Despite the speed and convenience of Nextel’s i85s, we prefer
the Ericsson R380, with just one reservation—the Ericsson’s
steep price. It costs $600. For $300, we could buy a full-featured
cell phone and a Palm OS-based PDA. Freeing up a little more
space in our backpacks definitely isn’t worth an additional $300.The smartphone category shows a lot of promise, but we have
yet to see anything even remotely close to perfection.MSN HOTMAIL
THE UPSHOT
MARCH 2004 MAXIMUM PC 21
Y
ou get what you pay for, and neither Hotmail nor
Yahoo owe you an explanation for any glitches, gim-
micks, or glaring box ads that get in the way of your
e-mail. Both tag the bottom of your outgoing messages
with plugs, so everyone knows you’re a cheapskate. Butlet’s not mince words: Yahoo’s the winner. It’s got features
and space to spare, while Hotmail’s a touch more refined,
if wimpy. Now, go on, and sign up for that Thundercats
fan-fiction mailing list that you wouldn’t want to be caught
contributing to under your real name. nSpeed: When Hotmail
delivered mail, it was
extremely fast, and page
reloads on the whole
felt faster than Yahoo.
But some e-mails went
undelivered for a long
while, and worrying over
e-mail isn’t a convenience
feature. Winner: Yahoo
Capacity: Apparently
Microsoft believes
its core business is
software, not hard drives.
Hotmail offers a stingy
2MB inbox and virtually
no grace overage before
messages get Returned
To Sender. Limits on
incoming and outgoing
e-mail are a similarly
frugal 1MB.
Winner: Yahoo
Pay services: There’s really only one premium
Hotmail service. $20/year gets you 10MB of storage,
the freedom to send or receive 3MB at a time, more
custom spam filters, and a 30MB attachment storage
bin. Plus, your account won’t be cruelly deleted if
you neglect it for a month, as it would with the free
service. This means Hotmail’s pay service expects
you to fork up for basically the same flexibility you
get with Yahoo’s free account. Not impressive. Unlike
Yahoo, there’s no option—free or not—for POP
access of your Hotmail account, although there are
free tools to strip both Yahoo and Hotmail inboxes
anyway. Winner: YahooFeatures: Hotmail distinguishes itself with one-click access to a dictionary and thesaurus if you’re at a loss
for words. Attachments are scanned for infection and given a very formal-looking seal of approval, but that
doesn’t make up for overall weaker attachment handling (strange that Microsoft’s Hotmail won’t preview
Word docs) than the competition. Winner: YahooSpam filtering: Hotmail
offers two levels of spam
filtering as well as a
whitelist mode which lets
only approved senders
get through. Addresses
may be blocked and
up to 10 user-definable
filters created. The
filters worked well in
normal mode, but we
had some problems with
Hotmail’s “Enhanced”
junk filter. Unlike Yahoo,
which allowed our 14
test spams through,
Hotmail filtered eight as
spam—and simply didn’t
deliver the other six at all,
which is not supposed to
happen. Hotmail’s spam
blocker is stronger, but in
Enhanced mode, it’s
a little too strong.
Winner: HotmailSearching: Hotmail dishes
up a perfunctory interface:
search for a word or phrase,
search an individual folder or
all folders, search headers
or all text. Powerful enough
to answer most “where did
that joke go?” questions, but
doesn’t go that extra mile.
Winner: YahooSanity-protecting spam filter is a bit cranky, but
stops the bloat.HOTMAILCOLDMAIL
Relatively mediocre search, stingy inbox
capacity, and occasionally slow delivery rates.
http://www.hotmail.comMAXIMUM PC VERDICT 7
Interface/organization: Because it’s MSN-branded,
Hotmail is a little too eager to push other MSN junk at you
on the screen, but once you know where to look, it’s easy
to get to what you really want—your damn messages—and
get out. Layout is tight and the interface feels more like a
real Windows app rather than a clunky web form—it’s slick.
A little fiddly at times with small text and smaller drop-
down boxes, but still slick. Winner: Hotmail