this is definitely how VersaMail works because I haven’t read all the documentation. I think I am safe in making this judgement, however, because my Treo 650 has become more sluggish as VersaMail has collected and displayed more email in each IMAP mailbox. Further evidence is the steady increase in the amount of time it takes to sync to the PC I use, refered to elsewhere on Operation Gadget as my blogging workstation.
I’m now attempting to sync my Palm to my PC. Once I complete this task, I’m probably going to remove VersaMail and try one of the third party email clients that works with the Treo 650. The ones I want to try the most are SnapperMail and ChatterEmail.
I’m planning to take a look at both of these programs and provide some details on how they differ from VersaMail. Once I’ve determined which one of the three best meets my needs, I will try to review it in detail here on Operation Gadget.