I’ve had my Hotmail account since 1995. It does everything I want it to do – gives me plenty of storage space (5 gigs with ever growing storage) and I’m able to search for past messages quite easily.
I have a GMail-Bully that’s been breathing down my neck trying to get me to switch to GMail because as he puts it – it’s inferior. I have a GMail account, and to be honest, I just don’t see what’s so great about it. The ability to rank your emails or add tags or star them isn’t much of a turn on for me. As I said, I find the search feature in Hotmail to be quite straight forward and I never had a problem finding an old email. And as of right now, it provides a little more than 7 gigs worth of storage – something I’m not in danger of reaching anytime soon.
The GMail-Bully recently sent me an article on how to consolidate my Hotmail and other email accounts into GMail, so now he tells me I have no excuse to not use GMail. But I recently discovered that Hotmail does the same thing.
So know I’m thinking about consolidating, but I’m not sure why I should leave Hotmail. Sound off and let me know what you think, feel free to provide me with any links for further reading.
Thanks,
Geeding
I haven't used Hotmail in years, so I'm not sure if it now has some of the features that Gmail has. So having said that, I'll tell you what I love about Gmail:
1. "Conversations" are all in one message. This means that all sends and replies-to only take up one spot in your inbox and are lumped together for easier navigation as people keep replying.
2. Integration with Google Calendar. My iCal and iPhone are subscribed to my Google Calendar, which is right there in my Gmail account. Even when someone sends me an email saying something like "want to have lunch on Wednesday at 1pm?" I can just click a button that says "add this to calendar" and voila, it populates across my calendars and I'm all set.
3. Archives, Filters, and Labels. The archive function is simply a must-have for me. My business literally would not function without it. And I use filters and labels so much too. For example, every email that Facebook sends me skips my inbox and goes into a place in the archives labeled FACEBOOK. Keeps things neat.
4. Speed and Size. Gmail is very fast. When I search the archives, the results pop up as fast as a normal Google search. And the size limit–20mb max per email–is large enough that I can send large file sizes in my attachments.
Rev. Hart is such a GMAIL bully!
I've thought of 20 or so things that I LOVED about gmail, but I'm gonna give you my numero uno.
Conversations grouped together. It is beyond valuable to have every bit of dialogue through email grouped together. In my "business" there is much collaboration through email, and I don't know what I would do without gmail to help me manage.
Not to mention anything about the wonderful intergration between gmail and google calendar, less spam, the ability to use labels instead of folders, less spam, the smtp access options, integration of Google talk, less spam, no obtrusive banner ads, and what the Rev mentioned…It's soooo fast.
If you're into the bells and whistles, which I'm assuming your not…there are some great gmail labs for use in Gmail. I love the undo send feature that gives me 5 seconds to change my mind after hitting send, and the ability to get offline access to gmail.
anyways…
Just Do It. Totally worth it with the integration with all of the other programs offered, the log-in integration with other sites with your gmail log-in. Just love it.
Stacked messages. End of story.
The gmail undo send feature is excellent. I'm a gmail guy…..haven't used Hotmail in years.
I agree with above! Once you go gmail you never go back. I'm a big fan of google anything. Geniuses they are!
Never used Gmail and don't currently use Hotmail. I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Beyond the other reasons above, I like that when I login to Gmail it takes me directly to my mail, not some overview page with lots of other stories. Here's another take on it: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-11-20-n35.htm…
This is a nice feature. I check my old hotmail account occasionally and notcied now with the new format there is a lot of noise going on the first page where I have to click again on my inbox just to get there. Hate that, glad I dont use it anymore. Also I have noticed that when I search my inbox in hotmail and when I hit the backspace button it tales me back to that home page, not the page I was just looking it prior. Hate that. Gmail doesnt do that.
I used hotmail for over a decade and usually never had a problem with it. I have used gmail for about 3 years now and my enjoyment/appreciation of it really just spawns from my distaste for what happened to my hotmail account the last yr of use. Too much spam and too many changes. Hotmail just seems more accessible to spam and when they started changing the format/layout it seemed the changes made it more awkward. Gmail changes or enhances features but never really eliminates the "old way" you can use it. It's just offered as an option as a format change. It's like a buffet that way: take what you want and leave the rest. Also my spam is almost non existent and when spam does occur it is so easy to filter it out and Gmail seems to recognize more variations of spam than Hotmail does. Also never had a problem with False Spam from trusted sources. Hotmail would sometimes dump trusted emails into spam for no reason and I would miss messages. Threaded messages is a nice feature that I am not sure hotmail ever offered and if they did when I used it they certainly never made it easy to figure out. Like Microsoft I am sure there are cool thing I could have used with my hotmail but I compare my Gmail to a Mac….if it's something that is pretty cool and useful they usually just offered it "out of the box" and ready to go. Bottom line is the threaded email format and less spam and easy filter options for spam make it my favorite of the two. I just stumbled upon Gmail, was never bullied into it so I consider my opinion un-biased. Hope this helps in your decision. Don't spite the change just because you feel you are being harassed into it. Give it a shot, if you dont like it don;t use it. Easy as that.
Well to be honest.
There's just nothing that is better than hotmail for me.
I just don't seem to need those irrelevant features
Of gmail such as Superstars, and all that cofusing stuff.
Hotmail just brings you what you really need.
I have both gmail and hotmail.
But I like hotmail messenger waaaay more than gtalk.
You can even add yahoo contacts and chat with them
In it.
Hate google talk. So tasteless.
You have themes. You can organize messages to automatically
Appear in a folder skipping the inbox.
You get skydrive, which is an online storage with 25gb of data to upload. I actually have all my music and photos uploaded there. No need to carry any USB. You can change the theme etc. You have microsoft office online.
There's a mobile browser which is as cool as gmails.
There's services that are needed from google, such as
YouTube, blogger etc..
So I get the best of both mails but seem to like hotmail more.
Besides, windows 7 is just around the corner. They will have
Some hot things coming in which your hotmail account might become handy. So I would say.
Google is great. But it's a search engine grown.
Microsoft is a legacy. Remember that.
Ps. Check out microsoft platform on YouTube.
In a few years, microsoft will gain lost territory I bet on it!!
So I say: microsoft all the way!!!