Yahoo mail beta gets mostly rave reviews

Yahoo on Friday expanded its new mail beta to a broad group of both free and Mail Plus users, a spokeswoman confirmed.

The long-anticipated new service features a new interface more like that of a desktop e-mail application and faster response time. Among the features are e-mail caching; message preview; drag-and-drop filing, an integrated RSS feeder, and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time.

Bloggers who were chosen to participate in the beta seemed excited, and mostly had positive things to say about it. One complaint, however, is that it takes awhile every time you load.

Blog community response:

"I was skeptical when the new version came out. I didn't want to mess up a good thing. But holy cow, it is awesome. You can drag and drop, and the compose window opens in a new tab (so that you can still check your mail if you need to, while writing the message, without having to 'save as draft' first). Seriously., those of you that use Hotmail really need to switch."
--Carrie Ann--A day in the life of me

"I'm really impressed with the new UI for Yahoo mail. I've already sent them a few suggestions but for the most part it's pretty slick. Tabbed messaging, RSS feeds in your inbox--some nice features there. Having all your messages on one 'page' is nicer than the previous as well."
-- trendywendy

"I have been playing with the beta for Yahoo! Mail and it sure does look nice. The responsiveness, however, to put it nicely, sucks. It takes 10-15 seconds every time it loads which is pretty much a show stopper right there. There is a lag on clicking things. The RSS feeds are there but it doesn't keep track of feeds you have already read which is another major strike against. Congratulations on porting Microsoft Outlook! I wish everyone would stop chasing Microsoft and do something much better."
--No Soap, Radio!