Email wont work with mac mail

Busy setting up computer for the first time, running leopard 10.5.4, everything works great(ish) at the moment, but for some reason trying to set up my email account is proving to be a nightmare.
I'm using all the settings exactly as ive got them on my pc (which works fine) but when i put them into the Mac mail Setup menu when first opened, it just comes up 'checking connection to mail server' and never gets any further than that. any ideas, is there a better mail box download to use, im baffled!
all help apprecciated

Which email provider are you using? If you have a web mail account it may not be compatible with Mac Mail. Hotmail is one that is not, however, GMail from Google works well.

Regards.

I had the same problem with Mail. I downloaded Thunderbird, and it is working fine.

hi .. just last nite only set up my gmail account in apple mail.. it just works..
here is the lnk which mite be helpful
https://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13275

all the best

thanks!