Is Outlook.com Smarter Than Gmail?

Launched in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia, and bought by Microsoft in 1997, Hotmail is one of the earliest free Webmail services. However, pulling the plug on Hotmail, Microsoft introduced Outlook.com recently. The tech major plans to transition its 350 million users to the new service called Outlook dot com. And less than 24 hours after Microsoft rolled out the service, one million people were already using the service, according to an official tweet from Microsoft.

Outlook.com is slick and quick

Outlook.com looks strikingly tempting both in terms of features and also the user-interface. From unlimited storage space to its integration with SkyDrive and social networks, to less obtrusive ads, Outlook.com has many features that wow it over others. It allows you to use multiple aliases with your primary e-mail account.

The minimalistic design is strikingly appealing. There are almost no icons anywhere, but the text labels are prominent and self-explanatory. There are no margins or borders on the page either. It's slick and quick.

Getting Started with Outlook

If you're a Hotmail customer and want to upgrade to the Outlook.com preview, just click “Upgrade” in the options menu of Hotmail. You can also add an @Outlook.com email address to your account if you want.

If you're using Gmail, Yahoo, or other email service, you can try the preview by going to the site. If you don't have a Microsoft account, you can create a new account with an @Outlook.com email address. You can set up Gmail or your other email service to forward your mail to Outlook.com and import your contacts.

Outlook.com is Better than Gmail!

There are quite a few features that make Outlook.com better than Gmail at least. For instance Outlook is more tightly integrated with SkyDrive; if you attach a file that exceeds the 25 MB limit, it will automatically send it via SkyDrive. Here we look at the main differentiators.

Unlimited Storage Space: Outlook offers virtually unlimited space for your mails and attachments while Gmail offers 10 GB of storage space for free accounts. Your inbox capacity will automatically increase, as you need more space.

Login with temporary password: This comes handy given that now a days hackers and others sources are trying to snoop into your email. You can login to your Outlook ID from any computer without the actual password. As you login, they will ask for mobile number, and Microsoft will you send a text message with the one time password to your mobile. So it's a good security feature.

Tight Integration with social networks: Outlook is tightly integrated with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that most people use today. And soon, Skype, to bring relevant context and communications to your email, says Microsoft. Right in your Outlook.com inbox, your email comes alive with photos of your friends, status updates and Tweets that your friend has shared with you.

E-mail aliases in Outlook.com: At times we feel the need to have a temporary address to share with sources we don't want to reveal our primary email ID to. This feature of Outlook allows you to use multiple aliases with your primary e-mail account.

Gmail Still Reigns

While Outlook.com outsmarts Gmail in many fronts, the latter has features that make it still the king of email services. We look at 5 ways that Gmail will still reign over the new kid on the block.

1) Add Some Masala To Your Mail

Gmail Labs offers many experimental features that can be added to your Gmail interface to improve your user experience. Google has always been a supporter of open source development, so it's no surprise that a myriad of experimental plug-ins have been submitted by developers for your own benefit. Examples of some cool plug-ins are Flickr previews in mail (which presents photo previews from Flickr inline in Gmail) and Canned Responses (which are template messages that can be saved and sent quickly).

2) Secure Your Account Better

Security experts have been critical of Outlook.com's security because it only offers users a maximum 16 character password to pick. Meanwhile, Gmail offers as many as 200 characters for its passwords. And yes, it is a big deal! It is easier for hackers to figure out a 16 character password than it is to guess a 200 character password. Meanwhile, Gmail has proved that it has great filtering systems to detect spam mail, so users are rarely troubled by junk mails.

3) Access your mails any way you want to

Users want to have the freedom to send/receive mail from other email aliases into a single consolidated email view. To be able to do this, the email service will need to support certain protocols. As such, users will be disappointed to know that Outlook.com only offers POP support while Gmail offers both POP and IMAP support. Hence, email users will be able to receive/send from the Gmail server on a wider variety of email clients as compared to Outlook.com.

4) Gmail is still the Usain Bolt of email services

Speed matters for customers. With processing power and Internet speeds growing exponentially every year, email users expect their services to load lightning-fast. We did tests on general email loading times and search times on both Outlook.com and Gmail, across Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Through our use-case experimentation, we found that Gmail loads mails faster than Outlook.com and the search function in Gmail is significantly quicker than Outlook.com, probably owing to Google's search engine prowess. While outlook.com is by no means slow, Gmail still leads the pack.

5) Consistency Is Key

If you're using the beta version of Outlook.com, you will notice a jarring change in interface when one switches from the mail view to the calendar view. The entire interface changes from the snazzy-looking Metro style to the old and outdated Hotmail.com interface. We found this change in interface quite disturbing. Meanwhile, Gmail maintains a consistent layout between the Mail view and other views, such as Google Calendar and Google Drive. While Microsoft has said that they will also revamp the other views available through Outlook.com, they have to deliver before they come up to par with Gmail.