Tech Test: Google's Mobile Gmail Worth a Try

By Anick Jesdanun

I’ve never wanted a BlackBerry and the 24-hour access to e-mail it provides. I figure I ought to enjoy my time away from a computer to read, think or listen to podcasts on my iPod.

So I was initially dismissive of the prospects of checking Google Inc.’s Gmail e-mail service on a cell phone. But within hours, Google’s new Gmail mobile application had me hooked.

I checked multiple times during a dinner visit to my parents’ house outside New York, and I checked while waiting for the train home at the station. I told myself I’d put the phone away once I boarded, but that didn’t happen until I suddenly lost my connection as the train pulled into New York’s underground Penn Station.

What’s great about it?
It certainly wasn’t the interface for composing messages.
I tried Google’s free application on a borrowed Samsung A900M phone, and I found myself typing messages over and over because hitting the backspace key sometimes inadvertently erases the ENTIRE message. That seems a function of the phone, not the software, but it underscores the clunkiness of trying to write e-mail without a full keyboard.

There were also a number of features missing from the mobile version of Gmail.
I couldn’t add labels to organize messages the way I could on desktop Web browsers. I couldn’t retrieve accidentally deleted messages from the trash or save drafts to finish later. I couldn’t tell which of my other Gmail friends were also online, potentially reading my mail or ignoring me.
Google says these features might come later, but for now, I have to wait until I get to a computer at home.

Think of the mobile application as Gmail Lite.

I could do all the basics involved with reading e-mail, and messages synch with the desktop automatically once I read or delete them.

For those not familiar with Gmail, the free service is different from most other e-mail offerings in that it automatically groups related messages into "conversations" — a series of exchanges on weekend plans, multiple people discussing the news of the day.

The mobile Gmail automatically opens the latest message in the conversation. Opening and closing older messages was as easy as highlighting the header and clicking the phone’s "OK" button.

From there, I could choose to reply to the sender, reply to everyone or forward the message — just as I could on a regular computer. The application synchs with my existing Gmail address book and lets me add entries.

The mobile application also lets me pull up conversations carrying specified labels. Unlike traditional e-mail, I don’t save messages in folders and subfolders. Rather, I add any number of labels to organize based on both whom I’m talking with and what I’m talking about.

I recommend the mobile application to existing Gmail users who have phones and data plans that support it. Unfortunately my 2-year-old Audiovox CDM-8910 from Verizon doesn’t, and mobile Gmail isn’t reason enough to upgrade or switch carriers.