Today I decided to log into my Yahoo Mail account just to make sure it wouldn't be marked as dormant and get deleted. Hanging around the new interface, I was amazed by how fast Yahoo caught up in email. Here are some some very impressive features well head of Gmail:

1. Locating the right email is a piece of cake
Yahoo Mail not only allow users to sort its email according to date, sender, subject, size, folder, it also has the ability to narrow down search results to a specific contact, a specific year, specific attachment file type which just one click on the menu of the left. Gmail (although promoting itself with the tag line: use Google search to find the exact message you want), on the contrary, doesn't even have email sorting. Personally, finding the *exact* email I want in Gmail means I have to remember a few very specific keywords in the email .. not very nice if the email was sent years ago.
Better still, Yahoo Mail shows a preview of image attachment in search results. It proves to be extremely useful when you are looking for the exact email with a photo you sent to your friends last month which doesn't have a really descriptive title (Photos Taken I).

2. Just-right calendar integration
Although Gmail has somewhat integration with Google Calendar, I believe most of you would believe it is just not enough. Yahoo Mail, however, shows you daily agenda right below your emails so you won't forget another important event. What's more, Yahoo would automatically identify events that are likely to repeat, e.g. a birthday party. It will ask if you would like to repeat this event next year and add a reminder so your friends won't get piss because you forgot his birthday.

3. Multi-tab browsing
Everyone who uses Firefox or IE7 should know how convenience tab browsing is. Yahoo Mail brings the convenience to email. With tab browsing, you can easily search for an email and look up for some information that was included in a previous email while replying to your friends' email and at the same time read your RSS feeds. If I have to do this in Gmail, I would have to have a lot of tabs in Firefox .. which of course, takes longer time to load and is less convenient when jumping from tabs to tabs.

4. Select contacts from a list
You know what I mean from the title itself .. (I know it is available for Google Apps users, but how about regular Gmail users? Are you sure they wouldn't miss out an intended contact when sending emails?)

I don't know if I have missed out any great features in Yahoo Mail but I suppose you get what I mean by 'lagging behind' now. What I don't like about Yahoo Mail is the promotion tag line following every email I send and the annoying ads (which is why I still use Gmail). I think Gmail 2.0 needs much more upgrade than just an improved contact manager that doesn't load in Firefox (at least for me and some) and some other subtle upgrades.

Anyone agree with me?

1. Locating the right email is a piece of cake
I'd say Sorting wouldn't fit into the current Gmail interface but yes, this would be nice. You can currently search for specific contacts and there is a date range option.

2. Just-right calendar integration
You can add your calendar feed to the Web Clips in Gmail, but yes, more integration would be nice.

3. Multi-tab browsing
RSS Feeds are in Google Reader, a separate product, so I doubt we'll see integration there but it would be nice to have split screen reply/searching.

4. Select contacts from a list
On the new contacts manager, if you select (check box) multiple contacts you can click the email link on the right pane to send them the email.

The New Gmail is a step forward, maybe its not the perfect email client. But its free and isn't covered in advertising like Yahoo! Mail (the last time I looked at Y! Mail is was amazed anyone used it because of the ads).

I'm still annoyed that Yahoo advertises their storage space as "unlimited". *grumbles*

Well, I went to Yahoo to check out how was going the mail. I like the interface more than the one from GMail. It's warmer, and I like having every thing in the same place.
I didn't saw any ads because of the ABP addon (firefox). However, I noticed that white space fills a important part of the page. I didn't liked the option to have a "better" mail paying. And I don't want to pay to have POP mail, if I need to use it.
But I'll keep on using GMail. I know more features will come soon in the future...

Note also that thru Gmail's offer of IMAP, deficiencies in the web client can be easily overcome by accessing your account through a desktop client.

Also, Gmail offers 20MB attachments for free, unlike the paid services in Yahoo and Microsoft's offerings.

I tried to switch to Yahoo Mail recently for a while, but it seriously slowed me down and began to annoy me. Maybe it's the fact you're not starting with your inbox right away. Maybe it's the fact they got these big unrelated ads everywhere, and they are graphics so they need to load too. Maybe it's the fact I also don't really need any of the drag & drop features.