Comment by _RPM
10 years ago
I'm a FastMail user for about a year now. The one thing about the android app is that you get real push notifications. This is a great feature, that you don't get with ANY OTHER mail app for android. The interface of the android app seems to be a web-view, and I don't like it at all. The resolution is low, and it takes a long time to load. Overall, the push notifications is huge for me. I tried using the Gmail app connected to FastMail's backend, but emails would be delayed up to 15 minutes sometimes.
If you're a big Google Drive user, you'll most likely miss Gmail's built in integration with Drive, but FastMail has a simple file storage feature, where you can save attachments to your allocated space, and attach files from your files.
Another advantage for using FastMail, is that they do Email as their primary business, so it seems.
K9 for Android does immediate push notification. You just need to configure IMAP IDLE.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9
Outlook for android gives you real push. So does the blackberry hub.
Must you be connected to an Exchange service to get real push?
No, they both support at least some imap servers.