I wrote a review last month on Gmail. But before signing up with Gmail, Yahoo mail was the main one I was using. Although I slightly moved some of my contacts to Gmail, I still keep my Yahoo mail in use. In my opinion, they are both very good emails. They represent things in different ways and both have some extra functions.
Yahoo mail is a web email service provided by Yahoo that is one of the largest email service providers nowadays. The history of Yahoo mail can be traced back to the early 1990s. Since 2005, Yahoo started its beta testing and this is current version: Yahoo Mail beta. This review will be mainly focus on the feature in this version. The beta version is using RIA (Rich Internet Application) techniques, which means it gives users
better user experience, however you may find it takes longer than the simple version to upload. With the development of Web 2.0, many online companies have started to test and refine their applications to enhance user experience. Among these, there are web mail providers. Not only Yahoo Mail, if you are using hotmail you must find now they have new version as well called Windows Live Mail.
There are basically two options of Yahoo mail you can choose: one is free called Yahoo! Mail and the other one called Yahoo! Mail Plus. You have to pay 11.99 pounds per year for the membership for the later one. For Yahoo! Mail, you can get 1GB storage space, 10MB limited size for attachments, spam guard, virus scan, etc. If you sign up for Yahoo! Mail Plus, you will get better experience according to their descriptions, which can include no Ads, no account expiration, more storage space 2GB, higher size limit for sending files 20MB, archiving, etc. If you would like to compare this two options, you can go to this link http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/plus/info/. However, if you don't have a Yahoo email and want to have a try, you can sign up with the free one first. Once you feel it's very suitable for you, you can upgrade to the Plus version. I am currently using the Yahoo! Mail, so the following is the review on this option.
Compare to the old version, the Beta version does give good experience. Although it is web mail, but you may feel like you are using desktop mail. The layout is very clean and easy to navigate. The bad point of the layout page is there are advert bar on the right side and some advert links at the bottom of left side. However, you do find almost all the emails service have some amount ads. On the left hand, there are two main function panels. The top one includes Check Mail, Compose Mail and Search Mail. You probably have already noticed that the search function, which was usually just available in the desktop email, nowadays is provided in most web emails including Gmail and Windows Live Mail, etc. In the middle of the left side panel, it is the list of main folders (including Inbox, Draft, Sent, Trash, Spam), contact, calendar, notepad, RSS feed and my folders.
The main contents are display in the middle of the page with tab navigations. The tabs design is one thing I found is very useful for users. The default initial tab is the Home tab. It contains the welcome messages, indicates the number of mails in your inbox and lists the main news in tabs including Top Stories, Sport, Entertainment and Finance. Once you click the folders from the left side panel, the page will be opened in another tab and group according to the folder. For instance, if you click Inbox, then the tab with title Inbox and the number of messages will appear. All the messages in the Inbox are shown under this tab. The message list is displayed using paging technique; therefore you don't need to wait for all messages loading in one ago. They are load when you are scrolling down to view more messages. To view the message, you can either click on the message and show in content in the panel below, or double click on the message and show it in a new tab. The action menu on the top of each tab is very clear and easy to use, which includes reply, forward, delete, spam etc and more actions, such as mark as read, mark as follow up, are available in the More Actions list.
To have a short conclusion about the free version Yahoo! Mail:
Pros: 1. Good size of storage space: 1GB 2. Easy to navigate and good user experience 3. Effective spam guard 4. Fast sending and receiving 5. Automatic virus scanning for incoming messages
Cons: 1. Advert bars and links 2. Storage is less than Gmail
By the way, I have to mention I'm using UK & Ireland version. If you would like to try you can either go to www.yahoo.com or go to your local Yahoo. For UK & Ireland, the URL is www.yahoo.co.uk
Thanks for reading, rating and commenting.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Very good review - completely agree on all of it (though it's now unlimited storage). I've been using Yahoo Mail for nearly 10 years and find it far better than anything else (including GMail) - Ian
susie191 20.02.2007 17:22
I think I prefer the old system. Beta sems to take an age to log me in. xx
Feb 15th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
