Windows Live Mail Beta vs. Yahoo Mail Beta

I started using the Windows Live Mail Beta (the new Hotmail that is) since last week when I got an invite. Somehow it just doesn't cut it for me. While I'm not sure how many of you have started using Windows Live Mail, I can assume that most of you would have used Yahoo Mail Beta.

Its a good move to change how hotmail's operated all these years. This is the second revamp since Mr. Bhatia sold his start-up. The idea is quite similar to how Yahoo has gone ahead with its Yahoo Mail Beta. But there's a few things I'm not quite happy with.

The first difference for me is the space. When I use an application, especially an email client, I'd like to see more of the screen free from ads and other promos. With Yahoo, all their adverts are on the right hand side as part of vertical banners and there are some buttons on the left hand side bottom. But with Windows Live there's this huge banner of MSN at the top which accounts for 20% of the space vertically. So if you have the reading pane at the side or the top, there's quite little of your actual message that you can read, being cramped vertically or horizontally. Plus they have the sidebar banner on the right too. So eats away too much screen space.

Next is the heavy GUI. While Microsoft Outlook 2003 is quite heavy, I didn't expect an internet email client to be quite so heavy. While Yahoo just takes about a second to display the main message, Windows Live takes atleast 3-4 seconds for the message to come up (keeps saying 'working on your request'). This could be quite irritating if someone were to use a dialup.

The tabs and options in Windows Live Mail can undergo massive improvement. I just don't like how they are organised, waste space and also don't give as many tab options like Yahoo viz. marking messages or flagging them, something that is inherent to Outlook.

The whole look is quite childish and tacky compared to Yahoo. And the funniest part is that I use hotmail a lot more than Yahoo. Also keep in mind, people who have used the Web Outlook version are quite a happy lot. So why not follow a successful formula and format (since they are part of the same family)? I just hope being a Beta version, there's a lot of improvement till they come out with the final version.