beta @ amanzi

I’ve been meaning to update my review on Windows Live Mail Desktop for a while now as the product has changed significantly since my last write-up. I still don’t like the name, and I still can’t see the need for yet another Windows mail client, but I’ll run through some of the changes.

Installation is straight forward and you’re greeted with the typical Live/Vista looking login screen. After logging in, a ‘first-run’ wizard pops up which guides you through the tasks of setting up additional mail accounts, importing contacts, and subscribing to your contacts’ Spaces feeds.

The interface does look a lot better now. The obtrusive ads that used to be displayed on the right-hand side have been replaced with the much more pleasing ActiveSearch, which displays text ads a-la Gmail style. Mail, Feeds, Newsgroups, Contacts, and Calendar are all easily accessible from the left hand menu, and beneath that is an area to display your mail folders, or your relevant info from the section you’re in.

Spam protection is still not good but at least when you receive spam you are well protected as content isn’t downloaded from the internet automatically and unknown senders are flagged with an ominous looking yellow bar at the top of the message.

The feed reader is adequate for a beginner that doesn’t subscribe to a lot of feeds, but this is definitely not for anyone who spends a lot of time reading feeds. There is no river-of-news display, and the display of the feeds is rather imaginative. Instead of trying to display the feeds with a bit of pizzazz (i.e. Microsoft Max) you are forced to read the items in a typical, old-fashioned, newsreader-like format.

Reading newsgroup is done via the antiquated Outlook Express interface, in fact you can still see the old Outlook Express icons in some places. (This is a painful reminder that this isn’t a new product – just the buggy Outlook Express with some new bits attached to it.) The only remotely interesting feature I could find here was a ‘Rate this Post’ button that appears next to every newsgroup post. Strangely I had to sign in again to be able to rate a post. Once I had signed in again, I had to wait for the interface to flicker for a while before I could choose to rate the post as either Useful or Not useful.

The contacts section was also a bit disappointing as it opens in a separate window when clicking on the left hand menu item. This inconsistency is typical of Microsoft’s efforts with user interface recently as can be seen all too often in Windows Vista. I couldn’t see any valid reason why the contacts should open in another window. The contacts interface is actually quite good which is why it’s a pity that you’re forced to deal with another window.

The last section we’ll look at today is the calendar. This will just be a quick look as there is no calendar. Don’t let that menu item fool you, this is just a link to the MSN Hotmail calendar. Not even a Windows Live calendar – just the old school calendar. I couldn’t find any info about the future plans for the calendar integration, but I can only assume that it will be fully integrated in future builds.

Overall, the product is getting a lot better but it still reeks of Outlook Express which will turn off most serious internet users. The integration into Live Spaces may be a compelling feature if you use Spaces, but if you don’t then there’s no way to blog to different blog platforms I guess if you live in a MSN/Live/Spaces world this client would be ideal for you.  But I still can’t see the point of this product. Microsoft already have a new email client for Vista called Windows Mail, and there’s also a full calendar application built into Vista called Windows Calendar. These two apps coupled with the excellent desktop blogging tool, Windows Live Writer, provide all of the functionality and more than you get with this package. Now that this review is through, I’ll be uninstalling it and sticking with my Gmail for now.

Links:

• Download Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta
• Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta blog
• Latest release announcement
• Previous beta @ amanzi review