[wpbrian]

Thinking about buying a Surface RT for my wife as a hybrid laptop replacement and entertainment consumption device. She uses Word and Excel, as well as Outlook frequently for work and does a lot of home visits (she is a care manager for elderly folks) so the portability will be helpful. Anything I should know before I take the plunge? Is the mail app an effective Otlook replacement?

Thanks!

[rider2040]

The Mail, Calendar, and People apps do a good job of replacing Outlook on a touch-enabled device. The big question here is, what sort of email provider does your wife have? Any exchange powered email will work great and keep mail, calendar, and contacts synced. If she is using another type of email, things can get more complicated.

[Laura Knotek]

What type of email account(s) does she use? Using email accounts over POP on Windows 8 and Windows RT

[Laura Knotek]

The Mail, Calendar, and People apps do a good job of replacing Outlook on a touch-enabled device. The big question here is, what sort of email provider does your wife have? Any exchange powered email will work great and keep mail, calendar, and contacts synced. If she is using another type of email, things can get more complicated.

That is correct.

Windows Mail does not support POP3.

[adamski777]

I work in IT and we trialled the surface with one of our users - it was thumbs up for everything apart from the mail client - you cant sort mails by person for example - a small gripe, but when people are used to using desktop outlook with thousands of mails it can be an issue. otherwise, for a person on the go i would say go for it if you can live with the limitation of the mail client.

[fardream]

The Mail, Calendar, and People apps do a good job of replacing Outlook on a touch-enabled device. The big question here is, what sort of email provider does your wife have? Any exchange powered email will work great and keep mail, calendar, and contacts synced. If she is using another type of email, things can get more complicated.

No, MSFT doesn't implement policies like secure storage card.... iPhone does.

[rider2040]

No, MSFT doesn't implement policies like secure storage card.... iPhone does.

What does secure storage card have to do with email? Are you suggesting an iPhone would be a better laptop replacement?

[wpbrian]

I think she uses Lycos for her business domain and email, but I don't know what type it is other than it's not an Exchange server. Sounds like this may be a problem.

[rider2040]

IMAP can work ok too. Does she have email setup on any other phone or device?

[wpbrian]

Does she have email setup on any other phone or device?

Yes. She has it set up on her Windows Phone 7.5 device. I helped her with it, but it was over a year ago and I don't remember what I had to do to make it work other than it was way more complicated than setting up my Exhange Server email on my phone.

[rider2040]

Yes. She has it set up on her Windows Phone 7.5 device. I helped her with it, but it was over a year ago and I don't remember what I had to do to make it work other than it was way more complicated than setting up my Exhange Server email on my phone.

Then you will be able to set it up on the surface and get the same level of functionality. Some protocols don't support push email or syncing of contacts, etc. But, if she is doing these things on her phone, you will be able to get them to work on Surface RT.

[wpbrian]

Then you will be able to set it up on the surface and get the same level of functionality. Some protocols don't support push email or syncing of contacts, etc. But, if she is doing these things on her phone, you will be able to get them to work on Surface RT.

Okay, then will she be able to continue to use Outlook to deal with mail and calendar on her laptop and have that synced with the mail/calendar client on her phone and tablet? Thanks for all the advice--I'm pretty clueless!

[xFalk]

I have a Surface RT under the tree for my wife. Personally, for me, I would want a Surface Pro. But for what my wife would use it for (email, docs, web surfacing, e-reading and such) it will be a perfect laptop replacement for her that she will carry everywhere.

[uktivo]

I got one today and I gave to say, I'm pretty impressed with it. Mail seems just fine. I have an exchange box an IMAP box and of course my outlook box all set up ans working well.

I dos run into a few quirks if the os such as I couldn't find how to stop Skype running in the background so uninstalled it for now.

But on the whole its pretty impressive. I think I too will get a pro version and leave the rt at home for her in doors...

Enjoy your purchase..

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

[johninsj]

No, MSFT doesn't implement policies like secure storage card.... iPhone does.

But you can use bitlocker to go (albeit with some weird workarounds) to encrypt your storage card, if paranoia dictates you do so...

Securely extending Surface RT with an SD card and BitLocker » Rob Garfoot's Blog | Rob Garfoot's Blog

[wbdillworth]

Thinking about buying a Surface RT for my wife as a hybrid laptop replacement and entertainment consumption device. She uses Word and Excel, as well as Outlook frequently for work and does a lot of home visits (she is a care manager for elderly folks) so the portability will be helpful. Anything I should know before I take the plunge? Is the mail app an effective Otlook replacement?

Thanks!

First thing I would ask, does "she" want a Surface?

I have a pop email account I use for a volunteer organization. I also have a live.com email for my primary email. I had to forward my pop email to my live.com email. Works ok for me.

[paulm187]

The mail app is probably one of the worst apps ever created, the first developer to create decent mail metro app that supports many of the basic functions of the windows live mail and charge just 0.99 cents will be a millionaire.

[johnbash612]

I like the mail app sometimes, but I'm a horrendous organizer, and I mainly use one account.