Android What's your preferred way to access a gmail account on the edge?

So now that a lot of us have had the device for a few months and have played around with various apps and maybe settled into habits/solutions we like:

How do you prefer to access a gmail account from the edge?

I don't mind but am not entirely satisfied with the built in mail app. I find myself browing to the full desktop version (using LastPass) so that I can have labels, filters, one-button archive (rather than move to all mail in the native client). The mobile version doesn't work in any browser I've tried. (Keeps telling me I need to reestablish a connection.) The desktop view works perfectly every time.

I find that the native app respects the filters I have on gmail just fine - I have some less-important (flyers etc.) incoming mail sorted into folders. But I do need to be in gmail to make any changes to filters, labels etc.because I want that information at the source, for no matter which device I happen to check email from. Also, I don't like how the native app "double counts" my unread emails - once in the inbox and once in "all mail" due to the folder settings for checking email that I have set.

I tried MailDroid for a couple of days, but one issue I noticed was that if I tried to forward a message, the forwarded text was uneditable. So, when my husband sent me a copy of a visa statement to pass on to a vendor with a ":*" as the entire subject, I couldn't forward the email because the vendor would have seen that. Odd that it wouldn't support it, and maybe I just missed. (though I tried to check menus thouroughly).

Are there any other outside-of-market apps you're using that you find work well with gmail? I guess some of you with emulators or Android phones are using a native gmail app. Do you like it? Is it worth hunting down? (I have a download of what claims to be some google apps' apks, just haven't got around to opening it yet.)

So just curious to know how everyone else is using gmail!

I really don't mind the built-in app. It is functional. I find a lot of the bells and whistles gmail has on the full browser version unnecessary 99% of the time when I'm on the eDGe.

Does Google offer any of their on native apps that run off out of the Gmail interface for Android...say like Google Phone or the Google Chat?

My preferred way would to to access it like the desktop or to even have a built in app made specifically for GMail. The app would have to give me all the functions that I can do on the desktop. Stuff like Google Voice, Text, IM, Video Conference, and other stuff associated with it. I haven't had a chance to see if the Edge is capable of doing any of these things yet.

Originally Posted by brauckmiller

Does Google offer any of their on native apps that run off out of the Gmail interface for Android...say like Google Phone or the Google Chat?

There is a Google Voice app that runs on the edge, I get, and send text messages that way and for Google chat I use Meebo or Trillian. Going to Voice on the Browser also lets me initiate a phone call, using Sipdroid, through my edge.

RockmanX20, what you describe sounds a lot like MailPlane for OSX which we do very much like. It would be awesome to have something like that. I believe the idea is it's just a very specific, dedicated browser for only the gmail site, but like the desktop version, you see all the widgets you choose to have displayed. But the browser runs as it's own application, and they've added scripts and keyboard shortcuts as well.

Sarah, that would be awesome. I know I use the Yahoo one on my Iphone a lot. Seems like there should be one already made for Android. I haven't looked in detail yet though.