There are so many different web mail services out there that it's difficult to choose between them. Talk21 is run by bt, originally as a web based email service for btclick customers, although it has always been available to anyone who wants an account.
The reason I first opened a talk21 account is that they have a service which will send an sms (text message) to your mobile phone whenever you get new emails. I was looking for a free service which did this, and this was the only one I found which was reliable. Since I joined they have improved this so that you also get the subject line of the email.
I should say that I prefer to use a 'proper' POP3 account as my main email address rather than a web mail service, simply so that I can read and write emails offline, and use complex sets of folders and filtering. I use my talk21 account to forward messages to so that I know when I have important emails. I can then access them online if they're important, or just know that I have them.
If you are interested in an account for your main email usage, I would also recommend talk21 though. The best feature in my opinion is their use of frames. This shows you a list of your messages on the left, and allows you to open each message up on the right while still viewing this list. This makes it a lot quicker to navigate through multiple emails, since you don't have to keep on pressing 'back' to get back to your inbox.
It has the standard webmail features of any good service - reply, signature, holiday reply, filters (although I don't know how good they are) and the ability to pick up mail from POP servers.
As well as sms notification, if you use BT's callminder service (a voicemail system) you can set up talk21 to notify you if you have email. I managed to get this working easily, but since the phone is not just used by me I switched it off again.
You can also use 'speechmail' to get your emails read to you. This involves ringing an 0870 (national rate) number.I haven't had the need to use this yet, but it would be useful for an urgent email I would imagine.
Talk21 is certainly full of features, and I don't know of any other realiable web-based system that combines all of them.
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Comments about this review »
sue26 19.05.2001 19:25
I prefer hotmail for the simple fact it has the msn messenger service. Good op.
LostWitness 19.05.2001 18:37
Talk 21 does boast some useful features over the other email providers. I set up the SMS notification of new messages but it drove me up the wall - I kept getting SMS messages despite the fact that my inbox was empty.
Advantages: Adequate storage space (250Mb) Disadvantages: Worse than yahoo, no pop/smtp access, slow, banner ads, spam, features (like the free sms) have been removed.
zargax 21.05.2003 (14.12.2004)
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Review of talk21.com
May 19th, 2001
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