Does anybody out there think that the Gmail apperance is a little basic and not very pleasing on the eye. Has anyone seen Yahoo Mail? That service looks good and definitely performs well without slowdowns or server problems.
Is google gonna change this and update their email service?

Actually the Gmail interface and logo are the most beautiful, elegant, simple and eye-pleasing graphic works I have ever seen on the Internet!

I am in love with Gmail because of the added functionality off course, but a great credit goes to the GUI as well!

Y! Mail is too baby polished to my opinion, too flaky, too goofy....

I also think Gmail is one of the most eye pleasing email programs. I wouldn't go so far to say it is the most "beautiful, elegant, simple and eye-pleasing graphic works I have ever seen on the Internet", but I do like it a lot appearance-wise. I love the functionality as well.
Tony

Also think Gmail is very functional, well-designed and OK looking. I find the font sizes a bit too small but that's about the only design gripe. The speed however sometimes lacks, i.e. Gmail lately gets into some kind of infinite loop when you startup...

Speed and carisma are lacking in Gmail, but innovation and simpilicty are outstanding. The converstation view has revolutionized the way I view email.

It is the only web 2.0 gadgetry that I have shown my parents and they understand. I think personally that speaks volumes for its usability.

By the way, you can skin Gmail:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-02-16-n59.html

I agree with you guys completely when it comes to functionality and useability e.g. conversations view etc. the only thing which i would like is to be able to select, drag and drop emails into folders.
But I disagree about it being the best looking. yahoo mail(the beta version) even uses tabbed browsing when using your email...you can drag, drop etc etc...it acts like Outlook or express. gmail should think about making their service more polished and refined. the skins link in a previous post is helpful.
  

Gmail could certainly do a better job of helping you sync gmail messages with laptop/desktop email programs. I have all my inbound email go to both places..but outgoing is stuck in the program of origin.

Google mail-sync.... that's it

Just set your outgoing SMTP server to GMail's server, and your outbound messages will appear in your GMail 'sent' folder automagically.

"I agree with you guys completely when it comes to functionality and usability e.g. conversations view etc. the only thing which i would like is to be able to select, drag and drop emails into folders."

I go back and forth on the folders thing. I like folders, and Instinctively want them in Gmail. However, labels in Gmail does the same thing in the long run.

"But I disagree about it being the best looking. yahoo mail(the beta version) even uses tabbed browsing when using your email...you can drag, drop etc etc...it acts like Outlook or express. gmail should think about making their service more polished and refined. the skins link in a previous post is helpful."

I dont' have Yahoo Mail, beta or otherwise. What advanage does tabbed browsing have in email?

I am a heavy Outlook user, but find myself using Gmail more and more because of it's overall simplicity. Everything is right there, and it is easy to filter what I want to see using labels and searches.

Tony

Tony the tabbed thing in Yahoo! mail is cool. I am not really sure what the main advantage of it is. But it certainly feels good.

I personally don't think that drag/drop is as good as people think. Bringing it to the web is/was quite a challenge as you can tell by the way that the Yahoo! Mail and Live Mail sites rave about it. But what does it do for me? I personally rarely move any of my mail at all, I know I can find it with the search. My inbox has several thousand messages in.

<ramble>

At work, I have to constantly check my mail, otherwise I get the annyoing "over your limit" messages and messages start getting returned on me. The original premise of Gmail was that you would never have to delete an email again, and originally I thought this was ludicrous. Despite this, I approached Gmail with an open mind, and due to the lack of a delete button, I really didn't (still rarely do) delete my mail. Because of this, I learned about labels and archiving to move my mail around and all of the corespoding shortcut keys. I found that because of this my productivity soared (when it comes to email:). What really nice about this is that two years after I opened my account, I can still search for the message that my friend sent with his new address. On those lines, because the search feature is so robust, I noticed that I really don't need to label all my messages. Instead I setup filters to apply labels as they enter, but other than that I just archive the messages now, and search later. Now to the point; because of all this, I've moved on from the days where I need to drag and drop into folders the messages I want to keep from getting buried, instead, I label the messages I want before they reach my inbox and I really don't worry about finding the message again. I know that there's a search box that has consitently honed into the mail I was searching for.

</ramble>

And that my rant:D

I have been playing with the Hotmail Beta. The Hotmail team makes a big deal about dragging messages as well, but I don't find myself doing it much. It's nice, but no big deal.

I am finding myself taking the approach that NateDawg just outlined more and more.

Of course with applications like Google or MS Desktop search, it is very easy to search my Outlook files just like I can search my Gmail. Gmail is winning me over by its overall simplicity of appearance and presentation.

I suppose I should try out the Yahoo Mail Beta, though, just to be fair and all.

Tony

Well Tony, I logged back into my ancient yahoo account and reactivated my email there and I'm going to try the yahoo mail beta to be fair (I'm on the waiting list now). As for the current yahoo mail client, it is centuries behind Gmail and I had about all I could stand after using it for about five minutes. Maybe the Yahoo beta mail will be better :-/

I use all mail clients ;-)

So I use the yahoo beta mail client also.

I do like it a lot, the drag and drop feature I use also and it's quite handy for archiving mail. But it sure is not necessary...

An RSS reader (more elaborated than the webclips) is also build in.

I do like it a lot but gmail is working faster in general.

Gmail stays my prefered client, but I think yahoo beta mail is a good challenger...

I signed up for Yahoo Mail last night. The old interface definitely is a throwback. Now I am on the waiting list for Yahoo Mail Beta. All in the name of fairness, of course. It has nothing to do with my general Geekness and love of trying new software. :)

Tony

i tried to like the Yahoo Mail Beta...and I can't. Here's why. (I have had a Y account since like their Day 1, so there is a bit of loyalty there.)

