First Android phone after years on the other side... Lots of Qs!

[ebg36]

Received my Nexus 4 two days ago. After years with iPhone, I have to say wow what a difference a larger screen makes: It is much more comfortable on the eyes to read. Hum, I am probably older than most on the forum...

Now, Android is a bit overwhelming. Could you help a newbie with these tweaks:
How do I set it up so that all emails are zoomed to screen width? I do not want to scroll left and right to read newsletters and subscriptions.
How do I set the combined view as my default view in the email app? Why doesn't it have a sync button?
My email life does not necessarily revolve around Gmail, I have 3 other Hotmail and Outlook accounts. How do I set the lock screen to pop on whenever I receive a new email from any of the 4 accounts?
More general question of the above, I want the lock screen notifications to show enough detail for me to determine whether the email, SMS, call, Skype call etc.. I received is worth interrupting work to attend to. Up till now, the lock screen only shows a count of the missed but not the details.

 

[yfan]

Received my Nexus 4 two days ago. After years with iPhone, I have to say wow what a difference a larger screen makes: It is much more comfortable on the eyes to read. Hum, I am probably older than most on the forum...

Now, Android is a bit overwhelming. Could you help a newbie with these tweaks:
How do I set it up so that all emails are zoomed to screen width? I do not want to scroll left and right to read newsletters and subscriptions.
How do I set the combined view as my default view in the email app? Why doesn't it have a sync button?
My email life does not necessarily revolve around Gmail, I have 3 other Hotmail and Outlook accounts. How do I set the lock screen to pop on whenever I receive a new email from any of the 4 accounts?
More general question of the above, I want the lock screen notifications to show enough detail for me to determine whether the email, SMS, call, Skype call etc.. I received is worth interrupting work to attend to. Up till now, the lock screen only shows a count of the missed but not the details.

For the email size, in Gmail, there's an option to go to settings, general settings, and check the option to auto fit messages.

I don't know what you mean by a sync button, but doesn't pop check on a set interval?

With Android 4.2, you can do a two finger swipe down on some notifications, including email, to expand. If that won't do, from your lock screen, swipe left and you can add a widget. Add the email widget to show.

Android is not set up to wake up your screen with every notification the way iOS is. Your notification light (bottom center of screen) will, however, blink when you have pending notification(s).

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

 

[erjennin]

Received my Nexus 4 two days ago. After years with iPhone, I have to say wow what a difference a larger screen makes: It is much more comfortable on the eyes to read. Hum, I am probably older than most on the forum...

Now, Android is a bit overwhelming. Could you help a newbie with these tweaks:
How do I set it up so that all emails are zoomed to screen width? I do not want to scroll left and right to read newsletters and subscriptions.

The stock email client (from my experience) doesn't auto-size. You may have to find a third party email client that allows you to do this.

How do I set the combined view as my default view in the email app? Why doesn't it have a sync button?

Same as my answer above. I've heard K9 mail is good, but I don't have experience with it.

My email life does not necessarily revolve around Gmail, I have 3 other Hotmail and Outlook accounts. How do I set the lock screen to pop on whenever I receive a new email from any of the 4 accounts?

The Nexus 4 has the notification light. You can customize the light color to be any color you like. Mine is purple. As far as I know, there is no way to make the screen automatically turn on when getting an email. Samsung phones have this ability, but that's part of Touchwiz.

More general question of the above, I want the lock screen notifications to show enough detail for me to determine whether the email, SMS, call, Skype call etc.. I received is worth interrupting work to attend to. Up till now, the lock screen only shows a count of the missed but not the details.

Pull down on the notification "curtain" and all the details you need will be in there. These notifications are expandable with the use of two fingers (dragging on the notification)

 

[ohyeahar]

Go to Gmail > menu > Settings > General settings. Toggle on ?Auto-fit messages?

Stock Android doesn?t include a unified inbox feature. You?ll need to use a 3rd party email client.

The native Email app does have a sync button. It?s in the same location as the sync button in the Gmail app.

It?s possible to use an app like Tasker to turn on your screen every time you receive an email. But it?s definitely not something you want to do. Your screen would be turning on and off regularly throughout the day. Your battery simply won?t last that kind of punishment.

If you want the lock screen to show more details about your notifications, utilize the one thing iOS fails at. Widgets. Use WidgetLocker to enable even greater customization of your lock screen.

 

[anon(847090)]

trolling didnt work or what OP?? there always a solution in Android.

 

[ebg36]

Conclusions so far:
Look for a third party email handler to combine all inboxes into one view; preferably if it auto-fits emails like the Gmail app.
Overwrite lockscreen with Widget Locker.

Great insight guys, thank you all for your replies.

For the trolling, actually I believe whoever has the search power will prevail in the future which is why I started betting on Android lately. It is already paying off, the voice search for places and directions when I am driving is extremely useful to me. Frankly, if you take the power of Google's search engine out of the equation, they all look the same to me (except for those monotonous Windows tiles...)

 

[teleclimber]

I recommend not using the native email app as it has been know to throw tantrums (I'm talking about the POP email client, not the gmail client. The Gmail client is excellent)

I have been using K9 as my work email client for as long as I have been with Android (OG Droid days) and it has been solid. I wouldn't look anywhere beyond K9, assuming it does what you want it to.

I don't see any trolling here. People who come from a different platform are going to look for ways to continue working as they are accustomed to.

As far as notifications go, to each their own of course, and it depends on the kind of work you do, but the multi-colored LED is really a good way to go. I have mine set up to be red for work, white for regular email, blue for facebook, and green for calls/texts. It's discreet and you can catch it from the corner of your eye and you can interrupt your work when it makes sense, not very single time something comes up. Also, the led will keep blinking so you'll still catch the notification even if you weren't looking when the email came in.

This is just personal preference though.

 

[TheSneakyGreek]

Just found this app review on XDA and it looks like it has some of the features you are looking for, such as the screen lighting up with new notifications as well as a more detailed lock screen. It may be worth checking out:

Notifications for Jelly Bean Lockscreen – xda-developers

 

[Rizy7]

Download LightFlow.. You can have your screen turn on and camera flash for notifications if you want