Pretty disappointed with Gmail

[toddp]

The concept of everything being synced constantly via the web to desktop is a sweet concept. I wasn’t a big Gmail user on my blackberry but before I decided to switch I took a closer look at my rarely used Gmail. Wow. Had everything. Calendar, docs, etc. But what about that glorious push mail I loved on my curve? [and miss so much]

I noticed right away I could use the Gmail client to grab my pop and imap emails. Great. I can even reply via Gmail and it will use the email address it was sent to, awesome! Sold.

BUT. Gmail’s handling of these other accounts sucks total ass!! If I’m LUCKY, it will poll them every 15 – 20 minutes. Most of the time it floats around an hour or so, and sometimes several hours. This renders using Gmail for other accounts useless for business. I don’t have exchange. If I set my email app to poll every 5 minutes my battery drops bad.

Why, oh why, does Gmail not have a setting to poll these accounts more frequently? Gmail is shaping out to be a powerful setup. Even added tasks recently. But instead of adding a “genealogy” or “scrap book” feature [I’m exaggerating naturally] why wouldn’t they focus on email first before they add a 20th function? If they could come close to push for mail android could be a great office phone!

So rant aside, without exchange, what are a guys options to get his mail in a timely fashion with android? Is setting, say K9, to poll every 5 minutes going to destroy battery life? I dumped k9 after a couple days when I first got phone. But I was used to a 3 day battery so maybe I over reacted and blamed the email app. Push mail [or close] is pretty important. I have a few accounts I must stay close to and switching to Gmail accounts for them is just not an option. Mail2web has some kinda exchange option for $5 a month, but would like to skip the extra fee.

Any email tips from people that are heavy email users would be great. Thanx