As we all know, Microsoft rolled out public beta’s for most of the Windows Live Wave 3 products yesterday. We have already reviewed Windows Live Messenger. Lets have a look at the Windows Live Mail Beta.
New User Interface:
Windows Live Mail Beta gets a new facelift and it fits well with all other Wave 3 apps except for Windows Live Movie Maker which is based on the new ‘Windows Scenic’ interface. User Interfaces always comes down to individual preferences. For me personally, the interface in Wave 3 products except for Messenger and Movie Maker are mediocre at best. Yes, they have a clean look but they look too faded. The options in the toolbar don’t even have any icons on them, I mean, come on! If Movie Maker could get the new “Windows Scenic” interface then why not others?
Color chooser was there in the previous version too and in this version for some strange reason this functionality is a bit broken. Once you have selected any color and then if you want to go back to the default color it simply refuses to do so.
Integration with Windows Live Calendar:
This is one killer feature which everyone was waiting for. Yes, the new Windows Live Mail which is part of Wave 3 release supports full integration with Windows Live Calendar. If you have used the Outlook Connector with Microsoft Outlook to manage your Calendar or Apple’s MobileMe Calendar to sync back changes from your desktop app to cloud and vice versa, then you already know what I am talking about here. This integration allows us to sync back any changes which we have made to our Calendar in the cloud (Windows Live Calendar) or from the desktop (Windows Live Mail) and makes it easier to keep multiple devices all up to date. Both applications which I talked about earlier (Outlook and MobileMe Calendar) aren’t free whereas Windows Live Mail is free and does the job without a hitch.
There is one more feature added to this release which allows us to add our invitational/meeting/appointment emails to our Calendar on the go. Just right click on the desired email and click on Add to Calendar.
Conclusion:
Windows Live Mail (Wave 3) is for sure a worthy update to the previous version. The integration with Windows Live Calendar and the fact that its free makes it a must have application.
Download Windows Live Mail
