Using Mail For Exchange? Switch To RoadSync Now! – A Worthy Alternative To MFE (Review)

I have been using Mail For Exchange on my mobile (Nokia 5230) for quite some time in order to keep my contacts, emails and calender entries in synchronization with my gmail account. As you might have previously read, Mail For Exchange is a real pain to use. There have been times when it screwed up my calender entries, deleted some contacts, Emails weren’t synchronized, etc. More often than not there have been some application errors when I had to reinstall MFE all over again and reconfigure it (Grr…).

Then I came across RoadSync, a sync mobile application for Symbian platform unknown to me. RoadSync, a product of Dataviz, is a mobile application which provides secure, wireless and direct push synchronization with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, 2007 & 2010. It is one step ahead of Mail For Exchange in terms of stability, managing data on your mobile phone.

RoadSync Review

I have been using RoadSync since the time I found about it. The installation size is approximately 2 MB (Core app 0f 1 MB + installer 1 MB) and is placed on the phone memory.

The setup process is as simple as it gets, all you need to do is key in your email address, password and wait for RoadSync to automatically fetch the server settings for you. This, however didn’t work for me (when used with Gmail) but it setting it up by entering settings manually was a child’s play too! After setting up the email account you can then alter the settings to enable/disable synchronization of Calender entries, Contacts and Tasks (If supported by email service provider) simply from the settings page (Options –> Settings –> Settings). The settings page is neatly categorized showing all the options in form of tabs right on the top of the screen, with help files for each page thus making it even easier for not-so-experienced user.

Some of the RoadSync’s features that I really appreciate are:

• Perfect integration in Messaging folder (Nokia).
• Enterprise Firewall, allowing safe transmission of data to and fro from the server to mobile device.
• Pushes email directly to your mobile phone in real time.
• Push schedule (Push days, push time, etc) can be customized as per your needs from the settings page itself.
• Ability to only retrieve emails after a selected date, saves extra data transfer and space on your mobile phone.
• Email retrieval size viz. Full email, header, etc. Good for those who are on roaming and want to save on data transfer charges.
• Ability to show email’s in HTML format.
• Reply with history. It comes in very very handy.
• Flagging of email’s for easy follow up.

Besides the impressive above mentioned features, there is one more thing that is extremely useful i.e All the data managed by RoadSync can be reset in case you encounter any synchronization errors or any other problem with the usage of application. This avoids the need to reinstall the application.

After using RoadSync for almost a month now, I can safely say RoadSync is ‘The Best’ synchronization application for Symbian platform. Considering RoadSync as an alternative to MFE is an insult to RoadSync, instead MFE is a below par alternative to RoadSync.

RoadSync is available for Android OS (1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2) and Symbian OS (Symbian^1 or S60v5, S60v3). It costs $49.99 (fairly priced considering that they provide their own Enterprise Firewall for safe transmission of data). You can test RoadSync before buying it, the latest version for symbian users can be downloaded from the Dataviz website using this link. Android users can get trial version from Android Market.