Changing productivity tools. Review of Nine Email for Android and ActiveExchange.

I have used NitroDesk’s TouchDown (now owned by Symantec) product for about 5 years now.  It gave me a better email experience than Google’s built in Email application, better widgets and better notification actions.  However over the past couple of years it has not been maintained and enhanced to the levels I was looking for.  In particular it was still completely separate from the Google experience and didn’t bring anything outside of its box to the table.

About a month ago now I took the time to personally test a few of the top ranked Android email applications for Exchange to see if any worked better for me (including testing Google’s again).  In the end I landed on Nine which was the top ranked on the Play Store.  During my month of use it has immediately made my use of mobile email more productive.

A few key advantages:

1. By itself this feature is amazing and what’s even more amazing is that it is technically the lack of a feature.  Nine does not come with its own Calendar functionality – it uses Google’s Calendar functions.  This means that all Exchange calendar items are fully integrated into Google Now with any other personal calendars you may have.  You can manage this as its own calendar so that you can choose what shows up and how it shows up.  On its own this is a killer feature.  Yes, I could technically do the same with any email application by not using the calendar but it’s the fact that Nine was designed with this in mind that makes it so intuitive.
2. VIP Notifications.  List out the email addresses that are more important and you can customize your email notifications and notification icon.  It’s such a small thing but so powerful for productivity.  When that star icon is there I’m more likely to open the email, when it isn’t I can more safely let emails sit a little longer.
3. Grouping conversations.  This is pretty standard functionality at this point for almost any email service but Touchdown never had it so it feels fresh to me.  Nine does it well without needing to think much about which part of the UI you happen to be in at the time.
4. User Interface.  Nine definitely takes its cues from Gmail from a visual and style standpoint but it improves it in subtle ways.  There’s more configurability in the screen with what actions should exist.  It’s simple and intuitive.

For anyone that accesses Exchange email on their Android phone I would highly encourage them to check out Nine.  Definitely a new key app in my productivity arsenal.