Time to ditch Outlook? 9 e-mail clients tested


Contents
Introduction
 Avoiding e-mail worms
 Barca
 Calypso
 Eudora
 Lotus Notes
 Outlook
 Pegasus
 Pine
 The Bat
 Mozilla Thunderbird
 Specifications
 Final words
 Editor's choice
 About RMIT
Lotus Notes

IBM distribute this full featured e-mail client and personal organiser package. It has a calendar, planner (showing day, week, or month), to do list, and meeting list. IBM keenly informed us that instant messaging is now included with Notes. This feature allows users to see which of their colleagues or friends are currently online and initiate a "chat" or text meetings with multiple people (assuming they have the same software).

Other collaboration tools are optional -- AU$224 with, AU$161 without. Messages can be digitally signed and encrypted, address books can also be encrypted. Users have the option of blocking Java Applets and scripts in e-mails.

Lotus can import data from word-processors and spreadsheets and can handle a wide range of graphics files. The dictionaries for the spell checker come in English versions that include New Zealand, Jamaica, and even a medical dictionary, but somehow manages to miss Australia.

While there don't seem to be functions for mailbox searching and mail-merging, clever users may be able to develop suitable macros -- called Agents by Lotus -- to do these and other tasks. As usual Lotus does not scrimp on pretty graphics for the user interface. Lotus prefers 128MB of RAM and twice that in disk space. It will run on Windows or Mac operating systems.

Product Lotus Notes 6.5
Price AU$224
Vendor IBM
Phone 1800 808 066
Web www.ibm.com.au
 
Interoperability
Excellent, conversion facilities.
Futureproofing
Good security and features.
ROI
Pricey, but lots of features.
Service
12 months is fair.
Rating ½
 Lotus Notes

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Talkback 13 comments

  1. What about Opera; another free browser with a built-in email client. I mean, if you are going to give top honors to a free client, then you should look at the other free client also. This review justified itself largely based on the failing security of Anonymous -- 20/02/05

    What about Opera; another free browser with a built-in email client. I mean, if you are going to give top honors to a free client, then you should look at the other free client also. This review justified itself largely based on the failing security of outlook, but if that's your main concern, don't get thunderbird no matter what. I mean, come on, IT'S OPEN SOURCE. It doesn't get any less secure than that. It doesn't have the market presense of outlook, but if it ever does look out -- there will then be incentive to use it as the vehicle for viruses, and it will be childs play since it's open source.

    Opera, with it's email client, is free, not open source, and actually attempts some things that are revolutionary. I don't think that it would win your shoot-out, since it tries to be different and takes a lot of getting used to. I don't even think that I like it the best of the ones that I try, but I respect it for what it is trying to do and the fact that it is much more secure than outlook.

    Just my 2 cents; I'm tired of hearing about Mozilla/Thunderbird when I have seen time and again that it is an inferior product to my current favorite.

    1. Open source is not less secure Anonymous -- 31/01/07

      Please. Open source may have no secrets, but most of the bugs that leave Outlook open to attack are because not enough people are looking at the code...
      If you think a MS server is more secure than a Linux one you're nuts. Both require work to keep up to date when bugs are found, but with open source anyone can provide the fix as opposed to waiting around for MS to admit and repair the problem.

  2. Big review and not a single word about Exchange compatibility??? Anonymous -- 22/02/05

    Big review and not a single word about Exchange compatibility???

  3. Have you guys heard of Novell? If security is the main concern, surely you need to look here. Of course the client is less than half the issue - the mail server is probably a bigger issue. I'm looking forward to the mailserver review. Anonymous -- 25/02/05

    Have you guys heard of Novell? If security is the main concern, surely you need to look here. Of course the client is less than half the issue - the mail server is probably a bigger issue. I'm looking forward to the mailserver review.

  4. Wish you have put Netscape mail in your review. Anonymous -- 08/03/05

    Wish you have put Netscape mail in your review.

  5. Time to ditch thunderbird? Rob -- 30/09/05

    Yet another review praising thunderbird.

    Im just getting too frustrated with how badly thunderbird handles mail after a few months of use - It slows down exactly like ye 'ol Outlook. I've had enough of waiting for folders to reindex, accounts to compact and especially finding my lost email whenever thunderbird feels fit to randomly change my home directory. Why should i wait 5 minutes to sloooooowly move 10,000 junk emails to the bin? Im not asking it to calculate the trajectory of a nasa flight to mars and back!?

    I've been checking the net for email package review sites, low and behold, every reviewer bends over for mozilla - its free this and free that, pffft... I wonder if ANY used thunderbird long enough in a work environment for its arteries to harden with the sludge of months worth of email, spam, attachments et al? I bet not - Im going elsewhere.

    Opera has done a fine job so far. Its fast (so far) thats all i want.

    1. I've used Thunderbird for two years now Anonymous -- 31/01/07

      I haven't noticed any of those problems.
      Could be because I archive my old mail and delete the junk though.

  6. Re: Time to ditch thunderbird Glenn Sanford -- 17/11/05

    Thunderbird 1.5 RC1 Rocks... I can now delete huge groups of e-mails with a single highlight. Also Autoreply and Autoforward were two features that weren't well handled and needed. It's now part of Thunderbird...

    1. Thunderbird is average John Cislowski -- 03/01/06

      Thunderbird is far from perfect and is a rather immature product. However it behaves itself well with IMAP which most clients fail pitifully at, including outlook.

      On this it gets my vote, till someone with a better overall product fixes their imap support.

      Also a solid mention should go to the Opera browser mail client it is quite adapt and the best in any browser.

  7. Barca 2.1 Anonymous -- 07/05/06

    Forget Outlook. This is the best, most complete and reliable mail client there is. With its rock solid .mbx data file structure (unlike the dreaded .pst of Outlook), a great interface, reliable spam filtering, superb mail filtering, focus box for fast searching, this program just keeps on getting better and better.

    1. Barca Anonymous -- 02/08/06

      As someone just managing to keep his head above water re email volumes, I agree Barca is probably the best program going. My main frustration is that it's planner and calendar add-ons are not inter-connected (so you have to key in appointments twice) and also the calendar doesn't print-out appointments -- which means I have had to buy yet another add-on software (Calendarscope).
      It's now 2006, I have been using email since the early 1990s, and am still waiting for someone to develop a comprehensive, professional email system. Why is this so hard when the world is now reliant on email?

  8. Barca 2.1 Anonymous -- 07/05/06

    Forget Outlook. This is the best, most complete and reliable mail client there is. With its rock solid .mbx data file structure (unlike the dreaded .pst of Outlook), a great interface, reliable spam filtering, superb mail filtering, focus box for fast searching, this program just keeps on getting better and better.

  9. Thunderbird gets the bird Brian Collins -- 12/09/06

    I agree - yet another ridiculous praise for Thunderbird. Why do computer geeks like this thing? (Because they want an underdog, and only because it's not Microsoft). Seriously! I'm a professional business user and I tried it for about 3 months. As much as I wanted something other than Outlook, I noticed that the whole time I kept trying to find downloadable 'extensions' to get it to do what it SHOULD do out of the box (so to speak). I was endlessly wrestling with the beta-like software - and I'm in the tech industry! I suppose if you don't care what fonts your e-mail uses, or about email signatures, and would rather use plain text (courier) for all your e-mails, by all means, this pile o' crap is for you!

    Over the past month I've been trying all kinds of e-mail/calendar/task "PIM" softwares, and most recently I've come upon Barca by poco systems which seems to do a great job. But as much as I hate to say it, I'm finding myself, once again, awaiting Outlook 2007. I wonder if this is the case for many others out there.

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