E-mail Review: Gmail (Google's E-mail Service)

The Vitals:

Gmail (Google Mail in Germany and the UK)

Free web-based e-mail and POP3 e-mail service

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The Sorty:

Most of us who know about Gmail will wonder why I would deem it worthwhile to write a review on such a well-known e-mail service. I mean, no one today would bother writing up a review of "Hotmail", now would they?

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But after hearing "G-what" from hundreds of people who asked me for my email address, I realized that many people simply do not know about Gmail.

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Gmail is my favorite e-mail service. It is an ingenious interface, very easy to use, extremely efficient, and totally headache free.

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Hotmail is looking uglier, slower and more annoying every day I use it. The attempt to create a web-based version of Outlook, in my opinion, was a bit of a failure. I find the interface a bit confusing, difficult to use, and often slow and laggy. Keep in mind that I have one of the fastest computers on the market and the fastest internet connection my service provider offers for residential use, so the problem is not on my end.

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What is so great and fancy about Gmail, you ask? Let me count the ways...

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1- Virtually endless amounts of storage space (almost 3GB and counting). I have never had to delete a single email due to space restrictions. Albeit, I DO delete e-mails once in a while, but never due to necessity. Stupid hotmail sends me regular RED warnings commanding me to delete some stuff or they will. It is so very nice to never worry about how much space I have left. Sure, Hotmail has recently upped their total storage space, but I can't simply forget a decade of threats and warnings simply because they were forced to catch up to Gmail's awesome ideas. I mean, hotmail only did it because someone else did it, and they were afraid of losing clients, not because they CARED about how much space they offered their clients. Screw Hotmail...yeah, that's what I say. Where are my Black Panther homies?

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2- Conversation-based e-mail browsing. This is an awesome feature. Rather than having 30 e-mails, one above the other, of a back and forth discussion between me and someone else, Gmail groups all conversations between two people on a single topic in ONE clean, layered section. So, the main page shows "Me, Kermit The Frog (24)", meaning that I had a discussion with Kermit that involved 24 e-mails (combined) between me and my little green friend. After clicking on this line, a new window opens with all the conversations layered one over the other, like in a filing cabinet, with the last one showing. If you want to read any of the previous replies, you simply click on the "tab" and it opens that single e-mail up, and leaves the rest all neatly filed in a nice pile....a filing pile!

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3- Super efficient searching. Up until recently, hotmail's search engine sucked. Now they have caught up to Gmails search-it-all-really-fast, but I still prefer Gmail's search engine. Just a personal bias, really.

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4- A really neat filtering system. You can star (really, it is an actual star) conversations for future reference. For example, I "star" conversations that include information such as usernames, passwords, and similar important information that I know I will forget in a month or two. When I need to remember it, I simply click on the "Starred" filter button and KAPOW!! All my starred conversations show and everything else disappears. How freaking easy is THAT?

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5- Spam filtering. I find that Gmail's filtering mechanism is very precise. I only recall a few times where an e-mail I wanted was sent to the Junk folder. Hotmail regularly sends around 20% of my real e-mail to my Junk folder.

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6- Great login screen. Simple, clean, and remembers everything you want/need. Hotmail pisses me off almost every time. The username box refuses to memorize more than one name at a time, whereas the Gmail box allows you to choose from any previous login name you have used (and saves password as well after asking permission)...and also allows you to delete it from the list. Hotmail will only remember ONE name (never gives you a choice of multiple names, forcing you to retype your username/email address everytime anyone else logs in), but the worst part of all is when you log out. I get so annoyed when I open hotmail and someone else has logged in, so I click "Sign Out", and it sends me to the sympatico.msn.whateverthecrap.morecrap.com, where I have to hunt for the NEW location they put the link to Hotmail so I can go back.

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I mean, try it...go to hotmail, log in, log out, and tell me how long it takes you to find the link to Hotmail again. I hate the MSN page...I hate the MSN Today popup that comes up when you login to MSN Messenger. I always disable it, but it always comes up whenever anything is reset.

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Gmail will go back to their clean, clear login page when you logout...not to Google search, not to Google Blogger, not to Google News....but back to the Gmail Login Page. Is that so freaking difficult?

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There are so many other great features in Gmail, such as Archiving, a built-in, easy to use chat system (I use it all the time now) that has the option of saving your conversations, but I suggest you try it out for yourself and you will see what Im talking about.

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And hey, Google is the best search engine on the planet. MSN search sucks so bad, they should be a subdivision of Dirt Devil. aha...ahahaha....aaha....ha....*cough*...I made a funny.

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But yeah, Google is the best search engine, Google Maps is the best map engine, Blogger is my favorite blog provider, Youtube owned Google Video, but now Google bought Youtube, so now Google is the best online video provider...I mean, Google simply rocks your boxors.

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In conclusion, Gmail is simple, easy, user-friendly, welcoming, generous, delicious, and synergetic. Alright, maybe a few of those adjectives didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I wub Gmail and you should wub Gmail too.

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The Verdict:

Gmail is bigger than Hotmail

Gmail is faster than Hotmail

Gmail is easier than Hotmail

Gmail is better than Hotmail

Oh, and Gmail is also better than all the other crap web-based e-mail providers too.

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- Consumer #1337