Microsoft’s consumer webmail service combines minimalist style with excellent inbox-cleaning tools, social network and SkyDrive cloud integration, and speed.

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Summary

Microsoft’s new Web-based email, Outlook.com impressed us from the first moment we saw it. Its clear, fast user interface, leading tools for maintaining a clean, junk-free inbox, social-network integrations.

The new webmail design echoes the clean, simple look of Microsoft’s major re-thinking of its flagship product, Windows 8. Outlook.com takes as its foundation all the work Microsoft has done in recent years on Hotmail. That includes vastly improved spam filtering, mailbox cleanup tools, a much speedier interface, and the ability to attach large files via Web storage using SkyDrive. This allows a single attachment size of up to 300MB, compared with Gmail’s 25MB.

 

Pros

  • Clean, simple, intuitive interface.
  • Fast.
  • Excellent mailbox organization tools.
  • Integrated instant messaging.
  • Sweep tool cleans out inbox.
  • Aliases.
  • Good Integration with social networks.
  • No ads on mail from contacts.

Cons

  • Less interface customization.
  • No IMAP access.