In Search for Best ActiveSync Exchange Client for Android

Note: Last update Jan 27, 2015 - all apps are still being tested - not complete - also the apps keep updating!
Ever since I moved away from Blackberry, I've been feeling a void in my heart whenever I reply to work emails off office hours on my phone. I'm not gonna lie, Android just doesn't cut it when it comes to work emails. It's fantastic for everything else, but it pales in comparison against BES - and we're not just talking keyboard availability - things like being able to online search the exchange server for emails not sync'ed to your phone, send/accept/decline/propose new dates on meeting invites, and best of all, turn on and off Out of Office. Of course, BB mail isn't without its downsides - I like the idea of enabling HTML in emails, but it just wasn't designed to do this, but it was something I liked.

The native email client on the Samsung S5 is not very good at all so I've been searching for better ones. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any blogs that spell out the pros and cons of Exchange Email Clients using Activesync. Thus I have to test them out myself and see what's the best.

Here are are the things I look for in an Exchange Email Client

• Syncs Email up to a month
• Syncs Contacts and searches contacts online and finds exchange when composing email
• Syncs Calendar [I use an application call Business Calendar instead of S Planner]
• Ability to Accept/Decline a meeting invitation
• Signature (rich formatting preferable)
• Rich formatting when composing Email
• Grouping by conversation 
• Custom notification
• Online Search Server for unsynced emails
• Out of Office feature
• Widget Interface
• Overall usability 

My review on the Android Exchange ActiveSync clients below.

Nine

I'm currently having issues with Push notification (not being pushed)!  Nine Support is telling me that Push is not being enabled but it is working for my other email clients -.-;;

Pros

• Syncs Email up to a month (up to all your un-archived Email)
• Syncs Contacts and finds exchange when composing email
• Syncs Calendar 
• Ability to Accept/Decline a meeting invitation
• Signature with rich formatting 
• only bold, underline, italic 
• Rich formatting when composing Email
• only bold, underline, italic
• Grouping by conversation: 
• great interface
• in speech bubble for emails that are synced
• Widget Interface
• can select specific account and folder to view during set up of widget
• can click on top and app opens up
• can compose email
• Overall usability:
• when composing email, you can:
• set priority
• include signature
• edit edit
• tracking (delivery/read receipt)
• include quoted text
• undo/redo button
• reply inline (edit quoted text)
• Swift and responsive customer support

Cons

• Out of office is only for Exchange Server 2003
• Online search for unsynced email only on Exchange Server 2007+
• Rich Formatting:
• No bullets or colours
• Grouping by conversation
• only emails that are synced
• Widget Interface
• can choose account and folder only when setting up, can't edit later 
• would need to delete and reset up to change folder viewing
• cannot edit size of viewable font
• No custom notification
• Cost $10-$20 (it's on sale for half price atm)

Other Notes

• Does not sync gmail, yahoo, but that doesn't bother me

MailWise 

Pro:

• Syncs E-mail up to a month (up to all your un-archived emails)
• Syncs Contacts and finds exchange when composing email
• Syncs Calendar
• Ability to Accept/Decline a meeting invitation (pretty good)
• Signature but no rich text
• Grouping by conversation
• will show in list and you can click to go to original individual email (finnicky)
• will show older emails that's not synced in conversation list but cannot reply to the emails
• Custom notification
• can choose ringtone and vibration
• can set night time silence
• Widget Interface
• can choose account and folder to view during set up of widget
• can compose email
• click on top and app opens up
• number to show unread emails
• Overall usability 
• Easy to reply, reply all and forward
• additional search filters: all, to, from, subject, body

Pro:

• No out of office
• No Online Search Server for unsynced emails
• No rich text for body or signature
• Cannot edit inline (cannot edit quoted text)
• Widget Interface
• can choose account and folder only when setting up, can't edit later 
• would need to delete and reset up to change folder viewing
• cannot edit size of viewable font
• Grouping by conversation is finnicky
• sometimes you can't reply to an older email in a conversation
• workaround: search for the email
• Delete button on the top deletes entire conversations, not just single email
• you can delete single emails by going to the original email but if all the older emails are in conversation you can only delete original conversation. 
• I would avoid deleting altogether in these cases where you're not sure the whole conversation is going to get deleted
• Ads

Cloudmagic

No Calendar sync so not an option.