Another head-to-head battle here at TechGuySmartBuy. Last time we put HTC’s Sense UI up against Samsung’s TouchWiz UX as we ultimately made TouchWiz the winner. Now we have the battle of the 3rd-party iOS mail clients. With the release of a new 3rd-party Gmail contender, the real battle begins.
Thursday was a big day for iOS users as Mailbox, a new mail client designed by Orchestra Inc., was finally made available for those who reserved their spot in advance. Created for those who get lots of emails and offers a better way to manage your account(s). Currently only supporting Gmail as other platform support is on the way.
In December, Google dramatically changed their iOS Gmail app from a mere link to the web app to a refined, polished email solution. Gmail is a dream for anyone who is a Gmail user along with being invested in several of Google’s services. Does it truly cover all bases?
Design/Look
When it comes tot he visual appearance of the two, it is definitely a tough call. Both Orchestra and Google took very minimal approaches on the look of their mail clients. Both are simple to navigate to whichever screen desired by using simple gestures. Gmail does make a better use of color in its UI and for that alone. This one goes to Google.
Gmail
Features /Function
Google made sure to offer its Gmail app a robust amount of tricks up its sleeve. Unlike the Sparrow app, you have native push support for all of your Gmail accounts, threaded email viewing, integrated Google Calendar invite response, the ability to customize emails w/ scribbles and respond to Google+ posts. Gmail is more Label friendly but you can create your own in Mailbox except they are called lists.
Now onto Mailbox. The new app only supports Gmail at the moment as support for other mail clients are on the way. The app also has push support, a chat-like view of threaded emails, and the ability to snooze emails to return to your inbox at a later time. But unlike Gmail, Mailbox offers a unified inbox instead of having to switch between accounts. This can piss those off who uses multiple accounts having to toggle back-and-forth. Gmail wins in offering extended Google service integration but when it comes to core functionality, Mailbox takes it here.
Mailbox
Speed
With both apps offering push support on all Gmail accounts, it maybe hard to tell which of these clients are faster. While Google has a sea of servers pushing new emails to you, Mailbox also uses servers but warrants different results. Mailbox only sends you the body text along with whatever attachments down to you and leaves the rest on Gmail. This is done by compressing your emails in advance so its faster to push a smaller-sized (SMS-small) message to you. Gmail gets your message to you quickly but you still have to hit ‘Get Images’ while on Mailbox you message arrives fully loaded w/ image already present. Although it’s only faster by a few hundred milliseconds, Mailbox takes it here too.
Mailbox
I personally just find Mailbox the better email client covering all of the bases of what I seek from email. And technically, Mailbox wasn’t even made for someone like me. I usually check my emails when they come in and between my personal and the TechGuy accounts, that is easily over 100 emails daily. I can appreciate having a unified inbox with push support on both accounts. The app isn’t flawless as it can sometimes struggle to open image-heavy emails. But I prefer this over having to refresh on the native Mail app. I truly appreciate the folks over at Orchestra for the this app. Loving it! I am sure Gmail will update their app in the future to offer more to users. Until then, I’m running with Mailbox.
You can download
Gmail and
Mailbox (reservation code required so it could be a while) for yourself to decide for yourself. Both are great apps that could use improvements/additions to be more complete, Mailbox is more of friendly to power-users. Average consumers may not be swooned by its features as the default Mail app works fine for them. If you have used both, let us know which app you think should have won.
