Our A-Z of computing has reached K for K-9, no, not a German u-boat (as this makeuseof.com article suggests) but an open source email client for Android, used extensively by OpenSure on Android phones and tablets. Lifehacker recommends it for its flexibility and, er, configurability, commenting thus:
Managing email is one of those things that we all have a specific way of doing, and K-9 lets you do it your way rather than forcing you to make do with the features it has. For that reason, it’s our favorite IMAP client on the Android platform.
We’d have to agree that it’s an occasional pain not being able to search for messages on the server, but we live in hope. For us, K-9 is a method of keeping tabs on email, and we switch to our beefier Zimbra system if we need to search our email archive.
Makeuseof.com says “K-9 Mail comes close to being a complete email client package for Android”, citing its lack of threaded conversations as its main drawback, but this is a personal thing and not something that has ever caused me any problem. Overall, K-9’s willingness to allow the user to organise their set-up how it best suits them wins out time after time and has made it massively successful.