Outlook.com

From the Outlook blog:

"Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes"

"Outlook is designed cloud first, so all of your mail is always available wherever you are. Its fresh, clean user interface gets the clutter out of your way-the header has 60% fewer pixels and there are 30% more messages visible in your inbox that the webmail most people are used to. And there are no display ads or large search boxes that take up extra space."

"We saw an opportunity to make email better by using your connections on social networks to enrich your email experience. And so with the Outlook.com preview, we are giving you the first email service that is connected to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and soon, Skype, to bring relevant context and communications to your email."

So far, I'm enjoying it. Really fast for me.

Even the ads look nicer.

EDIT: The Verge goes into nicer detail with better pictures.

Wow, the death of Hotmail... Never thought I'd see the day. Outlook.com looks much better.

@DeathByVisualStudio: Aside from the new UI, I don't see many differences. There was a big functionality upgrade to Hotmail a year or so ago.

Do not see much different.   Hope it does more under the covers.  I guess live.com is now dead.com.   Still waiting for skype to show it was worth 5 billion.

Love the clean UI.   (Is Metro becoming mmmmmmMetro?)

Loving it so far - having messenger down the RHS really makes good use of the widescreen monitors most people are using today, without losing too much space for messages.

It'd be great if we could "connect to" (i.e. import contacts from) more than one Google account though.

EDIT: Like that the header scrolls down with the page - that's convenient!

So now when someone says their Outlook is broken, I'll have to ask if they mean OWA, Outlook.com, or the Outlook desktop client.

Still, it does look nice; nicer than the Windows 8 mail client. And I could run it in a window too.

Still, it does look nice; nicer than the Windows 8 mail client. And I could run it in a window too.

Not to mention, unlike Win8 mail you can pretty much make the layout as dense or sparse as you like just by zooming in/out in your browser, and it adapts pretty well.

Pin it to the taskbar in IE, it creates a jumplist for you with all the Outlook.com services

Looks good. And I can still use my existing account, so, it is not too bad for losing my beloved Hotmail. Now my account is really antique.

Couldn't transfer my email to an Calendar event. Disappointing. Also Calendar is still the old one. Hope they update it soon. Maybe I will stay with Cloud version over WL:Mail if it becomes good.

12 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

Disappointing. Also Calendar is still the old one. Hope they update it soon. 

Don't worry -- by the time Calendar and Skydrive are all brought over to the new layout/setup/branding, someone at Microsoft will have already decided to re-brand everything again, starting the whole process all over again, maybe throwing the word "Live" in randomly, or something new. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 5 or 6 times into thinking there will be any consistency with Microsoft's online offerings, ever, shame on me.

Outlook.com looks cool though.

The more important question is: Who's Amy Strande?

@Craig_Matthews:

I guess it just mean hotmail is part of outlook now. At least outlook is a decently recognized name, and they didn't name it, outloookcloudmail.com. Could be worse with Xbox Mail since that's what they did to Zune.

I just noticed that if you hover over the ads, the product image slides up. Neat!

(I know, I shouldn't be obsessing over ads, but strangely, the cleaner the ad, the more it looks less like an ad and more attractive to click)

@Craig_Matthews: That is really a silly thing to say considering that I got my first Hotmail account in 1995.  17 years of the same branding is pretty long in my opinion.  I never really liked the name Hotmail so I am glad that they are replacing it.  I switched my Hotmail account to an Outlook account even though it broke my Windows Phone.

I am hoping they do an update to let me change my mail Microsoft ID I use with my phone but I will just do a hard reset if I have to. (and yes I know they warned me about changing it so I expected it to break)

Anything is better than the horrible "Windows Live" branding, although I'm not sure how I like associating Outlook with a webmail service. Can it do everything Outlook 2013 can do? Will settings sync between it and my desktop install of Outlook 2013? Will Outlook web access start using outlook.com instead? Too many questions.

Great UI! Now they just need to update Calendar and SkyDrive.

@spivonious: While I think there are many potential positive things about this branding change I'm somewhat concerned that the reason given for it by the Hotmail team is that "Hotmail was 16 years old... it's time for something new". That's NOT a good reason to change a brand name, although such ineptitude would explain a lot of the branding fiasco that has plagued Microsoft in recent years.

(Source: Reddit via LiveSide)