GMail: Initial impressions
I have GMail!
Thanks to Ovidiu
Predescu, I now am the proud owner of a GMail
account! Since I have had the account for only a couple of hours now, I
don't have a detailed review, but here are my initial impressions:
- It's fast! The pages and emails load up with blazing speed- almost as if
it were content hosted on my local machine, and not a web based email. This
might be because it doesn't have a lot of users right now- but still, I'm
impressed.
- The UI is clean and minimal- just the way I like it. I have been a Hotmail
user since, oh well '96? '97? and Yahoo Mail from when it started... and GMail
has a cleanest interface around. Hotmail lately has a clunky, MSN-content-and-advertisement-saturated
interface that I hate, and I rarely use it. That my Hotmail account is a spam
magnet could be something to do with it too. Yahoo has a decent interface,
but I dislike the image ads taking up almost one thirds of the page. In GMail
the text ads are discreetly placed in the right column. They are noticeable
though, however, I think its due to all the fuss about them that makes you
look at the ads and actually read them!
- You can attach 'Labels' to your messages. They are not quite the same as
classifying them in Folders- an email can have multiple Labels. I don't see
an option to create a 'Folder'- I guess I need to get used to the 'Label'
thing.
- There are keyboard shortcuts for composing email, next email etc.
- Emails in a conversation are apparently grouped together. I don't have enough
emails there to test this out yet.
- Other than classification, there is email search- again, I don't have enough
emails there to test this out properly. Given Google's search engine, I don't
think I'll have complaints here. In addition to text based search, you can
look for messages based on the From, To, Subject
etc., just like in any non-web based email client.
- You can create filters for your email based on the From, To,
Subject, and keyword presence/absence. I like.
- And yes, the 'You are currently using 0 MB (0%) of your 1000 MB.' I most
certainly like.
- Ok, now things that I would have liked to be different:
- Ability to create an account name with less than six characters. I would
like to have a short email address (my first name is five characters)
for a change.
- I miss an email notification mechanism, a la biff.. With Yahoo or Hotmail, if I leave the IM clients running I get notified of incoming emails. Maybe Google can add this to their Deskbar?
It would be nice to be able to populate the From/To
fields in the search, and the To in the email compose field with
email addresses in your contacts.Spell check is useful. Prolonged use of Word has left me spelling impaired.- Sending email from the contact list pops up another window- it would
be nice to not have multiple windows open up.
- Being able to create folders and move emails to it would be nice. Yeah, I know Labels etc., but I like having an empty Inbox to look at, with all my email filed away neatly. Ok, I 'm anal, but that just the way I like things!
On the whole, Google has done a very good job with GMail. Thanks guys! And thanks again Ovidiu!
Update [One hour later]:I tried out the email grouping feature, and its neat! I stand corrected on the To in the email compose not getting populated- it does.
Update [One and half hour later]:Thanks to Ovidiu's weblog, I discovered GMail Gems.
Update [May 22, 2004]: Keyboard shortcuts are fast and convenient, and give a UNIX based email clients feel to it- especially the j/k keys for navigating up and down.
Update [May 23, 2004]: Spell check is available. Hmm.. was it always there and I didn't see it? Or was it recently added?
Posted by vivek at May 20, 2004 10:52 AM
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