I want to get into Y Mail and I get one screen that says logging into Y Mail..then another one that says loading. 2 screens needed? I dont think so.
Then, half the time, if I click on a folder inside it that has mail, it gets stuck on "AT&T Yahoo Mail cannot load this folder." I wait..and wait..and nothing.

So with GMail, I click it and wham its there. Just like the G personalized page. Click it and it's there. For me, it's about looking clean, not cluttered (Hello? Jerry Yang? You there?)..and loading fast.

SPEED KILLS.

I was waaay let down by the Yahoo page re-do. It looks like the SF Bay Bridge at 5pm on a Friday---waaaay too crowded. And those ads! How many ads are on the G personal page? I dont see any.

I delete tons of GMail that I get--dont need to keep CBSNews alerts..but archive what I want. Most email is disposable for me.

I do think a little bit of customizing the appearance of GM is needed, tho dont mess with it too much---the clean look is what attracted me to it in the first place.

Well wouldn't you know I got my first 419 email today, and guess where I got it from? My Yahoo email account that has been up for all of 2 days recieved it's first email.

<quote>Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our Lottery booklet representative office in Africa . In view of this, your US$900,000.00 (Nine Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) would be released to you by our participating bank. </quote>

Boy do I have all the luck or what :D

Ah, there's the spam buttom. :)

(note: using standard yahoo mail, not beta yet; yes, I am biased toward gmail:)

My very first Yahoo Email message received, other than the Welcome to Yahoo Mail one, was spam. To Yahoo's credit, it did automatically go to whatever they call their spam folder.

The Spam arrived within 24 hours of opening the account, and I have given the address to no one. I have not even sent my Yahoo account a test message myself yet.

This is still the current Yahoo Mail. I have not received an invite to the beta yet.

Tony

Tony: there is a trick to turn your yahoo mail into beta right away. Only I don't know it anymore. I think it had to do something with changing your zipcode into an american one... Does anyone in the forum knows this trick?

Well, my zipcode is American. :)
Tony

This is a follow up to my previous post about. I did get the upgrade to my yahoo account to the beta. Yahoo does have the similar hotkeys as gmail (pressing 'r' opens the reply box) and they have a pretty extensive right click menu, very reministant of an outlook right click menu. The dragging and dropping did work seamlously. Ok, that's it for the good stuff, now for the bad. First thing that I noticed when I logged in was the least three ad sections, two capping my folder box and a long horizontal ad on the left. I bounced a couple of messages back and forth from my yahoo to my gmail and noticed that their is no conversationt view (very annoying), every message is it's own message with the stupid re:re:re:test :(Maybe it was just the beta servers, but it took while for my messages to be sent. The outgoing server seemed quite slow as it took several minutes for my other account to recieve the email. Oh, and when you go to send a message, I really don't need a confirmation screen showing me yet another large advertisement :(Overall my impression of Yahoo was some neat coding in a very crammed environment. Yahoo would be a nice transition form outlook to a web client if you didn't know there was anything better, but there is no going back once you've used the converstation view. In the end though, Yahoo's obsessive attempt to cram as many advertisements as possible into a simple session of checking my mail was the straw that broke my back.

Ps. Guess what my second email was? That's right, a second 419:D Two email, two scammers...

TonyB: sorry i can't help you than ;-)

Nate: about the servers being slow. Sure that it was the Yahoo out server and not the Google in server? I notice also slow mail traffic between the two domains, but I'm not sure who's slow. I often think it's Google. Even more I do think they prioritize traffic. It means I have the impression that traffic between Google & Yahoo gets somewhere a lower priority than e.g. mail between Google/Yahoo and my professional domain...

Of the three (Gmail/Yahoo/Live) I like Live least. It feels so clunky. I can't understand the advantage of being able to drag and drop when the functionality in basically everything else (e.g. reading messages) falls through the floor.

For the average Yahoo mail user, the beta is a huge step foward. To Yahoo's credit, they don't need to reinvent the wheel, they just need to do enough to keep existing users happy and from what I've seen it is pretty slick. Google on the other hand went from a practical joke on April fools to headline news, they had to reinvent the wheel, and I believe they have. Managing and just plain using gmail is entirely different experience then any other email client I've used. As a disclaimer, my dislike for the old "outlook" mentality is pretty strong, which as I said previously, yahoo is (and to an extenet, live is, just clunkier).

Art: I did try sending mail for a company account to test the Gmail servers and the mail went through pretty instantly. Maybe gmail just filters yahoo mail for aggressivly, don't know. I didn't mean to imply that the slowdown was a major fault. As "beta" I expect the servers to be taxed and a little slow. I meant that comment mostly as an obersvation sorry about that :)

I have gotten into the Yahoo Beta as well now. It is pretty neat for the traditional style interface, with folders and so on.

The interface is quicker to respond for me than Hotmail Live, and the text and folders are larger and easier to read. The ads, though larger, are possible a little less distracting than Hotmail Beta's.

I sent several messages back and forth last night between Gmail and Yahoo, and they went through almost instantly both directions.

The Tab function in Yahoo is very nice, though it wasn't long before I had too many open to really remember what I was doing.

I really like Gmail's conversation feature and less obtrusive ads.

Overall, Yahoo Mail Beta looks like a nice, traditional style interface with some special sauce. I don't have much negative to say about it, but my initial feelings are I prefer Gmail and the way it lets me work. I am still stuck on folders, but am learning to appreciate the flexibility of labels.

Tony