Well Microsoft finally released the new “Live” version of Hotmail.  Since I’ve been using it for several months, I haven’t been able to talk much about it.  Not that its features have been much of a secret, but I’ll hit the highlights here and let others offer up true reviews of the service.

It pretty much matches up the features that GMail has had for several years, and give users a full 2GB.  Yeah, GMail still offers more but who really is using that much more space for emails?  Archive & purge – that’s my motto.

The interface is quite familiar to most Microsoft customers – it mimics Outlook in a remote way, using AJAX techniques to it’s benefit.  The interface usability is a winner over GMail for the average user.  GMail is much, much faster however, because of the simpler mostly text-based interface.

Since my Hotmail account is the one account I’ve had for well over a decade (can’t remember exactly), it had been relegated to junk-mail duty for years.  Meaning when I didn’t trust an online form – I used my Hotmail account.  Since the service has been revamped, spam protection built in, search capabilities (quite good), and much needed space upgrade – I may find a new use for this account yet – or possibly move my hosted GMail accounts over to Hotmail… don’t know on that one yet.